Something tells me he doesn't want to push this too much as money for this film came from
French and German sources. It is nice to see him sticking his neck out to uphold the Truth.
When I watched the US rep. who supposedly investigated this Magnitzky affair for the US
gov. state under oath that he never verified any of the info that Browder gave him, I kept
thinking "Is this guy serious ?" But when you realize that they never did any investigation
then it all seems logical.
By abetting the ad industry, universities are leading us into temptation, when they
should be enlightening us
... ... ...
I ask because, while considering the frenzy
of consumerism that rises beyond its usual planet-trashing levels at this time of year, I
recently stumbled across a paper that astonished
me . It was written by academics at public universities in the Netherlands and the US.
Their purpose seemed to me starkly at odds with the public interest. They sought to identify
"the different ways in which consumers resist advertising, and the tactics that can be used to
counter or avoid such resistance".
Among the "neutralising" techniques it highlighted were "disguising the persuasive intent of
the message"; distracting our attention by using confusing phrases that make it harder to focus
on the advertiser's intentions; and "using cognitive depletion as a tactic for reducing
consumers' ability to contest messages". This means hitting us with enough advertisements to
exhaust our mental resources, breaking down our capacity to think.
Intrigued, I started looking for other academic papers on the same theme, and found an
entire literature. There were articles on every imaginable aspect of resistance, and helpful
tips on overcoming it. For example, I came across a paper that counsels advertisers on how to
rebuild public trust when the celebrity they work with gets into trouble. Rather than dumping
this lucrative asset, the researchers advised that the best means to enhance "the authentic
persuasive appeal of a celebrity endorser" whose standing has slipped is to get them to display
"a Duchenne smile", otherwise known as "a genuine smile". It precisely anatomised such smiles,
showed how to spot them, and discussed the "construction" of sincerity and "genuineness": a
magnificent exercise in inauthentic authenticity.
Another paper considered how
to persuade sceptical people to accept a company's corporate social responsibility claims,
especially when these claims conflict with the company's overall objectives. (An obvious
example is ExxonMobil's attempts to convince people that it is environmentally responsible,
because it is researching algal fuels that could one day reduce CO2 – even as it
continues to
pump millions of barrels of fossil oil a day ). I hoped the paper would recommend that the
best means of persuading people is for a company to change its practices. Instead, the authors'
research showed how images and statements could be cleverly combined to "minimise stakeholder
scepticism".
A further
paper discussed advertisements that work by stimulating
Fomo – fear of missing out . It noted that such ads work through "controlled
motivation", which is "anathema to wellbeing". Fomo ads, the paper explained, tend to cause
significant discomfort to those who notice them. It then went on to show how an improved
understanding of people's responses "provides the opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of
Fomo as a purchase trigger". One tactic it proposed is to keep stimulating the fear of missing
out, during and after the decision to buy. This, it suggested, will make people more
susceptible to further ads on the same lines.
Yes, I know: I work in an industry that receives most of its income from advertising, so I
am complicit in this too. But so are we all. Advertising – with its destructive
impacts on the living planet, our peace of mind and our free will – sits at the heart of
our growth-based economy. This gives us all the more reason to challenge it. Among the places
in which the challenge should begin are universities, and the academic societies that are
supposed to set and uphold ethical standards. If they cannot swim against the currents of
constructed desire and constructed thought, who can?
Looks like Guardian start turning away from neoliberalism.
Notable quotes:
"... What price is paid when a promise is broken? Because for much of my life, and probably yours, the political class has made this pledge: that the best way to run an economy is to hack back the public realm as far as possible and let the private sector run free. That way, services operate better, businesses get the resources they need, and our national finances are healthier. ..."
"... I don't wish to write about the everyday failings of neoliberalism – that piece would be filed before you could say "east coast mainline". Instead, I want to address the most stubborn belief of all: that running a small state is the soundest financial arrangement for governments and voters alike. Because 40 years on from the Thatcher revolution, more and more evidence is coming in to the contrary. ..."
"... The other big reason for the UK's financial precarity is its privatisation programme, described by the IMF as no less than a "fiscal illusion". British governments have flogged nearly everything in the cupboard, from airports to the Royal Mail – often at giveaway prices – to friends in the City. Such privatisations, judge the fund, "increase revenues and lower deficits but also reduce the government's asset holdings". ..."
"... IMF research shows is that the Westminster classes have been asset-stripping Britain for decades – and storing up financial trouble for future generations ..."
The fund reports that Britain's finances are weaker than all other nations except Portugal,
and says privatisation is to blame
Columnists usually proffer answers, but today I want to ask a question, a big one. What price
is paid when a promise is broken? Because for much of my life, and probably yours, the
political class has made this pledge: that the best way to run an economy is to hack back the
public realm as far as possible and let the private sector run free. That way, services operate
better, businesses get the resources they need, and our national finances are healthier.
It's why your tax credits keep
dropping , and your mum has to wait half a year to see a hospital consultant –
because David Cameron slashed public spending, to stop it "crowding out" private money. It's
why water bills are so high and train services can never be counted on – because both
industries have been privatised.
From the debacle of universal credit to the forced conversion of state schools into
corporate-run academies, the ideology of the small state – defined by no less a body than
the International Monetary Fund as neoliberalism – is all pervasive. It decides how much
money you have left at the end of the week and what kind of future your children will enjoy,
and it explains why your elderly relatives can't get a decent carer.
I don't wish to write about the everyday failings of neoliberalism – that piece would
be filed before you could say "east coast mainline". Instead, I want to address the most
stubborn belief of all: that running a small state is the soundest financial arrangement for
governments and voters alike. Because 40 years on from the Thatcher revolution, more and more
evidence is coming in to the contrary.
Let's start with the IMF itself. Last week it published
a report that barely got a mention from the BBC or in Westminster, yet helps reframe the
entire debate over austerity. The fund totted up both the public debt and the publicly owned
assets of 31 countries, from the US to Australia, Finland to France, and found that
the UK had among the weakest public finances of the lot. With less than £3 trillion
of assets against £5tn in pensions and other liabilities, the UK is more than £2tn
in the red . Of all the other countries examined by researchers, including the Gambia and
Kenya, only Portugal's finances look worse over the long run. So much for fixing the
roof.
'British governments have flogged nearly everything in the cupboard from airports to
the Royal Mail – often at giveaway prices – to friends in the City.' Photograph:
Amer Ghazzal/Rex/Shutterstock
Almost as startling are the IMF's reasons for why Britain is in such a state: one way or
another they all come back to neoliberalism. Thatcher loosed finance from its shackles and used
our North Sea oil money to pay for swingeing tax cuts. The result is an overfinancialised
economy and a government that is £1tn worse off since the banking crash. Norway has
similar
North Sea wealth and a far smaller population, but also a sovereign wealth fund. Its net
worth has soared over the past decade.
The other big reason for the UK's financial precarity is its privatisation programme,
described by the IMF as no less than a "fiscal illusion". British governments have flogged
nearly everything in the cupboard, from airports to the Royal Mail – often at giveaway
prices – to friends in the City. Such privatisations, judge the fund, "increase revenues
and lower deficits but also reduce the government's asset holdings".
Throughout the austerity decade, ministers and economists have pushed for spending cuts by
pointing to the size of the government's annual overdraft, or budget deficit. Yet there are two
sides to a balance sheet, as all accountants know and this IMF work recognises. The same goes
for our public realm: if Labour's John McDonnell gets into No 11 and renationalises the
railways, that would cost tens of billions – but it would also leave the country with
assets worth tens of billions that provided a regular income.
Instead, what this IMF research shows is that the Westminster classes have been
asset-stripping Britain for decades – and storing up financial trouble for future
generations.
Privatisation and austerity have not only weakened the country's financial position –
they have also handed unearned wealth to a select few. Just look at
a new report from the University of Greenwich finding that water companies could have
funded all their day-to-day running and their long-term investments out of the bills paid by
customers. Instead of which, managers have lumbered the firms with £51bn of debt to pay
for shareholders' dividends. Those borrowed billions, and the millions in interest, will be
paid by you and me in our water bills. We might as well stuff the cash directly into the
pockets of shareholders.
Instead of competitively run utilities, record investment by the private sector and sounder
public finances, we have natural monopolies handed over to the wealthy, banks that can dump
their liabilities on the public when things get tough, and an outsourcing industry that feasts
upon the carcass of the public sector. As if all this weren't enough, neoliberal voices
complain that we need to cut taxes and red tape, and further starve our public services.
This is a genuine scandal, but it requires us to recognise what neoliberalism promised and
what it has failed to deliver. Some of the loudest critics of the ideology have completely
misidentified it. Academics will daub the term "neoliberal" on any passing phenomenon. Fitbits
are apparently neoliberal, as is Ben & Jerry's ice-cream and Kanye West. Pundits will say
that neoliberalism is about markets and choice – tell that to any commuter wedged on a
Southern rail train. And centrist politicians claim that the great failing of neoliberalism is
its carelessness about identity and place, which is akin to complaining that the boy on a moped
who snatched your smartphone is going too fast.
Let us get it straight. Neoliberalism has ripped you off and robbed you blind. The evidence
of that is mounting up – in your bills, in your services and in the finances of your
country.
• Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist and senior economics commentator
Is this shadow of Integrity Initiative in the USA ? This false flag open the possibility that other similar events like
DNC (with very questionable investigation by Crowdstrike, which was a perfect venue to implement a false flag; cybersecurity area is
the perfect environment for planting false flags), MH17 (might be an incident but later it definitely was played as a false flag), Skripals
(Was Skripals poisoning a false flag decided to hide the fact that Sergey Skripal was involved in writing Steele dossier?) and Litvinenko
(probably connected with lack of safety measures in the process of smuggling of Plutonium by Litvinenko himself, but later played a
a false flag). All of those now should be re-assessed from the their potential of being yet another flag flag operation
against Russia. While Browder was a MI6 operation from the very beginning (and that explains
why he abdicated the US citizenship more convincingly that the desire to avoid taxes) .
Notable quotes:
"... Democratic operative Jonathon Morgan - bankrolled by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, pulled a Russian bot "false flag" operation against GOP candidate Roy Moore in the Alabama special election last year - creating thousands of fake social media accounts designed to influence voters . Hoffman has since apologized, while Morgan was suspended by Facebook for "coordinated inauthentic" behavior. ..."
"... Really the bigger story is here is that these guys convincingly pretended to be Russian Bots in order to influence an election (not with the message being put forth by the bots, but by their sheer existence as apparent supporters of the Moore campaign). ..."
"... By all appearances, they were Russian bots trying to influence the election. Now we know it was DNC operatives. Yet we are supposed to believe without any proof that the "Russian bots" that supposedly influenced the 2016 Presidential election were, actually, Russian bots, and worthy of a two year long probe about "Russian collusion" and "Russian meddling." ..."
"... The whole thing is probably a farce, not only in the sense that there is no evidence that Russia had any influence at all on a single voter, but also in the sense that there is no evidence that Russia even tried (just claims and allegations by people who have a vested interest in convincing us its true). ..."
For over two years now, the concepts of "Russian collusion" and "Russian election meddling" have been shoved down our throats
by the mainstream media (MSM) under the guise of legitimate concern that the Kremlin may have installed a puppet president in Donald
Trump.
Having no evidence of collusion aside from a largely unverified opposition-research dossier fabricated by a former British spy,
the focus shifted from "collusion" to "meddling" and "influence." In other words, maybe Trump didn't actually collude with Putin,
but the Kremlin used Russian tricks to influence the election in Trump's favor. To some, this looked like nothing more than an establishment
scheme to cast a permanent spectre of doubt over the legitimacy of President Donald J. Trump.
Election meddling "Russian bots" and "troll farms" became the central focus - as claims were levied of social media operations
conducted by Kremlin-linked organizations which sought to influence and divide certain segments of America.
And while scant evidence of a Russian influence operation exists outside of a handful of indictments connected to a St. Petersburg
"Troll farm" (which a liberal journalist
cast serious doubt ov er), the MSM - with all of their proselytizing over the "threat to democracy" that election meddling poses,
has largely decided to ignore actual evidence of "Russian bots" created by Democrat IT experts, used against a GOP candidate in the
Alabama special election, and amplified through the Russian bot-detecting "Hamilton 68" dashboard developed by the same IT experts.
Democratic operative Jonathon Morgan - bankrolled by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, pulled a Russian bot "false flag" operation
against GOP candidate Roy Moore in the Alabama special election last year - creating thousands of fake social media accounts designed
to influence voters . Hoffman has since apologized, while Morgan was suspended by Facebook for "coordinated inauthentic" behavior.
As Russian state-owned RT puts
it - and who could blame them for being a bit pissed over the whole thing, "it turns out there really was meddling in American democracy
by "Russian bots." Except they weren't run from Moscow or St. Petersburg, but from the offices of Democrat operatives chiefly responsible
for creating and amplifying the "Russiagate" hysteria over the past two years in a textbook case of psychological projection. "
A week before Christmas, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Russia of depressing Democrat voter turnout
by targeting African-Americans on social media. Its authors, New Knowledge, quickly became a household name.
Described by the
New York Times
as a group of "tech specialists who lean Democratic," New Knowledge has ties to both the US military and intelligence agencies.
Its CEO and co-founder Jonathon Morgan previously worked for DARPA, the US military's advanced research agenc y. His partner,
Ryan Fox, is a 15-year veteran of the National Security Agency who also worked as a computer analyst for the Joint Special Operations
Command (JSOC). Their unique skill sets have managed to attract the eye of investors, who pumped $11 million into the company
in 2018 alone.
...
On December 19, a New York Times story revealed that Morgan and his crew had created a fake army of Russian bots, as well as
fake Facebook groups, in order to discredit Republican candidate Roy Moore in Alabama's 2017 special election for the US Senate.
Working on behalf of the Democrats, Morgan and his crew created an estimated 1,000 fake Twitter accounts with Russian names,
and had them follow Moore. They also operated several Facebook pages where they posed as Alabama conservatives who wanted like-minded
voters to support a write-in candidate instead.
In an internal memo, New Knowledge boasted that it had "orchestrated an elaborate 'false flag' operation that planted the idea
that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet."
It worked. The botnet claim made a splash on social media and was further amplified by Mother Jones, which based its story
on expert opinion from Morgan's other dubious creation, Hamilton 68. -
RT
Moore ended up losing the Alabama special election by a slim margin of just
In other words: In November 2017 – when Moore and his Democratic opponent were in a bitter fight to win over voters – Morgan
openly promoted the theory that Russian bots were supporting Moore's campaign . A year later – after being caught red-handed orchestrating
a self-described "false flag" operation – Morgan now says that his team never thought that the bots were Russian and have no idea
what their purpose was . Did he think no one would notice? -
RT
Disinformation warrior @ jonathonmorgan attempts to control
damage by lying. He now claims the "false flag operation" never took place and the botnet he promoted as Russian-linked (based
on phony Hamilton68 Russian troll tracker he developed) wasn't Russian https://www.
newknowledge.com/blog/about-ala bama
Even more strange is that Scott Shane - the journalist who wrote the New York Times piece exposing the Alabama "Russian bot" scheme,
knew about it for months after speaking at an event where the organizers bragged about the false flag on Moore .
Shane was one of the speakers at a meeting in September, organized by American Engagement Technologies, a group run by Mikey
Dickerson, President Barack Obama's former tech czar. Dickerson explained how AET spent $100,000 on New Knowledge's campaign to
suppress Republican votes, " enrage" Democrats to boost turnout, and execute a "false flag" to hrt Moore. He dubbed it "Project
Birmingham." - RT
Shane told BuzzFeed that he was "shocked" by the revelations, though hid behind a nondisclosure agreement at the request of American
Engagement Technologies (AET). He instead chose to spin the New Knowledge "false flag" operation on Moore as "limited Russian tactics"
which were part of an "experiment" that had a budget of "only" $100,000 - and which had no effect on the election.
New Knowledge suggested that the false flag operation was simply a "research project," which Morgan suggested was designed "to
better understand and report on the tactics and effects of social media disinformation."
While the New York Times seemed satisfied with his explanation, others pointed out that Morgan had used the Hamilton 68 dashboard
to give his "false flag" more credibility – misleading the public about a "Russian" influence campaign that he knew was fake.
New Knowledge's protestations apparently didn't convince Facebook, which
announced last week that five
accounts linked to New Knowledge – including Morgan's – had been suspended for engaging in "coordinated inauthentic behavior."
- RT
They knew exactly what they were doing
While Morgan and New Knowledge sought to frame the "Project Birmingham" as a simple research project, a leaked copy of the operation's
after-action report reveals that they knew exactly what they were doing .
"We targeted 650,000 like AL voters, with a combination of persona accounts, astroturfing, automated social media amplification
and targeted advertising," reads the report published by entrepreneur and executive coach Jeff Giesea.
The rhetorical question remains, why did the MSM drop this election meddling story like a hot rock after the initial headlines
faded away?
criminal election meddling, but then who the **** is going to click on some morons tactic and switch votes?
anyone basing any funding, whether it is number of facebook hits or attempted mind games by egotistical cuck soyboys needs a serious
psychological examination. fake news is fake BECAUSE IT ISNT REAL AND DOES NOT MATTER TO ANYONE but those living in the excited misery
of their tiny bubble world safe spaces. SOCIAL MEDIA IS A CON AND IS NOT IMPORTANT OR RELEVANT TO ANYONE.
far more serious is destroying ballots, writing in ballots without consent, bussing voters around to vote multiple times in different
districts, registering dead voters and imperosnating the corpses, withholding votes until deadlines pass - making them invalid.
Herdee , 10 minutes ago
NATO on behalf of the Washington politicians uses the same bullsh*t propaganda for continual war.
Mugabe , 20 minutes ago
Yup "PROJECTION"...
Yippie21 , 21 minutes ago
None of this even touches on the 501c3 or whatever that was set up , concerned Alabama voters or somesuch, and was funneled
a **** load of money to be found to be in violation of the law AFTER the election and then it all just disappeared. Nothing to
see here folks, Democrat won, let's move on. There was a LOT of " tests " for the smart-set in that election and it all worked.
We saw a bunch of it used in 2018, especially in Texas with Beto and down-ballot races. Democrats cleaned up like crazy in Texas,
especially in Houston.
2020 is going to be a hot mess. And the press is in on it, and even if illegal or unseemly things are done, as long as Democrats
win, all good... let's move on. Crazy.
LetThemEatRand , 21 minutes ago
The fact that MSM is not covering this story -- which is so big it truly raises major questions about the entire Russiagate
conspiracy including why Mueller was appointed in the first place -- is proof that they have no interest in journalism or the
truth and that they are 100% agenda driven liars. Not that we needed more proof, but there it is anyway.
Oldguy05 , 19 minutes ago
Dimz corruption is a nogo. Now if it were conservatives.......
CosineCosineCosine , 23 minutes ago
I'm not a huge fan, but Jimmy Dore has a cathartic and entertaining 30 minutes on this farce. Well worth the watch:
Really the bigger story is here is that these guys convincingly pretended to be Russian Bots in order to influence an election
(not with the message being put forth by the bots, but by their sheer existence as apparent supporters of the Moore campaign).
By all appearances, they were Russian bots trying to influence the election. Now we know it was DNC operatives. Yet we
are supposed to believe without any proof that the "Russian bots" that supposedly influenced the 2016 Presidential election were,
actually, Russian bots, and worthy of a two year long probe about "Russian collusion" and "Russian meddling."
The whole thing is probably a farce, not only in the sense that there is no evidence that Russia had any influence at all
on a single voter, but also in the sense that there is no evidence that Russia even tried (just claims and allegations by people
who have a vested interest in convincing us its true).
dead hobo , 30 minutes ago
I've been watching Scandal on Netflix. Still only in season 2. Amazing how nothing changes.They nailed it and memorialized
it. The MSM are useful idiots who are happy to make money publicizing what will sell the best.
chunga , 30 minutes ago
The media is biased and sucks, yup.
The reason the reds lost the house is because they went along with this nonsense and did nothing about it, like frightened
baby chipmunks.
JRobby , 33 minutes ago
Only when "the opposition" does it is it illegal. Total totalitarian state wannabe stuff.
divingengineer , 22 minutes ago
Amazing how people can contort reality to justify their own righteous cause, but decry their opposition for the EXACT same
thing. See trump visit to troops signing hats as most recent proof. If DJT takes a piss and sprinkles the seat, it's a crime.
DarkPurpleHaze , 33 minutes ago
They're afraid to expose themselves...unlike Kevin Spacey. Trump or Whitaker will expose this with one signature. It's
coming.
divingengineer , 20 minutes ago
Spacey has totally lost it. See his latest video, it will be a powerful piece of evidence for an insanity plea.
CosineCosineCosine , 10 minutes ago
Disagree strongly. I think it was excellent - perhaps you misunderstood the point? 6 minutes Diana Davidson look at it clarifies
The "Resistance" -- the loose affiliation of liberals, progressives and neo-conservatives
dedicated to opposing Donald Trump -- is NOT a grass-roots movement. They don't speak for the
everyman or the poor or the oppressed. They are a distraction, nothing more. A parlor game. The
face
to Trump's heel .
The Resistance is the voice of the Deep State -- Pro-war, pro-globalisation,
pro-Imperialism. It just hides its true face behind a mask of "progressive values". They prove
this with their own actions -- opposing Trump's moves toward peace with North Korea and finding
common ground with Russia.
In fact, though the resistance lives to criticize the Trump administration, they have been
notably quiet -- even in favour of -- three key issues: The bombing of Syria, the tearing up of
the INF treaty and the prosecution of Julian Assange.
They tell us, in clear voices, who they are and what they want and millions of people refuse
to listen. So totally brain-washed by the "Orange Man Bad" hysteria, that they will
side with anyone hitting the same talking points, spouting the right buzzwords, using the same
hashtags.
The painful prose paints a blurry picture of Mueller. Slapping ounces of vaseline onto the
lens of reality. It praises his hair and his clothes and his 35 dollar watch. It declares him a
soldier "forged in combat", regaling us with tales of the bravery of Mueller's marine regiment
-- "The Magnificent Bastards".
Vietnam is reduced to a movie set -- nothing but a backdrop for Mueller's courage under
fire. He won a bronze star, you know. Apparently while "The Magnificent Bastards" strode around
the Vietnamese jungle, burning villages down and watching the napalm fall from the sky, a
couple of angry farmers shot back and Mueller was wounded.
Taking a bullet in the leg from a terrified peasant who just wants you to sod off out of his
country will always win you medals, but it shouldn't.
Voluntarily signing on to enforce Imperial foreign policy in a war of conquest will always
have the media paint you as a hero, but it shouldn't.
What flaws the author does ascribe to Mueller are those we all happily admit to having
ourselves. He's a "micromanager" and he's "too tough".
Yes, and I'm sure he works himself too hard and doesn't suffer fools gladly
and always speaks his mind aswell.
Read the column if you want, but I'd suggest not eating for a few hours first. A more
nauseating panegyric I have not witnessed, at least since Barack Obama left
office .
Far more telling than what it does say is what it does not say. It mentions Mueller's
role as head of the FBI during the launch of the "war on terror", but doesn't go into any of
the abuse of human rights that accompanied (and still accompanies) the increasingly
authoritarian powers granted to US intelligence agencies by the Patriot Act.
Let's be clear: Mueller's FBI was complicit in rendition, torture, Gitmo. All of it.
Given that, it's rather unsurprising that the article doesn't mention the word "Iraq" once.
A breath-taking omission, considering Mueller's testimony in front of congress played a key
role in spreading the lie of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction":
It doesn't matter how many Vietnamese peasants took pot-shots at him, it doesn't matter how
tidy his hair is, or how cheap his watch. It doesn't matter if he looks like
Cooper or speaks like Eastwood or walks like Wayne. He is a proven liar -- a man culpable
in the greatest crime of the 21st century. He is, and always will be, a servant of the Deep
State.
A proven liar. A proven killer. An Imperialist. A criminal.
Is this the stuff of which political heroes should be made?
Only in "the Resistance".
Obviously, Trump's administration is dangerous -- it still stokes warlike approaches to Iran
and Russia. It has directly threatened Venezuela and Cuba. But you can't fight the right-hand
of the Deep State by clasping the left. They all join in the middle. They're the same
monster.
Anti-Trumpers, all over the world, need to take a good look at WHO they're fighting
alongside, and ask themselves WHAT they are fighting for.
Kit
Knightly is co-editor of OffGuardian. The Guardian banned him from commenting. Twice. He
used to write for fun, but now he's forced to out of a near-permanent sense of
outrage.
Mueller's FBI named their 9/11 investigation PENTTBOM=Pentagon Twin Towers Bombing
There were also numerous media accounts of explosives being used on 9/11–even ABC's
John Miller
stated initial FBI feedback was that there were additional explosives used at WTC on
9/11.
Did FBI test for explosives?
What were the results?
If no tests were done–why the F not?
Why didn't media or Congress ever follow up and ask FBI about the explosions which were
reported?
i was reading that puff-piece yesterday, thinking "i wonder how long off-g's response to
this journalistic offal will be in coming" you haven't disappointed! Kit..sorry, i sound like
a gushing fanboi. most people outside of america don't realise how deep statey Mueller really
is. he's the Harvey Keitel character from pulp fiction. the mob cleanup guy
the Graun is particularly odious at the moment. today's leader is a blatant opinion piece
where the "writer" is practically rubbing their hand on their thighs with glee, telling us
how trump is facing a subpoena cannon from the dems. good too see they're using their newly
re-minted political capital on the important business of running the country resistance my
arse
And with the anthrax investigation (which of course the Guardian doesn't mention), he's
also a proven incompetent.
Have to say though–I'm looking forward to the day when this investigation is
wrapped, the report comes out, and it's not at all what the Maddows wanted to hear. At that
point Mueller will suddenly be a Russian agent himself; incompetent; compromised, and any/all
other smears to explain why his investigation didn't find their irrational hysteria to be
true.
Then maybe a few months later Trump will fire him and he'll be a hero again and get a
Gofund to help this poor unemployed honorable soul.
Wonder how the Grauniad will explain away the Skripal case when it's revealed that
Mueller's Steele dossier was written by Skripal.
No wonder the British Deep State are panicking to prevent the publication of the documents
ordered by the Orange One.
The so-called anti-Trump Resistance(TM) plays the role of Good Cop to the Trump Regime's
Bad Cop. Nothing more.
This is the nature of the political shell game that passes for American democracy, which
in reality is an imperial plutocracy.
In all these Anglo imperialist nations in general like America, Britain, or Australia,
there is only one true party: the party of Anglo American imperialism.
The anti-Trump "Resistance" is merely one faction of the Anglo-American Empire, which is
in conflict with another faction of the Anglo-American Empire.
The supposed differences between them are similar to the differences between Coke and
Pepsi, or McDonald's and Burger King.
("A proven liar. A proven killer. An Imperialist. A criminal.
Is this the stuff of which political heroes should be made?
Only in "the Resistance").
-- - ah, there you go again bringing in reason, a rational argument, the historical
record, common sense, and in short objective – "reality" – into the equation. Of
course if you are using these sort of criteria Mueller isn't going to look so good. You have
to understand that the "Resistance" is, well, more of a "feeling" than anything rational or
intellectually defensible.and valorizing Muller certainly isn't based on his "real-world"
behavior. Simply put, Muller stands in opposition to Trump and that "feels" right to the
"resistance." You know, just like it "feels right" to this same segment of the U.S.
population not to let themselves think about the fact that Obama was illegally and immorally
bombing 8 Muslim countries as he left office.
Of course in the end Mueller as "hero" of the "resistance" is simply the deep state's
slight of hand PR campaign to oppose Trump as the impossibly and unacceptably "bad face" for
U.S. empire that he is.
I mean how are Merkel or Macron or May supposed to rally their even half-awake citizenry into
dutifully following our tweet crazed endlessly offensive "Orange One" into the next all
important battle against the newest deep state defined "Hitler" in Iran, or Syria, or . . .
while maintaining any credibility with their own populations?
It's astonishing how many self professed 'Progressives' swallow the Resistance line. There
certainly is a war within the Administration, Dark State v the President. The latest episode
seems to have centred around cutting off the legs of Trump's big partner in the ME and his
son in law's close friend, Crown Prince bin Salman. What promoted Turkey to release the
information they had on the murder in Istanbul? We can be satisfied it wasn't borne out of
humanitarianism! Were they acting in lock step with the American Agencies like the CIA that
now tells Turkey it has intercepts 'proving' the Crown Prince ordered the killing? The
'bloodless' Regime Change that is underway aims to remove an arrogant and reckless not to say
bloodthirsty man from Absolute Power, a position he might have held for 50 years or more. No
wonder Erdoghan would like to see him sidelined. 50 years of Absolute Power in one of the
richest countries on earth is an awful lot of time! For the Americans it is a case of seizing
control of Foreign Policy in the ME from Trump who keeps talking about 'getting out' of
Syria: the Military and the Agencies regard that as not in American interests; they intend to
stay and control the vast oil wells in the NE. But it requires agreement with Turkey so who
knows what the Agencies promise Turkey in return? It sounds like a deal dividing northern
Syria between the Turks and the Americans; no room for the Kurds (again). It's the most
serious blow to Trump's authority akin to the time the American military disobeyed Obama over
the cease fire with Russia in Syria when instead they 'accidently' bombed Syrian soldiers,
killing 80 of them. President's it seems are not allowed their own Foreign Policy and in
reality that has been the case since the CIA was founded. Only Kennedy seriously tried to
break away
Blooming Barricade , Dec 26, 2018 12:18:48 PM |
link
@2
My jaw dropped to the floor when I read that... the fact that they're reverting to the old
name is the final step in the rehabilitation of the Iraq War criminals without liberals and
pseudo left none of which would be possible
Chris Williamson: Private Eye has reported that the #IntegrityInitiative anti-propoaganda
unit is taking tips from the security masterminds who tried to sell the wisdom of going to
war in Iraq!
And this outfit was set up by the Institute for Statecraft that's received £millions
from HM Govt!!! https://mobile.twitter.com/DerbyChrisW/status/1076983080131416066
'Trickle down effect' - the favourite buzzword of neoliberal supporters. I'd like to see
trickle down effect tried at the local pub on the taps by the local mp. Imagine what would
happen. Definitely doesn't pass the pub test.
I still had some things I didn't talk about in Sunday's Trump Derangement
International , about how the European press have found out that they, like the US MSM, can
get lots of viewers and readers simply by publishing negative stories about Donald Trump. The
US president is an attention magnet, as long as you only write things about him designed to
make him look bad.
The Guardian is only too happy to comply. They ran a whole series of articles on Sunday to
do juts that: try to make Trump look bad. Note that the Guardian editorial team that okayed the
articles is the same as the one that allowed
the fake Assange/Manafort one , so their credibility is already shot to pieces. It's the
magic triangle of today's media profits: spout non-stop allegations against Russia, Trump and
Julian Assange, and link them when and where you can. It doesn't matter if what you say is true
or not.
Anyway, all the following is from the Guardian, all on December 23. First off, Adam Gabbatt
in New York, who has painstakingly researched how Trump's businesses, like Trump Tower and the
Trump store, don't appear to have sufficiently (as per him) switched from Happy Holidays to
Merry Christmas. Sherlock Holmes would have been proud. A smash hit there Adam, bring out the
handcuffs.
During Donald Trump's presidential campaign he talked often about his determination to win
one particular war. A war that had been raging for years, he said. Specifically: the war on
Christmas. But despite Trump's repeated claims that "people are saying Merry Christmas again"
instead of the more inclusive "happy holidays", there are several places where the Christmas
greeting is absent: Trump's own businesses.
The Trump Store, for example. Instead of a Christmas gift guide – which surely would
be more in keeping with the president's stated desire for the phrase to be used – the
store offers a holiday gift guide. "Shop our Holiday Gift Guide and find the perfect present
for the enthusiast on your list," the online store urges. "Carefully curated to celebrate the
most wonderful time of year with truly unique gifts found only at Trump Store. Add a bow on
top with our custom gift wrapping. Happy Holiday's!"
The use of the phrase "Happy Holiday's" [sic] in Trump marketing would seem particularly
egregious. The long-standing "War-on-Christmas" complaint from the political right is that
stores use the phrase "Happy Holidays", rather than specifically mentioning the Christian
celebration. It is offered as both an example of political correctness gone mad, and as an
effort to erase Christianity from the US.
It's just, I think that if Trump had personally interfered to make sure there were Merry
Christmas messages all around, you would have remarked that as president, he's not allowed to
be personally involved in his businesses. But yeah, you know, just to keep the negativity
going, it works, no matter how fluffy and hollow.
Second, still on December 23, is Tom McCarthy for the Guardian in New York, who talks about
Robert Mueller's phenomenal successes. Mueller charged 34 people so far. In a case that
involves "this complexity which has international implications, aspects relying on the
intelligence community, complicated cyber components". It really says that.
And yes, that's how many people view this. What do they care that Mueller's original mandate
was to prove collusion between the Trump campaign and 'Russians', and that he has not proven
any collusion at all so far, not even with 34 people charged? What do they care? It looks like
Trump is guilty of something, anything, after all, and that's all the circus wants.
One measure of special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutorial success in 2018 is the list
of former top Donald Trump aides brought to justice: Michael Cohen pleaded guilty, a jury
convicted Paul Manafort, a judge berated Michael Flynn. Another measure is the tally of new
defendants that Mueller's team charged (34), the number of new guilty pleas he netted (five)
and the amount of money he clawed back through tax fraud cases ($48m).
Yet another measure might judge Mueller's pace compared with previous independent
prosecutors. "I would refer to it as a lightning pace," said Barb McQuade, a University of
Michigan law professor and former US attorney. "In a case of this complexity which has
international implications, aspects relying on the intelligence community, complicated cyber
components – to indict that many people that quickly is really impressive work."
But there's perhaps a more powerful way to measure Mueller's progress in his investigation
into Russian interference in the 2016 US election and links between Moscow and the Trump
campaign; that's by noticing how the targets of his investigation have changed their postures
over the course of 2018, from defiance to docility – or in the case of Trump himself,
from defiance to extreme, hyperventilating defiance.
In reality, you would be at least as correct if you would claim that Robert Mueller's
investigation has been an abject failure. Not one iota of collusion has been proven after 20
months and $20 million in funds have been used. And any serious investigation of Washington's
culture of fixers and lobbyists would land at least 34 people who have committed acts that
border on or over illegality. And in a matter of weeks, for a few hundred bucks.
Third, still on December 23, is Julian Borger in Washington, who's been elected to convey
the image of chaos. Trump Unleashed, says our modern day Shakespeare. With Jim Mad Dog Mattis
characterized as ".. the last independently minded, globally respected, major figure left in
the administration".. . Again, it really says that.
Because woe the man who tries to bring US troops home, or even promises to do so a few days
before Christmas. For pulling out America's finest, Donald Trump is being portrayed as
something eerily close to the antichrist. That truly is the world on its head. Bringing troops
home to their families equals chaos.
Look, guys, if Trump has been guilty of criminal behavior, the US justice system should be
able to find that out and convict him for it. But that's not what this is about anymore. A
million articles have been written, like these ones in the Guardian, with the sole intention,
evidence being scarce to non-existent, of smearing him to the extent that people see every
subsequent article in the light of a man having previously been smeared.
The US stumbled into the holiday season with a sense of unravelling, as a large chunk of
the federal government ground to a halt, the stock market crashed and the last independently
minded, globally respected, major figure left in the administration announced he could no
longer work with the president. The defense secretary, James Mattis, handed in his
resignation on Thursday, over Donald Trump's abrupt decision to pull US troops out of
Syria.
On Saturday another senior official joined the White House exodus. Brett McGurk, the
special envoy for the global coalition to defeat Isis and the US official closest to
America's Kurdish allies in the region, was reported to have handed in his resignation on
Friday. That night, senators flew back to Washington from as far away as Hawaii for emergency
talks aimed at finding a compromise on Trump's demand for nearly $6bn for a wall on the
southern border, a campaign promise which has become an obsession.
Now look at the next headline, December 23, Graeme Wearden, Guardian, and ask yourself if
it's really Trump saying he doesn't agree with the rate hikes that fuels the fears, or whether
it's the hikes themselves. And also ask yourself: when Trump and Mnuchin both deny reports of
Trump firing Powell, why do journalists keep saying the opposite? Because they want to fuel
some fears?
From where I'm sitting, it looks perfectly logical that Trump says he doesn't think Powell's
decisions are good for the US economy. And it doesn't matter which one of the two turns out to
be right: Trump isn't the only person who disagrees with the Fed hikes.
The main suspect for 2019 market turmoil is the inevitable fallout from the Fed's QE under
Bernanke and Yellen. And there is something to be said for Powell trying to normalize rates,
but there's no doubt that may hasten, if not cause, turmoil. Blaming it on Trump not agreeing
with Jay Powell is pretty much as left field as it gets.
Over the weekend, a flurry of reports claimed Donald Trump had discussed the possibility
of firing the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell. Such an unprecedented move would
trigger further instability in the markets, which have already had their worst year since the
2008 crisis. US officials scrambled to deny Trump had suggested ousting Powell, who was
appointed by the president barely a year ago.
The Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, tweeted that he had spoken to the president, who
insisted he "never suggested firing" Powell, and did not believe he had the right to do this
. However, Trump also declared – via Mnuchin – that he "totally disagrees" with
the Fed's "absolutely terrible" policy of raising interest rates and unwinding its
bond-buying stimulus programme, piling further pressure on the US's independent central
bank.
And now, in the only article in the Guardian series that's December 24, not 23, by Victoria
Bekiempis and agencies, the plunging numbers in the stock markets are Trump's fault, too.
Top Democrats have accused Donald Trump of "plunging the country into chaos" as top
officials met to discuss a growing rout in stock markets caused in part by the president's
persistent attacks on the Federal Reserve and a government shutdown. "It's Christmas Eve and
President Trump is plunging the country into chaos," the two top Democrats in Congress, House
speaker nominee Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, wrote in a joint
statement on Monday. "The stock market is tanking and the president is waging a personal war
on the Federal Reserve – after he just fired the Secretary of Defense."
Trump criticized the Federal Reserve on Monday, describing it as the "only problem" for
the US economy, even as top officials convened the "plunge protection team" forged after the
1987 crash to discuss the growing rout in stock markets. The crisis call on Monday between US
financial regulators and the US treasury department failed to assure markets, and stocks fell
again amid concern about slowing economic growth, the continuing government shutdown, and
reports that Trump had discussed firing Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell.
The last one is from one Jonathan Jones, again December 23, again for the Guardian. And it
takes the top award in the narrative building contest.
Again, the Guardian editorial team that okayed this article is still the same as the one
that allowed the fake Assange/Manafort one, an editorial team that sees no problem in making
things up in order to smear people. To portray Trump, Assange and anyone who's had the
misfortune of being born in Russia as suspicious if not outright criminal.
But look at what Jones has to say, and what Guardian editor-in-chief Kathy Viner and her ilk
allowed and pressured him to say. He wants to have a say in how Trump should dress (seasonal
knitwear), he evokes the image of Nazi architect Albert Speer for no reason at all, and then
it's a matter of mere inches until you arrive at Trump as a king, an emperor, an inner
tyrant.
"He's in a tuxedo!", Like that's a bad thing for Christmas. "She's in white!". Oh dear, call
the pope. If both Trumps would have put on Christmas sweaters in front of a fire, the writer
would have found something negative in that.
The absence of intimacy in the Trumps' official Christmas portrait freezes the heart. Can
it be that hard to create a cosy image of the presidential couple, perhaps in front of a
roaring hearth, maybe in seasonal knitwear? Or is this quasi-dictatorial image exactly what
the president wants to project? Look on my Christmas trees, ye mighty, and despair! If so, it
fuels suspicions that it is only the checks and balances of a 230-year-old constitution that
are keeping America from the darkest of political fates. You couldn't create a creepier
Yuletide scene if you tried. Multiple Christmas trees are currently a status symbol for the
wealthy, but this picture shows the risks.
Instead of a homely symbol of midwinter cheer, these disciplined arboreal ranks with their
uniform decorations are arrayed like massed soldiers or colossal columns designed by Albert
Speer. The setting is the Cross Hall in the White House and, while the incumbent president
cannot be held responsible for its architecture, why heighten its severity with such rigid,
heartless seasonal trappings? Everything here communicates cold, empty magnificence. Tree
lights that are as frigid as icicles are mirrored in a cold polished floor. Equally frosty
illuminations are projected on the ceiling. Instead of twinkling fairy magic, this lifeless
lighting creates a sterile, inhuman atmosphere.
You can't imagine kids playing among these trees or any conceivable fun being had by
anyone. It suggests the micromanaged, corporate Christmas of a Citizen Kane who has long
since lost touch with the ordinary, warm pleasures of real life. In the centre of this
disturbing piece of conceptual art stand Donald and Melania Trump. He's in a tuxedo, she's
wearing white – and not a woolly hat in sight. Their formal smartness adds to the
emotional numbness of the scene. Trump's shark-like grin has nothing generous or friendly
about it. He seems to want to show off his beautiful wife and his fantastic home rather than
any of the cuddly holiday spirit a conventional politician might strive to share at this
time.
It begs a question: how can a man who so glaringly lacks anything like a common touch be
such a successful "populist"? What can a midwestern voter find in this image to connect with?
Perhaps that's the point. After more than two centuries of democracy, Trump is offering the
US people a king, or emperor. In this picture, he gives full vent to his inner tyrant. If
this portrait contains any truth about the state of America and the world, may Santa help us
all.
I realize that you may be tired of the whole story. I realize you may have been caught in
the anti-Trump narrative. And I am by no means a Trump fan. But I will keep on dragging you
back to this. Because the discussion should not be based on a handful of media moguls not
liking Trump. It should not be based on innuendo and smear. If Trump is to be convicted, it
must be on evidence.
And there is no such evidence. Robert Mueller has charged 34 people, but none with what his
mandate was based on, none with Russia collusion. This means that the American political
system, and democracy itself, is under severe threat by the very media that are supposed to be
its gate keepers.
None of this is about Trump, or about whether you like him or not, or even if he's a shady
character or not. Instead, it's about the influence the media have on how our opinions and
ideas about people and events are being shaped on a daily basis.
And once you acknowledge that your opinions of Trump, Putin et al, even without any proof of
a connection between them, are actively being molded by the press you expect to inform you
about the truth behind what goes on, you will have to acknowledge, too, that you are a captive
of forces that use your gullibility to make a profit off you.
If our media need to make up things all the time about who's guilty of what, because our
justice systems are incapable of that, then we have a problem so enormous we may not be able to
overcome it in our present settings.
Alternatively, if we trust our justice systems to deliver true justice, we don't need a
hundred articles a day to tell us how Trump or Putin are such terrible threats to our world.
Our judges will tell us, not our journalists or media who are only in it for a profit.
I can say: "let's start off 2019 trying to leave prejudice behind", and as much as that is
needed and you may agree with me, it's no use if you don't realize to what extent your views of
the world have been shaped by prejudice.
I see people reacting to the star writer at Der Spiegel who wrote a lot about Trump, being
exposed as a fraud. I also see people trying to defend Julian Assange from the Guardian article
about his alleged meetings with Paul Manafort, that was an obvious big fat lie (the truth is
Manafort talked to Ecuador to help them 'sell' Assange to the US).
But reacting to the very obvious stuff is not enough . The echo chamber distorts the truth
about Trump every single day, and at least six times on Sunda y, as this essay of mine shows.
It's just that after two years of this going on 24/7, it is perceived as the normal.
Everyone makes money dumping on the Donald, it's a proven success formula, so why would the
Guardian and Der Spiegel stay behind? They'd only hurt their own bottom line.
It has nothing to do with journalism, though, or news. It's smear and dirt, the business
model of the National Enquirer. That's how far our once truthful media have fallen.
All these journalists are influenced and manipulated by 'Australian-American Leadership
Dialogue', 'Atlantikbrücke', Open Society Foundation money etc. Wars boost the NYSE
because many weapons manufacturers are listed there.
If the journalists weren't manipulated all 2018 compilations would not have omitted the
World Cup in Russia.
"... Friends of mine who make a living out of dealing both in stock and wealth creating schemes have no loyalty to this country, they are self motivated and libertarian in persuasion. "Government should get out of the way!" This is nothing short of scandalous. ..."
"... Unless we stand up for our rights and a civil society that provides adequate provision for fair and balanced policy making,xwe will continue until we will see an implosion. History is littered with examples of revolution based on the kind of inequality we are seeing happen in this country. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. ..."
This message is clear and concise. It is however never going to be heard beyond the
'Guardian'.
The MSM are hardly going to publish this article, nor are they going to
reference it, why should they? It goes against everything they have been fighting for and the
tin ear of their readership are unwilling to change teir views.
The only thing that they understand is money and the concentration of wealth. This
misonception as Dennis So far this has been handed to them on a plate, the taxation system
has enabled them to manipulate an multiply their earnings. So much of money the has nothing
to do with adding value to this countries economy but is speculative in nature based on
financial and overseas instruments.
No is the time for our government to take the lead and start as the Victorian ALP have
done and invest in people and jobs on the back of strategic investment. It is a fallacy that
governments don't create jobs they, through their policies do just that.
Friends of mine who make a living out of dealing both in stock and wealth creating
schemes have no loyalty to this country, they are self motivated and libertarian in
persuasion. "Government should get out of the way!" This is nothing short of
scandalous.
Unless we stand up for our rights and a civil society that provides adequate provision
for fair and balanced policy making,xwe will continue until we will see an implosion. History
is littered with examples of revolution based on the kind of inequality we are seeing happen
in this country. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
When governments like the LNP (driven as it is by its ideology of greed, the IPA manifesto
and Gina Rinehart's idea of what Australia should look like [and how little she should pay to
pillage "communally owned" assets to enrich herself beyond imagination - she has no greater
claim over the Pilbara than any other Australian, but like all who live by the ethos of
greed, she thinks she should get it all for nothing]).
When the LNP talk about "small government" and "slashing red tape" it is politician-speak
for small government and NO red tape for the rich. What it also means is much more government
and red tape for the poor and vulnerable - as we would expect, the rich and powerful, who
really dictate economic and social policy in this country enlist willing governments to enact
measures that suppress the lower classes. It is not quite calling out the military (as Hawke
did during the pilot's strike at the insistence of the corpulent Ables - one act for which I
will always despise Hawke), but it has the same result by more surreptitious, lasting and
egregious means.
And one of the lasting legacies of the philosophies of neo-liberalism, from which the
Hanson's of the world "suck their oxygen" is that the political and corporate dialogue of the
last 30 or so years has pushed the notion of self-entitlement and vilification of the poor
and vulnerable further down the economic ladder. So now, we have countless Australians on
reasonable incomes who, like the rich, are convinced that all of our social and economic ills
can be rectified if we stop giving handouts to the bludgers, the malingerers, the disabled
and the indigenous - the neo-liberal rhetoric is now so widespread that it is easier than
ever for the vulnerable to be attacked and for many, that is seen as absolutely necessary. It
is the false US-sourced notion that if you are poor, it is because you deserve to be and if I
am rich - it isn't luck or inheritance - it is because I deserve it. This world-view makes it
so much easier to attack the vulnerable as receiving way to much to sit at home and
bludge.
Want to forget the now disgraced CEO of Australia Post who bought a Sydney mansion for $22
million and now wants to sell it for $40 million - tax free I might add. He is entitled to
that wealth enhancement. But someone on the dole smokes a spliff now and then and we think
they should lose their entitlements to an income that doesn't even get them up to the poverty
line (but they should be grateful for that pittance). Want to forget the CEO's who
pretentiously do their "sleeping rough" for a night and proclaim their empathy for the
homeless who would shriek at paying more tax to genuinely fund programmes to help the down
and outs. No problem - just embrace the selfish and greedy neo-liberalism philosophy.
This article is excellent and well overdue. All we need to do now is to wrench control of our
mainstream media out of the hands of Corporate (foreign) control. We are being told to vote
against ourselves in order for the few corporate elite to accrue massive wealth and
power over us.
MEDIA laws need to be very strict with very, very severe financial penalties for bias and
propaganda. Certainly remove this concept of self regulation whereby they sit on their own
disciplinary boards. Raise the standards of our media and allow us to retrieve some semblance
of our democracy.
Without media control, how would corporations be able to manipulate and propagandise the
populace with their own vested interests.
That is why governments are doing corporate bidding and getting fascist style surveillance
of its people, in order to counteract the ability of the people to gain knowledge through the
internet and vote against corporate control of our democracy.... nothing to do with terrorism
which was caused mostly by corporate foreign extraction of wealth through weapon sales;
resource acquisition, etc.
It is back to control of our mainstream media by the very (foreign) corporations that are
sucking out our wealth and putting nothing back.
Corporate media ia all powerful. They insidiously permeate the populace with corporate
views of Australia's financial and economy; infrastructure and every aspect of social
life from birth to euthanasia with racism and religion thrown in for good measure.
Should a politician have the audacity to act against their corporate interests, they do
not last long, without exclusions - PMs Whitlam and Rudd being prime examples.
This current mob of gutless underachieving dinosaur neo con nutters in govt, are
completely turning over Australia to these Corporate (foreign) parasites and our prospect is
not looking good.
Within no time we will be a Corporatocracy (as is the USA) and along with that comes 1%
owning 99% of the wealth; third world poverty; crime through the roof; drugs out of control;
public health and education a joke; public services non existent; legal system in disarray
and entrenched with bias and inequity.
"... The political strategy behind these contradictions is simple: it is difficult to criticise government spending on health and education, or popular regulations like consumer protection and limits on executive pay. So why not just criticise all government spending and all ..."
After the mining boom and decades of economic growth, how can Australia be broke?
Gina Rinehart was becoming the world's richest woman those on the minimum wage were falling further and
further behind
Australia just experienced one of the biggest mining booms in
world history. But even at the peak of that boom, there was no talk of the wonderful opportunity we finally had to invest in world-class
mental health or domestic violence crisis services.
Nor was there much talk from either major party about how the wealth of the
mining boom gave us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in remote Indigenous communities. Nope, the peak of the mining boom
was not the time to help those who had missed out in decades past, but the Howard government thought it was a great time to introduce
permanent tax cuts for high-income earners. These, of course, are the tax cuts that caused the budget deficits we have today.
Millions of tonnes of explosives were used during the mining boom to build more than 100 new mines, but it wasn't just prime farmland
that was blasted away in the boom, it was access to the middle class. At the same time that Gina Rinehart was becoming the world's
richest woman on the back of rising iron ore prices, those on the minimum wage were falling further and further behind their fellow
Australians.
Like Joe Hockey, Rinehart saw the problem of inequality as having more to do with the character of the poor than
with the rules of the game: "If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain. Do something
to make more money yourself – spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working."
Privatisation is deeply unpopular with voters. Here's how to end it | John Quiggin
Australia isn't poor; it is rich beyond the imagining of anyone living in the 1970s or 80s. But so much of that
new wealth has been vacuumed up by a few, and so little of that new wealth has been paid in tax, that the public has
been convinced that ours is a country struggling to pay its bills.
Convincing Australians that our nation is poor and that our governments "can't afford" to provide the level of services they provided
in the past has not just helped to lower our expectations of our public services and infrastructure, it has helped to lower our expectations
of democracy itself. A public school in Sydney has had to ban kids from running in the playground because it was so overcrowded.
Trains have become so crowded at peak hours that many people, especially the frail and the disabled, are reluctant to use them. And
those who have lost their jobs now wait for hours on the phone when they reach out to Centrelink for help.
Although people with low expectations are easier to con, fomenting cynicism about democracy comes at a long-term cost. Indeed,
as the current crop of politicians is beginning to discover, people with low expectations feel they have nothing to lose.
As more and more people live with the poverty and job insecurity that flow directly from neoliberal welfare and industrial relations
policies, the scare campaigns run so successfully by the likes of the Business Council of Australia have lost their sting. Scary
stories about the economy become like car alarms: once they attracted attention, but now they simply annoy those forced to listen.
'If governments can't make a difference and all politicians are corrupt, why not vote for outsiders?
After decades of hearing conservative politicians say that government is the problem, a growing number of conservative
voters no longer care which major party forms government. If governments can't make a difference and all politicians
are corrupt, why not vote for outsiders like Jacqui Lambie or Clive Palmer? There is perhaps no clearer evidence of
the short-termism of the Liberal and National parties today than their willingness to fan the flames of anti-politician
rhetoric without considering that it is their own voters who are most likely to heed the message.
Back when he was leading the campaign against Australia becoming a republic, Tony Abbott famously argued that you couldn't trust
politicians to choose our head of state. And more recently, in campaigning against marriage equality, Minister Matt Canavan was featured
in a television advertisement laughing at the thought that we could trust politicians.
Neoliberalism: the idea that swallowed the world
Convincing Australians that the country was broke also helped convince us that we have no choice but to sell the
family silver. But of course we have a choice. Just as there is no right answer as to whether it's better to rent
a home or buy one, there is no right answer to whether it's better for governments to own the electricity supply,
the postal service or the water supply, or none of these things.
Different governments in different countries make different decisions at different points in time. While much of neoliberalism's
rhetorical power comes from the assertion that "there is no alternative," the simple fact is that the world is full of alternatives.
Indeed, even the so-called free marketeers in Australia can see alternatives.
Consider stadiums, for example. The NSW Liberal government has a long track record of being pro-privatisation. It has sold off
billions of dollars' worth of electricity, water and health infrastructure. But when it comes to football stadiums, it has no ideological
problem with public ownership, nor any fiscal inhibition about spending billions of taxpayers' dollars.
In 2016 the NSW Liberal government spent $220m buying back ANZ Stadium, built in the 1990s with taxpayer funds at a cost of $690m
and subsequently sold to Stadium Australia Group. Having bought back the stadium, the NSW government plans to spend hundreds of millions
of dollars refurbishing it. That same money could build a lot of school science labs, domestic violence crisis centres or skate parks
for the bored kids the shopping malls don't want scratching up their marble stairs. For the past 30 years, Australians have been
told that we can't afford high-quality public services, that public ownership of assets is inefficient, and that the pursuit of free
markets through deregulation would create wealth and prosperity for all. But none of this is true.
While the policy agenda
of neoliberalism has never been broadly applied in Australia, for 30 years the language
of neoliberalism has been applied to everything from environmental protection to care of the disabled. The result of the partial
application of policy and the broad application of language is not just a yawning gap between those with the greatest wealth and
those with the greatest need, but a country that is now riven by demographic, geographic and racial divides.
Cutting the budget deficit is very important – except when it isn't
Australian politics
isn't about ideology, it's about interests. The clearest proof of that claim is that neoliberal ideas such
as deregulation were never aimed at powerful interest groups like the pharmacists or the gambling industry. And savage spending cuts
were never aimed at subsidies for the fossil-fuel industry or private health insurers.
Tony Abbott, who claimed to have a philosophical problem with carbon taxing, once proposed a 20% increase in the tobacco excise
Just as conservative Christian theology provides an excuse for sexism and homophobia, neoliberal language allows
powerful groups to package their personal preferences as national interests – systematically cutting spending on their
enemies and giving money to their friends. Here are some examples:
John Howard said he was obsessed with deregulating the labour market, but introduced 762 pages of labour-market regulation,
which he entitled WorkChoices. He didn't deregulate the labour market; he re-regulated it in his preferred form. He knew that
government decisions matter. Similarly, the Abbott government declared it was waging a war on red tape, yet the Turnbull government
is determined to pass new laws restricting unions and NGOs.
If there is one thing that neoliberals really seem to believe, it is that reducing the budget deficit is very, very important.
Except when it isn't. The political and business leaders who said we needed to slash welfare spending because we had a "budget
emergency" are currently advocating a $65bn tax cut for business – even though the deficit is bigger now than it was at the
time of the alleged emergency.
The Productivity Commission and state treasuries spent years advocating the deregulation and privatisation of the electricity
industry – and succeeded in creating a "free market" system governed by 5,000 pages of electricity market rules. Electricity
is too dangerous and too important to be deregulated, and those pushing for deregulation always knew that. They didn't want
a free market; they simply wanted a market, one in which the government played a smaller role and the private sector made large
profits selling an essential service for much higher prices than the government ever charged.
The NSW government requires NGOs and disability service providers to compete with each other but, when it sold Port Botany
and the Port of Newcastle, it structured the sales to ensure that Newcastle could not compete with Port Botany for the landing
of the millions of containers that arrive by ship each year. While "competition policy" is applied to the vulnerable, those
buying billion-dollar assets are protected from those same forces of competition.
To be clear, there has been no obsession among the political elite with the neoliberal goals of reducing government spending,
regulation or tax collection in Australia over the past three decades. None. They didn't mean a word of it. While there may have
been economists, commentators and even business leaders who sincerely believed in those goals, it is clear from their actions, as
distinct from their words, that John Howard, Tony Abbott and even the former head of the Business Council of Australia Tony Shepherd,
the man tasked with running Abbott's National Commission of Audit, had no principled objection to spending large amounts of public
money on things they liked spending large amounts of public money on. Indeed, in his speakers' agency profile, Tony Shepherd brags
about his ability to get public money for private ventures:
It is no mean feat to convince governments to support private sector proposals, but as former prime minister, the honourable
Paul Keating, said, "Tony managed to get more money out of my government than any other person I can recall."
Hundreds of new pages of regulation now govern the conduct of charities. Billions of taxpayers' dollars have been spent by "small
government" politicians on everything from television ads for innovation to subsidies for marriage counselling. And Tony Abbott,
who claimed to have a philosophical problem with carbon taxing, once proposed a 20% increase in the tobacco excise.
The political strategy behind these contradictions is simple: it is difficult to criticise government spending on health and education,
or popular regulations like consumer protection and limits on executive pay. So why not just criticise all government spending and
all
red tape in general? Once you have convinced the public that all government spending is inefficient, you can set about
cutting spending on your enemies and retaining it for your friends. And once you convince people that all regulation is bad, you
can set about removing consumer protections while retaining the laws that protect the TV industry, the gambling industry, the pharmaceutical
industry and all your other friends.
Cover of Dead Right by Richard Denniss, Quarterly Essay.
When powerful groups want subsidies, we are told they will create jobs. When powerless groups want better funding
for domestic violence shelters or after-school reading groups, they are told of the need to reduce the budget deficit.
When powerful groups demand new regulations, we are told it will provide business with certainty, but when powerless
groups demand new regulations, they are told it will create sovereign risk.
Ideology has a bad name these days, but it simply means a "system of ideas and ideals." By that definition, it is possible to
think of neoliberalism as an ideology focused on the idea that market forces are superior to government decision-making. But while
large segments of Australian politics and business have draped themselves, and their policy preferences, in the cloak of neoliberal
ideas and ideals, in reality to call them "ideologues" is to flatter them. They lack the consistency and strength of principle to
warrant the title.
Tue 16 Oct 2018
13.00 EDT
Last modified on Tue 16 Oct 2018
19.11 EDT
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Australian economic growth has been a 'standout' says Bernie Fraser, but too many have missed the benefits.
Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/EPA
Neoliberalism has caused "misery and social polarisation" yet remains in vogue with the Coalition government,
according to the economist Bernie Fraser.
The former Treasury secretary and Reserve Bank governor has made the
comments in a presentation circulated to participants of the Australia Institute's revenue summit to be held in
Canberra on Wednesday.
Michael Keating, a former secretary to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, will also use the summit
to raise doubts about the Morrison government's budget forecasts.
Australia's housing boom is not heading for a soft landing. How did we get
here? | Greg Jericho
Read more
In the background notes for Fraser's speech, seen by Guardian Australia, he says that Australia's 27 consecutive
years of economic growth is a "standout", "Winx-like" performance.
But the record deserves only "qualified applause" because "too many Australians remain unemployed, under-employed,
underskilled, underpaid and lack job security".
Fraser warns that society has become "less fair, less compassionate and more divided" and "more devoid of trust in
almost every field of human activity" in the past 20 years.
"As a disinterested player in climate change negotiations and a miserable foreign aid donor, we have slipped well
down the list of good global citizens."
Political ideologies appear to have contributed to inequality and disadvantage in Australia in that time, he
argues.
Fraser in large part blames "neoliberalism" and its influence on policymaking for the "disconnect between
Australia's impressive economic growth story and its failure on so many markers to show progress towards a better,
fairer society".
"Favouring the market system ahead of the state system, and individual interests ahead of community interests, can
lead to profoundly unfair social outcomes.
More than three million Australians living in poverty, Acoss report reveals
Read more
"Those unable to afford access to decent standards of housing, healthcare, and other essential services have to
settle for inferior arrangements, or go without."
Fraser says charitable organisations see the effects of "real poverty" that result in "misery, anxiety and loss of
self-esteem of mothers unable to put food on the table for their kids, of old and young homeless people, and the
victims of domestic violence and drug overdoses".
Fraser summarises the key thrusts of neoliberalism as "the pursuit of the lowest possible rates of income and most
other taxes and the maximum restraint on government interventions and spending programs".
Evidence in Australia and overseas shows the influence of neoliberalism on fiscal policy "and the misery and
social polarisation that has come with it", he says.
The global financial crisis "should have" marked a tipping point, when the "idealised view of financial markets
being self-regulating" was shattered. While Australia "avoided the worst traumas of the GFC" with prompt fiscal and
monetary policy responses, in Europe "taxes were increased and spending programs slashed", resulting in a further
five or six years of severe recession.
Fraser says that all political ideologies – taken to extremes – can be divisive and cause damage, including an
ideology "based on a state system".
But the former Reserve Bank governor focuses on neoliberalism because it "remains in vogue". The Morrison
government "continues to reaffirm its over-riding commitment to lower taxation, and to assert that this is the best
way to increase investment, jobs and economic growth" -
despite the lack of evidence to support the theory
.
Although Fraser recognises that politics never can or should be taken out of policymaking, he suggests the best
course is to "hammer away" at flaws of particular approaches.
In a separate presentation Keating – who headed PM&C from 1991 to 1996 – warns the government's promise to cap
expenditure while simultaneously cutting taxes and returning the budget to surplus is based on overly optimistic
assumptions of growth in GDP, wages and productivity.
Why are stock markets falling and how far will they go?
Read more
According to Keating, the government must stop assuming there have been no structural changes in the relationship
between unemployment and the rate of wage increases.
He notes that predictions of a tightening labour market leading to higher wages are predicated on assumptions of
growth averaging 3% or as much as 3.5%.
He will also say a sustained return to past rates of economic growth will be impossible unless we can ensure a
reasonably equitable distribution of income, involving a faster rate of wage increases, especially for the low-paid.
Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at Birkbeck, has a forthcoming book, Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and
the Future of White Majorities . He argues that what I would call "bad nationalism" –
the global surge in rightwing populism – is driven by large-scale immigration, and the
threat it poses to the cultural identity of the ethnic majority. Some people fear change; they
prefer the monocultural landscape in which they grew up, and visible changes to it threaten
their sense of belonging and security. Certain attitudes are, if not hereditary, baked in to
the point where they may as well be.
He supports this view with plentiful survey data, a favourite nugget being that the way you
answer the question, "Would you prefer your children to be well-mannered, or to be
considerate?" is a major predictor of whether you'd vote for or against Trump and Brexit .
The question is a proxy for what the cognitive linguist George Lakoff calls the strict
father (well-mannered) versus the nurturant family (considerate) model. These frames are the
timeless and elemental organising principles for our political divisions –
authoritarian versus pluralist, right versus left – all the way back to Christ the
Warrior versus Christ the Saviour.
I believe people respond to authoritarian and pluralist arguments according to who's
making them, how trenchantly they are made, and the economic, media and political environment
around them. Austerity soil has always been notoriously fertile for authoritarian ideas. Yet
Kaufmann dismisses any economic factor, saying that had there been one, 2008 would have seen
an upturn in rightwing nationalism, not 2017. My view is that depressions take years, not
months, to grind people down.
To me the key questions are how are the key decisions made and by whom are they made?
Globalism (not globalization, mind you) is a process whereby decisionmaking gets shifted
farther and farther from the people and democratic accountability is continually weakened -
ironically often with the rationale that we need this to "compete with China".
As a result, national borders (and therefore cultures) become less and less important
and institutions like central banks, the EU, the WTO, etc. become ever more powerful. What
you call neoliberalism is an effect - not the cause - of this phenomenon, in my
opinion.
By the way, I agree with you that there is hope - in fact I am more optimistic today
than I have been for many years - although probably for very different reasons than
you.
I am quite sure that for the time being the nation state is an essential form of political
and economic organisation. So I accept the necessity of nations. I reject nationalist
ideologies which at best are confused, like ZW's argument, and at worst are very nasty
things indeed.
I was stunned by the modernity of Renan's speech when I read it. Glad to see that it is
available online. Hope you read it.
Globalisation is the ability to move goods/finance/ideas/culture around the global at
speeds unheard of - there is no way to alter this, so your definition is inexact by quite a
margin.
What is happening is neoliberalism - the economic sytem which has hijacked Globalisation
- is playing havoc across the world.
These are not one and the same thing. Nationalism is a reaction to neoliberailsm, and
the way it is concentrating wealth in the hands of the few.
Take a look at places like Finland, Norway and other parts of Europe, where they have
restrained neoliberalism and do not have the same levels of inequality as in the USA or the
UK. Japan is the most equal developed nation in the world. We need to marry strong
democratic structures (at national and global level) with globalisation at the expense of
neo-liberalism, not in support of it.
In short, your view is depressing and misguided. There is hope.
Globalism is a system where a cosmopolitan class of technocratic elites makes all the
decisions after talking among themselves in well-appointed conference rooms to which common
people are not given access (think of what goes on in Brussels or in the ECB tower every
day).
Democracy is something else.
In my opinion the two are mutually incompatible.
Yes, I'm talking about both British and non-British Muslims. Here's the clarification
you're looking for: ICM Research for Channel 4 found that more than 100,000 British Muslims
sympathize with suicide bombers and people who commit other terrorist acts. Moreover, only
one in three British Muslims (34%) would contact the police if they believed that somebody
close to them had become involved with jihadists.
In addition, 23% of British Muslims said Islamic Sharia law should replace British law
in areas with large Muslim populations.
On social issues, 52% of the Muslims surveyed said they believe homosexuality should be
illegal, compared to 22% of non-Muslim Britons.
39% of Muslims surveyed believe women should always obey their husbands, compared to 5%
for non-Muslims. One in three British Muslims refuse completely to condemn the stoning of
women accused of adultery.
Admittedly, this ICM survey is from 2016 so the picture may have improved, but I think
you'll agree, these attitudes are quite a long way from the enlightenment values
mentioned.
Open borders and nationalism are really different issues. One can recognise the need for
borders and border controls without convincing oneself that the people within a given
border line are therefore endowed with some common essence about which they can feel pride
or shame.
The pity about this is that liberal writers like ZW nearly always start from zero on
this issue as if there wasn't a whole mass of discussion of a very detailed kind that has
already taken place. Thus I would say that Ernest Renan's speech to the Surbonne in the
1880s published as What is a Nation? (reprinted in Shloma Sand's book On the
Nation and the 'Jewish People' ) is well in advance of ZW's musings.
I am with Einstein on this. He was once asked if he regarded himself as a German or a Jew.
He replied: "I look upon myself as a man. Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the
measles of mankind".
I found ZW's suggestion that "you do not need to be proud of Oliver Cromwell in order to be
proud of Jessica Ennis-Hill" both revealing and ridiculous. If one is going to pick a
figure from English history not to be proud of why on earth would one choose Cromwell? And
on what grounds exactly does ZW feel proud of JE-H?
The Cromwell reference leads to a further point. Can the English, on ZW's argument, take
pride in the actions of Scots prior to the Act of Union? And can they take pride in the
actions of the Irish from Northern but not Southern Ireland?
I would nuance what you say just a little. Our actions contribute to producing not only
things but also people. A parent can feel justified pride in the actions of his/her
children as can a teacher in the actions of his/her pupils. There can also be a justified
sense of collective pride for people who have contributed to that collective. ZW is right
about that. She gets into a muddle when she tries to project this collective pride
backwards in time to things we could have had no part in.
People can be proud of their country , there is nothing wrong with it ,but when a country
consists of many ethnic groups and religions, identifying the country only with majority
ethno linguistic or religious group can lead to discrimination , alienation and resentment
. This has led to civil wars in many regions. Canada and Switzerland are some of the
exceptions where federal system and equalities of ethno linguistic groups have strengthened
their countries .I would call this good nationalism.
On the other hand, many countries in Asia and Africa are suffering from the conflicts due
to persecution or discrimination inflicted upon minorities from the majoritarian
governments.
Modi in India is using the nationalistic card, trying to give an impression that the
country only belongs to Hindus and Hindi speakers. In reality, India is not even a country
, it is a collection of nation states with many ethnic groups , languages and religions
which were united during the British rule. It is more diverse than the whole of Europe
.However Modi is keen to perpetuate the myth India is homogenous , this natinalistic
ideology might risk formenting divisions and conflicts in the future.I would call it 'bad
nationalism '
Aren't we looking for the word patriotism as opposed to nationalism here Mz. Williams? I've
always cleaved to Orwell's definitions of patriotism and nationalism. Predictably,
nationalism gets short shrift.....largely because nationalism is dim, divisive and utterly
undigestible for the vast majority of a nation at ease with itself. This is why Moggo,
Bojo, Foxy and Gove prefer nationalism.
I'm not the one who has a problem with neo-liberalism, it's provided for me more than
adequately. Having spent a lot of time living overseas, it's provided ALL Australians with a
far better deal than a few billion others.
If you are too naive to see this, then maybe you need to try an alternative for a while.
It's quite ok, i'll be waiting for when the alternative fails (they always do) and I can come
back and pick off the assets from the carcus of that little experiment for less than a cent
in the dollar.
The dog eat dog economy simply represents our nature, it's who we are, we thrive under
libertarianism.
Po-faced, Libertarian BOLLOCKS.
Privatisation is sucker-farming.
Milking the punters, like ants milk aphids.
Farming them, like bellbirds do with leaf-bugs.
And even THAT is only part of the equation.
The fondest goal, the one which gives the management class hard-ons ?
Privatisation de-unionises their workforces.
It is quite strange that the biggest supporters of neo-liberal economics with its belief that
giving money to the rich will solve all our problems call themselves 'Christians'.
I can't remember when Jesus preached trickle down. I don't remember the bit where Jesus
said to treat those seeking asylum and fleeing violence like they are the scum of the earth.
I don't remember when Jesus said the poor needed a good kick in the guts while they are down
to motivate them to work harder. I don't remember when Jesus said we should cut funds from
the sick to balance the budget. I don't remember Jesus saying that if you bear false witness
often enough then you will fool enough of the people enough to keep power so you can look
after your corporate buddy buddies.
In fact, almost all of the politicians in the Coalition who proclaim to be 'Christian'
must have their own secret bible because nothing I have heard from the New Testament
justifies their actions.
Me, I'm an atheist and I have more care, consideration, ethics and compassion than the
entire collection of right wing bible bashers sitting in parliament today.
Thanks for this. We need more of these articles pointing out the bullshit behind this story
that the Coalition has been feeding the gullible peasantry with for over 30 years, sneering,
smirking and sniggering as truckloads of public money goes to private corporations. The money
received from selling off public assets has been shoved into private businesses who then feel
very free to charge like bulls.
It's a shame so many folk still fall for this bullshit meaning that their own families, work
colleagues and community get shafted through diminishing public services.
They used to tell me I was building a dream
And so I followed the mob
When there was earth to plow or guns to bear
I was always there right on the job
They used to tell me I was building a dream
With peace and glory ahead
Why should I be standing in line
Just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run
Made it race against time
Once I built a railroad, now it's done
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower up to the sun
Brick and rivet and lime
Once I built a tower, now it's done
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell
Full of that yankee doodle de dum
Half a million boots went sloggin' through hell
And I was the kid with the drum
Say, don't you remember, they called me Al
It was Al all the time
Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal
Buddy, can you spare a dime?
'This is more or less the definition of increased productivity and it is what ultimately
leads to improved living standards for everyone'
Lazy, neoliberal, supply-side economic guff. Neoliberals undermine government and
democracy and then scavenge on the wreckage. When does 'ultimately' begin for 'everyone'?
Never.
'Private companies provide the same service with much less labour'
Firing people is the answer? What a hardened realist you are. Must be great to be so
certain in your neoliberal convictions. Are you really telling us that every privatisation
has been a success?
These pieces of infrastructure have been built through generations of work and wise
investment - they are not any one government's to sell. It's just easier for a corrupt,
rudderless, feckless neoliberal shill to sell it than it is for them to to run it.
Can't even begin to address the characteristic Libertarian slyness in all that.
But I'll try.
"What you call neoliberalism was a set of responses to the failure of socialism or as Tony
Blair said 'what matters is what works'."
Incorrect.
What I--what the world--calls "Neoliberalism', is the corpse of Classical economics,
resurrected post-WW2 by Friedman and Hayek's 'Mont Pelerin Society. '
Why was it buried ?
Because during the Great Depression, its dogmatic insistence on continued austerity and wage
cuts only made things worse.
After all, in an economic slump, whats the worst thing you can do ?
Deprive people of whatever little purchasing power they have.
So, goodbye Classical economics.
After which, govts SPENT their societies out of slump, putting people to work.
(O, the horror ! O, the heresy !)
The public works of that era include Germany's autobahns and the US New Deal projects,
including the Tennessee Valley system and similar in Western States.
( O the horror ! O the heresy !)
Friedman, Hayek and the gang looked at those and post-WW2 programs of public benefit, such as
the UK's NHS and shat themselves. Typical fear-driven conservatives, they were convinced such
programs represented the thin end of the wedge which MUST end in imposition of Soviet-style
conditions.
What utter paranoid crap.
Their resurrected corpse of Classical economics ?.
THAT is what is 'Neoliberalism'.
Whether or not I call it so is immaterial.
Then, this lofty bit of finger-wagging assertion;
"This process of economic evolution is necessarily imperfect and incomplete...."
Your Lordship's overview is appreciated...
"....but currently leaves you free to own a computer, read news on-line, communicate using
the internet (maybe using NBN?) and express your views freely. "
Sez who ?
You ?
Besides, the only one talking about that old bogey, "socialism" is you.
Because its a conveniently perjorative label, eh ?
Pretty infantile, though.
"Anybody who doesn't agree with EVERYTHING I say, must be a 'socialist.' And they can't
play with my toys."
PS 'Adam', why do LIbertarians always project a Superiority Complex ?
Why are the buggers always so PLEASED WITH THEMSELVES ?
Neoliberalism = Socialism for the Rich - Capitalism for the Poor.
Politics needs reform, plain & simple. Fed ICAC and Integrity Commission is a good
start but it's not enough. The rules have to change too. Major decisions like privatising
services or tax handouts to the rich, shouldn't by law be allowed to get through parliament
or the senate unless the claims being made to justify them are quantifiable &
demonstrated to be in the National Interest. Currently politicians have no obligation to do
either.
e.g. claiming that jobs will be created if Penalty rates are cut = there's no way to
quantify such a BS claim and Doug Cameron got them to admit that in Senate Estimates. Even so
they were allowed to lie through their teeth and impose it anyway with no requirement to
prove their BS claims. This corporate tax handout = once again they claim it will lead to
more wealth to average Australians and more jobs but it can't be quantified or guaranteed via
regulation so it's all bullshit. The rich will hoard the wealth & kick Australians in the
guts as usual. That's what they've always done and always will do. Privatisation of
electricity..what a crock of shit. They claimed it would create competition and drive down
prices. What's happened? The complete opposite but politicians KNOW they're not accountable
and therein 'lies' the problem. The shortsheeting of the original NBN, = yet another lie.
They've totally crippled Australia's ability to compete in a digital age and completely
screwed regional 2nd tier cities and towns in terms of growth. As far as the National
interest is concerned the shortsheeting of the NBN is the complete opposite. Even so they
were allowed to bastardise that too without any accountability whatsoever. Australians need
to start demanding political reform so these bastards are accountable to the people.
Neoliberalism is just the academic name for the political ideology of greed, corruption, self
interest, self entitlement, corporate welfare, inequality, user pays, and poverty is your
fault.
Do you see any contradiction between privatised electricity and socialised stadiums?
Neoliberalism explains it all. Corruption in politics means that only profitable assets
are privatised. Stadiums lose money, so are kept in private hands as corporate welfare for
the various billionaire team owners and TV networks.
I love Richard Denniss! What a brilliantly concise and yet well supported argument. Now we
just need someone who can say it in terms that will persuade unwilling voters to think
carefully about their vote. If they do think carefully they simply cannot return this
government to power, now that they're all revealed as nothing but crony capitalists.
I must admit that like many people I also thought neoliberalism was an ideology, but then
I couldn't understand why they were so inconsistent in their spending of 'tax-payers'
funds'.
From now on I'll be pointing out those inconsistencies with more confidence - armed with
Richard's incontrovertible points, and also by a closer reading of Canadian Kean Birch's
article:
[The term neoliberalism ] is used to refer to an economic system in which the
"free" market is extended to every part of our public and personal worlds.
And here's wikipedia's definition of crony capitalism:
Crony capitalism is an economy in which businesses thrive not as a result of
risks they take, but rather as a return on money amassed through a nexus between a business
class and the political class.
NB But there's a more explicit definition here, which I like much better:
Crony capitalism is a term describing an economy in which success in business
depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be
exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special
tax breaks, or other forms of state interventionism.
Yes, we have a spot of bother, and I think that their name - Institute of Public Affairs - is
quite a misnomer.
The way these people operate is more akin to Opus Dei and many other 'secret societies'
that have another public face altogether.
Given that IPA's agenda is a private members wish list which has a huge impact on matters
of a broad public nature, it's rather akin to incest, and we know where the confusion between
Church and State takes us regarding separation of powers, exactly where we are right now .two
Royal Commissions that are joined at the hip, Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
(2013 – 2017) and our current horror show Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation,
and Financial Services Industry which could for all intents and purposes be as long as
aforementioned.
Stay with me, as these are issues that relate to other 'energy' systems, namely money, sex
and power, and if we have any doubts as to how far this cancer has spread, a quick purview of
the following members ought to resolve it for you:
For the 70th Birthday big bash, we know that guests to the party were:
• Gina Rinehart
• Rupert Murdoch
• Tony Abbott
• George Pell - Australian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
• Michael Kroger - President of the Victorian division of the Liberal Party of Australia
and former director of the IPA
• Mitch Fifield - Communications Minister
Think horizontal and vertical industries/associations and you begin to get the picture,
and that's before thinking about BCA and VECCI.
First, elect the other mob next time around. They're in the pockets of the multinationals and
the US alliance as well, but they're not quite as bad, yet. The next thing is a full-on
assault on mainstream media. The frontline of the revolution, if there is to be one, is the
media. No more guns or territorial claims, it's a battle for the mind. Education is the key.
The "Neolibs" attack education at every opportunity - teachers, curriculum, funding etc. etc.
but there's nothing wrong with education - the real problem is that the mainstream media
relentlessly, all day every day works to an agenda of dis-education, deliberately undermining
and destroying the work of our schools. They preach doubt and mistrust - of learning, facts,
truth, intelligence, pure science, art, music, culture, thoughtfulness, forbearance, empathy
and altruism. They teach us to monetise and gamble on everything. Their aim is to dumb
everyone down to the point where not only can't they read an analog clock or drive their own
car but become entirely dependent on the word of authority (of which they are the mouthpiece)
for a continued existence. Today, with our vast social platforms we can target their lies and
threats, one by one. Pick each one, attack it, viciously, loudly, risibly, with facts,
comedy, derision and invitations to dance. Spread it wide. Call them out at every
opportunity. Sneer them into oblivion. Mainstream media is the primary problem. That's what
must be destroyed.
No, regrettably they have not.
The neoliberalist 'mistake' has been going on for around 40 yrs now - it has proved a
relentless descent into inequality and austerity.
Chris Bowen
at the National Press Club : "...Labor will go to the next election:
Achieving budget balance in the same year as the government;
Delivering bigger cumulative budget surpluses over forward estimates as well as substantially
bigger surpluses over the ten year medium term; and
That the majority of savings raised from our revenue measures over the medium term will go
towards budget repair and paying down debt...."
Pure neoliberal economic poison that will create further hardship for our citizens, worsen
inequality and recess the economy yet further.
People have got to come to understand that the bigger surpluses Bowen speaks of are
federal tax collection surpluses; i.e. he intends to withdraw further spending capacity from
the private sector, all while the current account deficit already draws 3.5% GDP (~$30bn) a
yr from that same heavily indebted private sector.
This Bowen statement report
from the SMH : "The whiff of a surplus, not reaching at least 1 per cent of GDP until 2026-27, does not
adequately protect Australia against the potential roiling seas of international
uncertainty," he will say.
"Australia needs bigger surpluses, sooner than the government is scheduling.
"We can't afford to let the next four years go to waste in the efforts for a healthier, safer
budget surplus."
Absolute macroeconomic stupidity, arrogant, vandalous ideological madness.
When will the people come to their senses and stop supporting such socially destructive
errant neoliberal economic alchemy?
Just look at the Citizens Assembly overseeing the law change in the recent Irish referendum.
Worked a treat, cause those involved wanted to find the bvest alternative, rather than
feather their own nest.
It is indeed important to make the distinction between the ideology of neoliberalism - the
ideology of private enterprise is good, and public spending is bad - and the operational
system of crony capitalism - the game of mates played by government and the special
interests.
And it is certainly equally important to call out the monumental hypocrisy involved in the
government's application of the ideology's set of rules to the powerless and public and the
government's application of corrupt practice rules to the special interests.
The system is destroying the egalitarian character of Australia and fanning the flames of
nativist authoritarianism here.
But what's even more dangerous is the fundamental dishonesty that the system necessitates,
and the alienating influence it has - on top of the growing economic inequality.
The system has destroyed the economic and environmental viability and sustainability of
the planet on which human civilization depends.
What is becoming increasingly clear to more and more of the public is that - simple put-
the system cannot be allowed to go on as it has been proceeding because it threatens the
future of civilization on earth.
Change is imperative now. However, how that will unfold is unclear, as well as, the toll
the destruc5turing system will take.
What is clear is that a great restructuring must happen - and soon.
Michael Greenwood , Geoff Naylor and David Murray on the failures of economic policy
While agreeing with the thrust of Paul Mason's article (
A new politics of emotion is needed to beat the far right , Journal, 26 November), it is
surely necessary to employ economics if we are to defeat neoliberalism. We have lived under
this regime, with increasing severity, for 25 years or so. The result has been the stagnation
of real incomes for the large majority, with the benefits of GDP growth accruing to those at
the top of income and wealth distributions. This has suppressed growth, as those with less
money tend to spend it and those with more hide it and avoid tax. Lower UK growth is clearly
shown in comparative data.
So if neoliberalism is a school of economics, it is a failure if the aim of economic policy
is to encourage growth and the reinvestment of the benefits. Of course, neoliberalism is not
economics, it is political dogma, supported by its beneficiaries. We need economics
undergraduates to demand to be taught real economics and not the propaganda of power that is
neoliberalism.
Michael Greenwood Manchester
• In his search for a political narrative of economic hope to counteract the rise of
rightwing populism, Paul Mason overlooks the sense of belonging that exists in faith
communities. Here, a selfless collaboration for the inclusive good of one another has never
required disruption of the free-market economy. It is just that this ethos has not been
introduced at the national economic and political levels.
Geoff Naylor Winchester, Hampshire
• All suffered the same 2007-08 financial crash, but the "UK has weakest wage growth of
wealthy nations" ( Report
, 27 November). Anything to do with Tory-led government economic policy?
David Murray Wallington, Surrey
For 40 years, the ideology popularly known as "neoliberalism" has dominated political decision-making in the English-speaking
west.
People hate
it . Neoliberalism's sale of state assets, offshored jobs, stripped services, poorly-invested infrastructure and armies of the
forcibly unemployed have delivered, not promised "efficiency" and "flexibility" to communities, but discomfort and misery. The wealth
of a few has now swelled to a level of conspicuousness that must politely be considered
vulgar
yet the philosophy's entrenched itself so deeply in how governments make decisions and allocate resources that one of its megaphones
once declared its triumph "the end of history".
... ... ...
Paul Keating's rejection
It was a year ago that a third sign first appeared, when the dark horse of Australian prime ministers, Paul Keating, made public
an on-balance rejection of neoliberal economics. Although Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser instigated Australia's first neoliberal policies,
it was Keating's architecture of privatisation and deregulation as a Labor treasurer and prime minister that's most well remembered.
Now, "we have a comatose world economy held together by debt and central bank money," Keating has said, "Liberal economics has run
into a dead end and has had no answer to the contemporary malaise." What does the disavowal mean? In terms of his Labor heir Bill Shorten's growing appetite for redistributive taxation and close relationship to the union movement, it means "if Bill Shorten becomes
PM, the rule of engagement between labour and capital will be rewritten," according to The Australian this week. Can't wait!
Tony
Abbott becomes a fan of nationalising assets
Or maybe's Sukkar's right about the socialists termiting his beloved Liberal party. How else to explain the earthquake-like paradigm
shift represented by the sixth sign? Since when do neoliberal conservatives argue for the renationalisation of infrastructure, as
is the push of Tony Abbott's gang to nationalise the coal-fired Liddell power station? It may be a cynical stunt to take an unscientific
stand against climate action, but seizing the means of production remains seizing the means of production, um, comrade. "You know,
nationalising assets is what the Liberal party was founded to stop governments doing," said Turnbull, even as he hid in the dens
and in the rocks of the mountains to weather – strange coincidence –
yet another Newspoll
loss.
"new introduction to a re-released Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto.
Collective, democratic political action is our only chance for freedom and enjoyment."
Might be true. But frightening that people should naively still think that democracy is to be found in the 'Dictatorship of
the Proletariat' [ ie those who know what's good for you even if you don't like it ] of the Communist Manifesto after the revelations
of what that leads to in the Gulag Archipelago , Mao's China , Pol Pot , Kim John - un .
How quickly the world forgets. - you
might just as well advocate Mein Kampf it's the same thing in the end !
That's what you claim and it might be so but I'm not interested in keeping a score on the matter. The point you failed to get
is that the people you mentioned where totalitarian thugs. They used the banner of communism to achieve their ends. They would
have used what ever ideology that was in fashion to achieve the same results.
Does present day neo-liberalism actually qualify as a political movement?
Vested interests and the dollar seem to have all the power. Lies and deception are so common the truth is seen as the enemy.
The voting public are merely fools for manipulation. Nah, neo-liberalism is not government, it is something far nastier, and clearly
not what the public vote for, presuming a vote actually counts for anything anymore.
The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge." Lord
Acton
George Herbert Walker Bush died on Saturday. He was 94 years old. Thanks to decisions he made
throughout his career, thousands – perhaps millions – of people never got near 94. He
invaded Iraq in 1991, instituted sanctions that destroyed the country. He pardoned those involved
in the Iran-Contra affair and was head of the CIA when Operation Condor launched the military coup
in Argentina in 1976 .
Instead, Simon Tisdall – a mindless servant to the status quo, always happy to weave
invective about our designated enemies – treats us to paragraph after paragraph of inane
anecdotes.
Good old Georgie once gave him a lift in Air Force One.
Barbara gave him useful advice about raising Springer Spaniels.
The following words and phrases are not found anywhere in this article: CIA, Iraq,
Iran-Contra, Argentinian coup, Iran Air Flight 655, NAZI, Panama.
Rather, Tisdall refers Bush's term as "before the era of fake news". Which makes him either a
complete a liar or profoundly under-qualified to write on the subject – as the Bush-era
spawned the original fake news: The Nayirah testimony . A pack of lies told
before the Senate, and used to justify a war in the middle-east.
Bush started two wars as President. Planned and enabled countless crimes as director of the
CIA. pardoned all those implicated in the Iran-Contra affair. Refused to apologise when the US
Navy "accidentally" shot down an Iranian airliner, killing over 200 civilians, including 60
children.
He was the original neocon – his administration brought us Cheney and Powell and
Rumsfeld. Gave birth to the ideology that stage-managed 9/11, launched the "War on Terror", and
cut a blood-stained swath across North Africa and the Middle East.
We don't hear about that.
What we DO hear about is Bush's "deep sense of public duty and service" and that
"Bush was a patriot who did not need cheap slogans to express his belief in enduring American
greatness". No space is given over to analysis, to examine the fact that "belief in enduring
American greatness" is quasi-fascism, and responsible for more violent deaths this century than
any other cause you can name.
In hundreds of words, a notionally left-wing paper has nothing but praise for a highly
unpopular right-wing president. No space is given over even to the gentlest of rebukes.
The whole article is an exercise in talking without saying anything. Pleasantries replacing
truth. Platitudes where facts should be. A nothing burger, with a void on the side and an extra
order of beige.
It's an obituary of Harold Shipman that eschews murder talk and rhapsodises about his love of
gardening.
A eulogy to Pinochet that praises his economic reforms but neglects all the soccer stadiums
full of corpses.
An epitaph to Hitler that focuses, not on his "controversial political career", but on his
painting and his vegetarianism.
Did you know Genghis Khan once lent me a pencil? He was a swell guy. The world will miss
him.
We're no longer supposed to examine the lives, characters or morals of our leaders. Only
"honour their memory" and be "grateful for their service". History is presented to us, not as a
series of choices made by people in power, but as a collection of inevitabilities. Consequences
are tragic but unavoidable. Like long-dead family squabbles – To dwell on them is unseemly,
and to assign blame unfair.
Just as with John McCain, apologism and revisionism are sold to us as manners and good taste.
Attempts to redress the balance and tell the truth are met with stern glares and declarations
that it is "too soon".
It's never "too soon" to tell the truth.
John McCain was a dangerous war-mongering lunatic. George Bush Sr was a sociopath from a
family of corrupt sociopaths. The world would be a far better, and much safer place if just one
major newspaper was willing to say that.
Really, there are two obituaries to write here:
First – George HW Bush, corrupt patriarch of an old and malign family, passing out of
this world to face whatever eternal punishment (hopefully) awaits those who sell their immortal
soul in exchange for a brief taste of power.
Second – The Guardian, perhaps a decent newspaper once-upon-a-time, now a dried out
husk. A zombified slave to the state, mindless and brainless and lifeless. No questions, no
reservations, no hesitation. Obediently licking up the mess their masters leave behind.
It's sickening.
Kit Knightly is co-editor of OffGuardian. The Guardian banned him from commenting.
Twice. He used to write for fun, but now he's forced to out of a near-permanent sense of
outrage.
My mother believed it was only Bush Senior's longevity that prevented some of the neo-cons from
bumping off Bush Junior. He was President in name only and has long since fulfilled his
usefulness in committing the US to endless war. He is prone to verbal gaffes and that must make
him a liability, and when powerful evil people get nervous they often turn deadly.
Cut&Pasted from Lavrov interview in today's Saker Vineyard:
Question: When the death of President George H.W. Bush was announced, President Putin
expressed his condolences in a very emotional message. George Bush Sr. believed that one of the
worst mistakes of his presidency was failure to prevent the Soviet Union's dissolution. Did you
meet with him? What are your impressions of him?
Sergey Lavrov: I believe that George Bush Sr greatly contributed to the development of the
United States and ensured that his country responsibly played its role in the world,
considering its weight in international affairs.
I remember very well how President George H.W. Bush visited Moscow, and then he went to
Ukraine where he encouraged the Soviet republics' political forces to do their duty by
preserving the country rather than create huge, tragic problems for millions of people who
became citizens of different states the morning after the Soviet Union collapsed.
Mr Bush was a great politician. I believe that every word that will be said about his
achievements reflect the people's true attitude to this man. However, one comment about the
link between President Bush and the demise of the Soviet Union. I heard a commentator say that
George Bush Sr made history by helping Mikhail Gorbachev soft-land the Soviet Union. In fact,
George Bush Sr never did that; he simply wanted to protect millions of people from political
games. This is what we can say confidently about him.
It was German journalist, Udo Ulfkotte actually spilled the beans regarding the western media
in his best seller, Journalisten Gekaufte, (Bought Journalists). Ulfkotte described the degree
to which the CIA has penetrated the western media and corrupted, or bribed ( including himself)
the system which has become a PR organization for the intelligence services, and MIC. On
publication it immediately sold 120,000.00 copies and then strangely became unavailable in
English. He was described as a 'conspiracy theorist' (but of course) and died at the relatively
young age of a heart attack at 56. There are some salient issues surrounding his death raised
by Jonas Schneider in his book 'The Mysterious Death of Udo Ulfkotte: Evidence for a Murder.
You know already what I will respond to this. And I know already what you will say in return.
So, instead of getting into a back and forth about it, I will simply leave you with something
to consider.
The fact that each successive report that comes out that refutes the claims of the truther
movement is automatically dismissed by people like you shows how conspiracy theory thinking
works. The final 9/11 report comes out in 2004 and, of course, the truthers dismiss it
because it was written by a branch of the federal government who you believe perpetrated 9/11
in the first place. Then Popular Mechanics publishes a 5,500 word report in 2005 extensively
answering and debunking the movement claims.
Here, you people can't claim that it was a government cover-up -- at least not directly --
because Popular Mechanics is a privately owned publication. Therefore, new sub-conspiracy
theories are invented to "prove" how Popular Mechanics is part of the cover-up. To give just
one example Christopher Bollyn "claimed to have discovered why the 100-year-old engineering
magazine would take part in a government cover-up of the crime of the century: A young
researcher on the magazine's staff named Benjamin Chertoff was a cousin of then-Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and the magazine was seeking to whitewash the criminal
conspiracy with its coverage." (Slate 2011) Here we are seeing the kind of incredible mental
contortion that truthers are willing to engage in to continue believing their theories.
Then in 2008 the National Institute of Standards and Technology released the final
installment of its study into the causes behind the collapse of the buildings -- $16 million
was invested into the investigation. And, as I well know, you and other truthers will have a
smart Alec come-back as to why the NIST report is wrong, its authors are part of the vast
conspiracy and so on. On and on it goes no matter how many reports are published by however
many experts.
Again, I am not interested in getting dragged into a back-and-forth about the merits and
demerits of these reports. Rather, I wish to point out the flawed reasoning inherent to 9/11
trutherism: that it has its own internal mechanisms for discounting any evidence that
contradicts its central tenets. It therefore constitutes a closed system of thought because
there is nothing that would ever count as a refutation. In other words, for all contradictory
evidence another explanation is made to retroactively fit the latest gap in the theory that
is exposed.
Now, I know full well that this is probably not going to change your mind either. And I'm
sure that there will be plenty of responses to this comment and thumbs down from Off-Guardian
readers. But I hope that you at least consider whether you are wrong about this subject. For
my part, I worry that 9/11 trutherism obscures what are indeed important subjects -- US
imperialism, US govt. corruption, the nefarious influence of the CIA, the legitimate
grievance that people in the Middle East have against the US, Israel, the Saudi dictatorship
and so on. Above all, I worry that 9/11 trutherism makes it open season for the real enemies
-- the US foreign policy establishment, et cetera -- to portray the resistance to them and
their agenda as a bunch of tin foil hat wearing fruitcakes. I feel strongly that the left
needs to jettison this in-group, conspiracy theory-type stuff really become a major force and
overturn the status quo.
People like you must count as a great success for the obedience training that keeps
capitalist society running smoothly, with the few dissidents casually dismissed as "a bunch
of tin foil hat wearing fruitcakes".
Even NIST eventually admitted that WTC-7 free-fell for 2.5 seconds. That can only happen
if all the support columns fail at exactly the same time; otherwise it would topple over
sideways. Only controlled explosives can make that happen.
Your touching faith in the word of ruling-class "experts", over the evidence of your own
eyes, and basic physics, is a credit to the Middle Ages. It would warm the hearts of the
Catholic theologians who refused to look through Galileo's telescope because they knew, as a
matter of revealed truth, that what he said couldn't possibly be true.
What do the claims of a bunch of tinfoil-hat-wearing fruitcakes count for, against not
just ruling class dogma, but the entire weight of respectable middle-class opinion? The
social status and careers of millions of right-thinking professionals, like you, depend on
believing, or at least pretending to believe, not just the 9/11 Official Story, but all the
other Official Stories as well. How could all those comfy middle-class people, with their
comfy middle-class careers and high-status friends, be wrong? That would throw the entire
plan for next weekend's dinner party into question.
Do you believe the Offical Skripal Story? The Official ISIS story? The Official Syrian
Chemical Weapons Story? The Official JFK Assassination Story? The Official USS Liberty Story?
The Official Tonkin Gulf Story? How do you decide which Official Stories to believe, except
on the basis of careerism and status-seeking?
Again, I am not interested in getting drawn into a back-and-forth about the various claims of
9/11 truthers like yourself. I would just like to make one comment and then leave two things
for yourself and other truthers on here to consider.
First, I would like to comment upon the fact that I have been subjected to some rather
nasty personalized abuse on this thread simply for challenging the claims of trutherism. I'm
not pointing this out to feel aggrieved or to search for sympathy or to make myself out as
some kind of victim. Rather I do so to illustrate how it is indicative of the negative and
mind-closing effects of the group-think and the conspiracy theorist mind-set. It goes
something like this: "everyone who questions the tenets of the great truther theory is the
enemy, not just a skeptic but rather a collaborator in the evil system that suppresses the
"truth"."
The people it discusses were truthers and many of them reexamined their beliefs after
being confronted by actual specialists on the subjects basing their truther beliefs on. If
you are open-minded as you claim to be, then have the decency to at least read the article
and consider its points, rather than just reflexively rejecting the source as part of the
great cover-up.
Finally, I would like to leave you with a quote from Noam Chomsky. Now, I am well aware
that you think Chomsky is a sell-out for not getting on board with trutherism and that you
have all kinds of fancy come-backs as to why he is wrong. But he raises a very important
issue of priorities for people on the anti-imperialist left to consider. Is this obsession
with this issue really helping us to fight against imperialism and all of the other
iniquities of the world? I think not:
"One of the major consequences of the 9/11 movement has been to draw enormous amounts of
energy and effort away from activism directed to real and ongoing crimes of state, and their
institutional background, crimes that are far more serious than blowing up the WTC would be,
if there were any credibility to that thesis. That is, I suspect, why the 9/11 movement is
treated far more tolerantly by centers of power than is the norm for serious critical and
activist work." Noam Chomsky
Ah "truther", that neologism which serves the same purpose as the recasting of the term
"conspiracy" to designate foolishness, gullibilty etc.
And as for Chomsky, well here's what he had to say about the 9/11 "inside job" theory:
"And even if it were true, which is extremely unlikely, who cares? It doesn't have any
significance. It's a little bit like the huge energy that's put out on trying to figure out
who killed John Kennedy. Who knows? Who cares? Plenty of people get killed all the time, why
does it matter that one of them happened to be John F. Kennedy?"
Let's just consider that for a moment. Chomsky is considering the possibilty -- however
remote in his view -- that 9/11 may indeed have been an inside job. And he's saying it
doesn't have any significance that the US goverment carried out an attack on its own
population! It doesn't have any significance that the "war on terror" was launched on the
basis of a lie!
This is the moment when Chomsky truly stood revealed. He was like the kid with his hand in
the cookie jar who instantly concocts any number of excuses all of which contradict each
other. And yet even when caught out like this, he has his supporters who say he "dispels 9/11
theories with sheer logic"!
That's the one. I mean – who knows and who cares? It's not as if a terrorist attack on
mainland America that altered the face of New York and launched a war across the world is
actually important.
Well, I think the fact that Noam Chomsky has said this demonstrates how few people accept
these 9/11 truther ideas -- even amongst people who generally agree with your (and my) kind
of politics. George Galloway, who like Chomsky is about as far politically from the neocons
as you can get, has also spoken very eloquently against trutherism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A5ToK6g0m8
Ironically, the only remotely public figure who does that I've heard mentioned on this
thread is some Reaganite crank that I had never heard of until now. That really does not bode
well for you, does it?
And having now listened to Mr Galloway and once again having to put up with his portentous
stretching out ..of the ..sentence to -- quite frankly pad the time out, I see that his
"points" come down to the following:
Two planes flew into the twin towers. Yes -- there's no disputing that one.
GW Bush could not possibly have planned the thing himself. Yes again -- no dispute. At
this point I must express my gratitude to Reagan for finally proving that the guy in front is
just a puppet.
If the US did it themselves and it "got out" it would be the end of America's credibility.
Yes indeed. Which is why, all across the mainstream press, it will only ever be presented as
a "nutty conspiracy theory"
Galloway: "I saw, myself, the airplanes hitting the twin towers."
-- which is supposed to constitute proof of the official
Evil-Terrorists-In-A-Cave-In-Afghanistan story.
attention, "flaxgirl": your grand unified theory of 9/11 now needs to incorporate George
Galloway as a fake witness for the US government, which seems strange, given his decades of
opposition, both before and after, to the imperial warfare for which 9/11 served as a
pretext.
The political function of the No-Planes-At-WTC claims could not be more clear; it's so
that people who dispute other aspects of the Official Story can all be dismissed as deranged
idiots.
But Peter you need to look at the evidence for yourself and not take others' word for it. And
be guided by those who know how buildings collapse -- Chomsky certainly doesn't.
This is a wonderful tutorial by Richard Gage, founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11
Truth.
The story of 9/11 is utterly preposterous. The only reason people believe it is to do with
psychology of how we relate to power nothing to do with the actuality of the story -- because
it's utterly ludicrous.
Wut? " less violent ones like England, the US or France " From here on it just gets worse
until Chomsky has no credible position left to argue from.
Heightened sense of cognitive dissonance by old Noam.
' even if it were true, which is extremely unlikely, then who cares? It doesn't have any
significance."
Wow, for someone with such intellect this is some low-level thinking. I almost feel sorry
for Chomsky for holding such an immoral position. Would he feel the same way if his wife was
murdered? "Ah, there's other things to worry about, anything else is a diversion of energy."
Very sad.
Where basic physics is concerned we should not speak of theory. The only possible explanation
for the collapse of the buildings is controlled demolition. There is no doubt whatsoever that
9/11 was an inside conspiracy. There is also no doubt that death and injury were staged
– at least, there is zero evidence of its reality in the visual record and one would
think that for the 3,000 dead and 6,000 injured claimed there would be at least one piece of
evidence for their reality, rather than every piece (anomalously small in number) in the
visual record perfectly fitting "staged". Not to mention other anomalies unrelated to the
visual record and that actual killing and injuring of people by the perpetrators would take a
highly-problematic form in the shape of a great number of loved ones (as opposed to the tiny
number presented) and the injured themselves when controlled demolition was so obvious.
When you say that there is no doubt whatsoever that 9/11 was an inside conspiracy, I feel you
are being overconfident unless what you are saying is that there is some evidence that some
figures at the World Trade Centres seemed to have foreknowledge.
Frankly, although we all have our theories as to who was responsible, I remain in full
agreement with Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth who state simply that the official
account conflicts with physics. All else is suspicion and supposition. It may well be well
grounded supposition, but until we discover who planned and executed the event and who
definitely had foreknowledge, what we are dealing with is speculation.
The problem with that is that the great many people who refuse to believe anything other
than the official account of 9/11 dismiss our views as those of cranks
The buildings came down by controlled demolition. The evidence for that is
incontrovertible and the rationale presented by NIST for fire being the cause is demonstrably
not based on a skerrick of evidence and is obviously fraudulent and false. There is not a
single reason to suspect that the cause of collapse of all the buildings wasn't controlled
demolition. If you believe there is a single reason to suspect another cause can you please
provide it.
Since waking up to 9/11, I find that people either decide something is something with too
little evidence or refrain from deciding on what something is when the evidence is so
overwhelming you're practically drowning in it. Being conservative in judgement in the face
of overwhelming evidence is no virtue in my opinion.
I have engaged in conversation with Mick West who runs the metabunk.org website that
allegedly debunks all the conspiracy theories. We have gone back and forth a number of times
over the cause of WTC-7's collapse and I have invited him to respond to an Occam's Razor
challenge to provide 10 points that favour "fire" over "controlled demolition". He did not
respond to the challenge, nor could he provide a single point that favours fire over
controlled demolition. Not a single point -- didn't change his mind though. https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/5000-challenge.html
Nor has anyone responded to my other Occam's Razor challenges. I judge when I see that
there is a reasonable amount of evidence and that evidence points all one way and there is no
evidence pointing any other way. If you disagree with this method fair enough.
And just to add, that, of course, it must be an inside job in the case of controlled
demolition. As Graeme MacQueen says, there is no room in the official story for controlled
demolition.
The big secret is though that death and injury were staged. That's the real secret.
It was a totally excellent piece. No reservations.
"Theory"? Are you serious? If you believe that 9/11 was the work of 19 barely-trained
terrorists (one of whom cried when asked to do steep turns and stalls according to his
alleged flying instructor but was tasked with the most impossibly-expert manoeuvre of doing a
330 degree turn into the Pentagon), armed with boxcutters who managed to hijack 4 planes,
navigate them into 3 iconic buildings without being molested by a single fighter interceptor
through the most defended airspace on earth, which subsequently caused the 10-second
collapses (displaying all the characteristics of controlled demolition and none of
fire-caused collapses) of three high-rise steel frame buildings, here's a $5,000 challenge
for you. All you have to do is provide 10 points that support the "fire" hypothesis over the
"controlled demolition" hypothesis for the collapse of WTC-7 and you can choose your own
structural engineer to validate your points. There's so very much material on the collapse it
shouldn't be very difficult. In fact, all you have to do is come up with one point to support
WTC-7's collapse by fire and I'll give you $5,000. One point -- validated by a structural
engineer of your choice. https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/5000-challenge.html
9/11 is probably the biggest hoax in history and includes the very clever subhoax of 3,000
dead and 6,000 injured. Not only was it a hoax but they did not aim for realism in any shape
or form and gave us extra clues in addition to their preposterous
against-physical-and-administrative-reality story.
This is what Paul Craig Roberts, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy, who has
had careers in scholarship and academia, journalism, public service, and business, has to say
about 9/11. https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/pages/about-paul-craig-roberts/
According to the official story, on September 11, 2001, the vaunted National Security
State of the World's Only Superpower was defeated by a few young Saudi Arabians armed only
with box cutters. The American National Security State proved to be totally helpless and was
dealt the greatest humiliation ever inflicted on any country claiming to be a power.
That day no aspect of the National Security State worked. Everything failed.
The US Air Force for the first time in its history could not get intercepter jet fighters
into the air.
The National Security Council failed.
All sixteen US intelligence agencies failed as did those of America's NATO and Israeli
allies.
Air Traffic Control failed.
Airport Security failed four times at the same moment on the same day. The probability of
such a failure is zero.
If such a thing had actually happened, there would have been demands from the White House,
from Congress, and from the media for an investigation. Officials would have been held
accountable for their failures. Heads would have rolled.
Instead, the White House resisted for one year the 9/11 families' demands for an
investigation. Finally, a collection of politicians was assembled to listen to the
government's account and to write it down. The chairman, vice chairman, and legal counsel of
the 9/11 Commission have said that information was withheld from the commission, lies were
told to the commission, and that the commission "was set up to fail." The worst security
failure in history resulted in not a single firing. No one was held responsible.
Washington concluded that 9/11 was possible because America lacked a police state.
The PATRIOT Act, which was awaiting the event was quickly passed by the congressional idiots.
The Act established executive branch independence of law and the Constitution. The Act and
follow-up measures have institutionalized a police state in "the land of the free."
Osama bin Laden, a CIA asset dying of renal failure, was blamed despite his explicit
denial. For the next ten years Osama bin Laden was the bogyman that provided the excuse for
Washington to kill countless numbers of Muslims. Then suddenly on May 2, 2011, Obama claimed
that US Navy SEALs had killed bin Laden in Pakistan. Eyewitnesses on the scene contradicted
the White House's story. Osama bin Laden became the only human in history to survive renal
failure for ten years. There was no dialysis machine in what was said to be bin Laden's
hideaway. The numerous obituaries of bin Laden's death in December 2001 went down the memory
hole. And the SEAL team died a few weeks later in a mysterious helicopter crash in
Afghanistan. The thousands of sailors on the aircraft carrier from which bin Laden was said
to have been dumped into the Indian Ocean wrote home that no such burial took place.
The fairy tale story of bin Laden's murder by Seal Team Six served to end the challenge by
disappointed Democrats to Obama's nomination for a second term. It also freed the "war on
terror" from the bin Laden constraint. Washington wanted to attack Libya, Syria, and Iran,
countries in which bin Laden was known not to have organizations, and the succession of faked
bin Laden videos, in which bin Laden grew progressively younger as the fake bin Laden claimed
credit for each successive attack, had lost credibility among experts.
Watching the twin towers and WTC 7 come down, it was obvious to me that the buildings were
not falling down as a result of structural damage. When it became clear that the White House
had blocked an independent investigation of the only three steel skyscrapers in world history
to collapse as a result of low temperature office fires, it was apparent that there was a
coverup.
After 13 years people at home and abroad find the government's story less believable.
The case made by independent experts is now so compelling that mainstream media has opened to
it. Here is Richard Gage of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth on C-SPAN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zbv2SvBEec#t=23
"... It is also a nice illustration of how "Westminster Style" democracy works. Any chance that the electorate might elect a left wing government and you get a Zinoviev letter or a Bologna railway station bombing. ..."
"... In other words "Elect whom you like". ("Provided we like them too!") It's really a bit like herding sheep. ..."
The documents reveal him as Alexis Bellegarde, one of four White Russian aristocrats believed
to have been behind an infamous forgery 15 years before the war began. The revelations of Bellegarde's
importance to MI6 will increase suspicions that British agents had a hand in the production of the
"Zinoviev letter"; its leak to the Daily Mail many believe cost Labour the 1924 general election.
foolisholdman -> Brian Milne 11 Oct 2015 05:55
Brian Milne
It is also a nice illustration of how "Westminster Style" democracy works. Any chance that
the electorate might elect a left wing government and you get a Zinoviev letter or a Bologna railway
station bombing.
In other words "Elect whom you like". ("Provided we like them too!") It's really a bit
like herding sheep.
AlbertTatlock53 -> LordUpminster 11 Oct 2015 08:35
Despite the blandness of the OH volumes on Ultra, some facts did leak out, like having a month's
notice of the Italian declaration of war and useful tactical and operational details like the
positions of wolf packs. It also reminded me of a couple of anecdotes about Ultra information
by unwitting sources in memoirs. I wouldn't deprecate Ultra or the British war effort that far.
The British army that went to Normandy was the most mechanised and armoured army in history and
pulled rather more than its own weight in the coalition. The principal offensive weapon of the
British empire was Bomber Command, which in the spring-summer of 1943 began to devastate the German
war economy.
The Soviet and then the US contributions to the war dwarfed the British empire but only relatively,
it was still a superpower in 1945, though by the Suez crime it had become a wholly-owned subsidiary
of Murder Inc.
LordUpminster ID7678903 11 Oct 2015 04:04
And no doubt the establishment will continue to play such dirty tricks to undermine our
so called democracy
Not the slightest: according to our friend jamesforysthe below that's essentially what they're
for.
Re. the Zinoviev letter, I did see one theory many years ago that the man behind it was the
then-Polish Army Minister Władysław Sikorski, the one who later headed the Polish exile government
in London and was killed in an air crash. Certainly in October 1924 he was bragging to people
in governmental circles in Warsaw that it was his agents who had arranged it - though why exactly
is not easy to see, given that Poland had no particular political interest in Britain at the time.
I suspect that it was empty boasting, and that it was Russian emigrés who were responsible.
Coming up soon: conclusive proof that Jeremy Corbyn was once an agent of the Tsarist Okhrana.
Brian Milne 11 Oct 2015 04:00
Had Labour won, thus Baldwin, MacDonald, Baldwin, Chamberlain probably not have been the course
of politics, would the UK necessarily have moved further left? The question remains to be seen,
but unless somebody more genuinely socialist had replaced MacDonald probably not. However, the
outcome may well have been a far more amicable relationship with the Soviet Union, the Versailles
Treaty and League of Nations possibly better conformed to and the rise of Hitler less likely.
The Zinoviev letter may well have been as much a contributory denominator in that than is implied.
Of course, we hall never know really, only historians expounding their own theories and interpretations
of history.
samuel glover -> jamesforsythe 11 Oct 2015 01:43
"Some brilliant espionage across the Middle-east and Israel is precisely what's needed
to bring these politically infantile areas into western like democratic administrations, this
century, not next. And with fewer wars. "
First, you think western intelligence agencies **haven't** been prominent in the history of
that region?!?!?
Second, you think these same agencies are capable of just whipping up entire social and political
structures and cultures on demand? Do you read newspapers?
Remember that these agencies -- in America, in Britain, in every NATO country -- spent decades
and billions of dollars and billions of man-hours staring obsessively at the USSR. EVERY ONE of
them was completely blindsided when the Soviet Union folded up.
error418 -> jamesforsythe 10 Oct 2015 23:21
"Our" best interests or that intelligence service´s best interests? ISI in Pakistan is a good
example of such a service gone rogue. Experts in election rigging.
Frisco27 10 Oct 2015 19:06
"Sexing up" documents? What a scumbag... That would never happen these days.
"... Stocks have always been "a legal form of gambling". What is happening now however, is that a pair of treys can beat out your straight flush. Companies that have never turned a profit fetch huge prices on the stock market. ..."
"... The stock market suckered millions in before 2008 and then prices plummeted. Where did the money from grandpa's pension fund go? ..."
"... Abraham Lincoln said that the purpose of government is to do for people what they cannot do for themselves. Government also should serve to keep people from hurting themselves and to restrain man's greed, which otherwise cannot be self-controlled. Anyone who seeks to own productive power that they cannot or won't use for consumption are beggaring their neighbor––the equivalency of mass murder––the impact of concentrated capital ownership. ..."
"... family wealth" predicts outcomes for 10 to 15 generations. Those with extreme wealth owe it to events going back "300 to 450" years ago, according to research published by the New Republic – an era when it wasn't unusual for white Americans to benefit from an economy dependent upon widespread, unpaid black labor in the form of slavery. ..."
"... Correction: The average person in poverty in the U.S. does not live in the same abject, third world poverty as you might find in Honduras, Central African Republic, Cambodia, or the barrios of Sao Paulo. ..."
"... Since our poor don't live in abject poverty, I invite you to live as a family of four on less than $11,000 a year anywhere in the United States. If you qualify and can obtain subsidized housing you may have some of the accoutrements in your home that you seem to equate with living the high life. You know, running water, a fridge, a toilet, a stove. You would also likely have a phone (subsidized at that) so you might be able to participate (or attempt to participate) in the job market in an honest attempt to better your family's economic prospects and as is required to qualify for most assistance programs. ..."
"... So many dutiful neoliberals on here rushing to the defense of poor Capitalism. Clearly, these commentators are among those who are in the privileged position of reaping the true benefits of Capitalism - And, of course, there are many benefits to reap if you are lucky enough to be born into the right racial-socioeconomic context. ..."
"... Please walk us through how non-capitalist systems create wealth and allow their lowest class people propel themselves to the top in one generation. You will note that most socialist systems derive their technology and advancements from the more capitalistic systems. Pharmaceuticals, software, and robotics are a great example of this. I shutter to think of what the welfare of the average citizen of the world would be like without the advancements made via the capitalist countries. ..."
The poorest Americans have no realistic hope of achieving anything that approaches income equality. They still struggle
for access to the basics
... ... ...
The disparities in wealth that we term "income inequality" are no accident, and they can't be fixed by fiddling at the edges of
our current economic system. These disparities happened by design, and the system structurally disadvantages those at the bottom.
The poorest Americans have no realistic hope of achieving anything that approaches income equality; even their very chances for access
to the most basic tools of life are almost nil.
... ... ...
Too often, the answer by those who have hoarded everything is they will choose to "give back" in a manner of their choosing –
just look at Mark Zuckerberg and his much-derided plan to "give away" 99% of his Facebook stock. He is unlikely to help change inequality
or poverty any more than "giving away" of $100m helped children in Newark schools.
Allowing any of the 100 richest Americans to choose how they fix "income inequality" will not make the country more equal or even
guarantee more access to life. You can't take down the master's house with the master's tools, even when you're the master; but more
to the point, who would tear down his own house to distribute the bricks among so very many others?
mkenney63 5 Dec 2015 20:37
Excellent article. The problems we face are structural and can only be solved by making fundamental changes. We must bring
an end to "Citizens United", modern day "Jim Crow" and the military industrial complex in order to restore our democracy. Then
maybe, just maybe, we can have an economic system that will treat all with fairness and respect. Crony capitalism has had its
day, it has mutated into criminality.
Kencathedrus -> Marcedward 5 Dec 2015 20:23
In the pre-capitalist system people learnt crafts to keep themselves afloat. The Industrial Revolution changed all that. Now
we have the church of Education promising a better life if we get into debt to buy (sorry, earn) degrees.
The whole system is messed up and now we have millions of people on this planet who can't function even those with degrees.
Barbarians are howling at the gates of Europe. The USA is rotting from within. As Marx predicted the Capitalists are merely paying
their own grave diggers.
mkenney63 -> Bobishere 5 Dec 2015 20:17
I would suggest you read the economic and political history of the past 30 years. To help you in your study let me recommend
a couple of recent books: "Winner Take all Politics" by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson and "The Age of Acquiescence" by Steve Fraser.
It always amazes me that one can be so blind the facts of recent American history; it's not just "a statistical inequality", it's
been a well thought-out strategy over time to rig the system, a strategy engaged in by politicians and capitalists. Shine some
light on this issue by acquainting yourself with the facts.
Maharaja Brovinda -> Singh Jill Harrison 5 Dec 2015 19:42
We play out the prisoner's dilemma in life, in general, over and over in different circumstances, every day. And we always
choose the dominant - rational - solution. But the best solution is not based on rationality, but rather on trust and faith in
each other - rather ironically for our current, evidence based society!
Steven Palmer 5 Dec 2015 19:19
Like crack addicts the philanthropricks only seek to extend their individual glory, social image their primary goal, and yet
given the context they will burn in history. Philanthroptits should at least offset the immeasurable damage they have done through
their medieval wealth accumulation. Collaborative philanthropy for basic income is a good idea, but ye, masters tools.
BlairM -> Iconoclastick 5 Dec 2015 19:10
Well, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, capitalism is the worst possible economic system, except for all those other economic
systems that have been tried from time to time.
I'd rather just have the freedom to earn money as I please, and if that means inequality, it's a small price to pay for not
having some feudal lord or some party bureaucrat stomping on my humanity.
brusuz 5 Dec 2015 18:52
As long as wealth can be created by shuffling money from one place to another in the giant crap shoot we call our economy,
nothing will change. Until something takes place to make it advantageous for the investor capitalists to put that money to work
doing something that actually produces some benefit to the society as a whole, they will continue their extractive machinations.
I see nothing on the horizon that is going to change any of that, and to cast this as some sort of a racial issue is quite superficial.
We have all gotten the shaft, since there is no upward mobility available to anyone. Since the Bush crowd of neocons took power,
we have all been shackled with "individual solutions to societal created problems."
Jimi Del Duca 5 Dec 2015 18:31
Friends, Capitalism is structural exploitation of ALL WORKERS. Thinking about it as solely a race issue is divisive. What we
need is CLASS SOLIDARITY and ORGANIZATION. See iww.org We are the fighting union with no use for capitalists!
slightlynumb -> AmyInNH 5 Dec 2015 18:04
You'd be better off reading Marx if you want to understand capitalism. I think you are ascribing the word to what you think
it should be rather than what it is.
It is essentially a class structure rather than any defined economic system. Neoliberal is essentially laissez faire capitalism.
It is designed to suborn nation states to corporate benefit.
AmyInNH -> tommydog
They make $40 a month. Working 7 days a week. At least 12 hour days. Who's fed you that "we're doing them a favor" BS?
And I've news for you regarding "Those whose skills are less adaptable to doing so are seeing their earnings decline." We have
many people who have 3 masters degrees making less than minimum wage. We have top notch STEM students shunned so corporations
can hire captive/cheaper foreign labor, called H1-Bs, who then wait 10 years working for them waiting for their employment based
green card. Or "visiting" students here on J1 visas, so the employers can get out of paying: social security, federal unemployment
insurance, etc.
Wake up and smell the coffee tommydog. They've more than a thumb on the scale.
I am a socialist. I decided to read this piece to see if Mr. Thrasher could write about market savagery without propounding the
fiction that whites are somehow exempt from the effects of it.
No, he could not. I clicked on the link accompanying his assertion
that whites who are high school dropouts earn more than blacks with college degrees, and I read the linked piece in full. The
linked piece does not in fact compare income (i.e., yearly earnings) of white high school dropouts with those of black college
graduates, but it does compare family wealth across racial cohorts (though not educational ones), and the gap there is indeed
stark, with average white family wealth in the six figures (full disclosure, I am white, and my personal wealth is below zero,
as I owe more in student loans than I own, so perhaps I am not really white, or I do not fully partake of "whiteness," or whatever),
and average black family wealth in the four figures.
The reason for this likely has a lot to do with home ownership disparities, which in turn are linked in significant part to
racist redlining practices. So white dropouts often live in homes their parents or grandparents bought, while many black college
graduates whose parents were locked out of home ownership by institutional racism and, possibly, the withering of manufacturing
jobs just as the northward migration was beginning to bear some economic fruit for black families, are still struggling to become
homeowners. Thus, the higher average wealth for the dropout who lives in a family owned home.
But this is not what Mr. Thrasher wrote. He specifically used the words "earn more," creating the impression that some white
ignoramus is simply going to stumble his way into a higher salary than a cultivated, college educated black person. That is simply
not the case, and the difference does matter.
Why does it matter? Because I regularly see middle aged whites who are broken and homeless on the streets of the town where
I live, and I know they are simply the tip of a growing mountain of privation. Yeah, go ahead, call it white tears if you want,
but if you cannot see that millions (including, of course, not simply folks who are out and out homeless, but folks who are struggling
to get enough to eat and routinely go without needed medication and medical care) of people who have "white privilege" are indeed
oppressed by global capitalism then I would say that you are, at the end of the day, NO BETTER THAN THE WHITES YOU DISDAIN.
If you have read this far, then you realize that I am in no way denying the reality of structural racism. But an account of
economic savagery that entirely subsumes it into non-economic categories (race, gender, age), that refuses to acknowledge that
blacks can be exploiters and whites can be exploited, is simply conservatism by other means. One gets the sense that if we have
enough black millionaires and enough whites dying of things like a lack of medical care, then this might bring just a little bit
of warmth to the hearts of people like Mr. Thrasher.
Call it what you want, but don't call it progressive. Maybe it is historical karma. Which is understandable, as there is no
reason why globally privileged blacks in places like the U.S. or Great Britain should bear the burden of being any more selfless
or humane than globally privileged whites are or have been. The Steven Thrashers of humanity are certainly no worse than many
of the whites they cannot seem to recognize as fully human are.
But nor are they any better.
JohnLG 5 Dec 2015 17:23
I agree that the term "income inequality" is so vague that falls between useless and diversionary, but so too is most use of
the word "capitalism", or so it seems to me. Typically missing is a penetrating analysis of where the problem lies, a comprehensibly
supported remedy, or large-scale examples of anything except what's not working. "Income inequality" is pretty abstract until
we look specifically at the consequences for individuals and society, and take a comprehensive look at all that is unequal. What
does "capitalism" mean? Is capitalism the root of all this? Is capitalism any activity undertaken for profit, or substantial monopolization
of markets and power?
Power tends to corrupt. Money is a form of power, but there are others. The use of power to essentially cheat, oppress or kill
others is corrupt, whether that power is in the form of a weapon, wealth, the powers of the state, or all of the above. Power
is seductive and addictive. Even those with good intensions can be corrupted by an excess of power and insufficient accountability,
while predators are drawn to power like sharks to blood. Democracy involves dispersion of power, ideally throughout a whole society.
A constitutional democracy may offer protection even to minorities against a "tyranny of the majority" so long as a love of justice
prevails. Selective "liberty and justice" is not liberty and justice at all, but rather a tyranny of the many against the few,
as in racism, or of the few against the many, as by despots. Both forms reinforce each other in the same society, both are corrupt,
and any "ism" can be corrupted by narcissism. To what degree is any society a shining example of government of, for, and by the
people, and to what degree can one discover empirical evidence of corruption? What do we do about it?
AmyInNH -> CaptainGrey 5 Dec 2015 17:15
You're too funny. It's not "lifting billions out of poverty". It's moving malicious manufacturing practices to the other side
of the planet. To the lands of no labor laws. To hide it from consumers. To hide profits.
And it is dying. Legislatively they choke off their natural competition, which is an essential element of capitalism. Monopoly
isn't capitalism. And when they bribe legislators, we don't have democracy any more either.
Jeremiah2000 -> Teresa Trujillo 5 Dec 2015 16:53
Stocks have always been "a legal form of gambling". What is happening now however, is that a pair of treys can beat out
your straight flush. Companies that have never turned a profit fetch huge prices on the stock market.
The stock market suckered millions in before 2008 and then prices plummeted. Where did the money from grandpa's pension
fund go?
Gary Reber 5 Dec 2015 16:45
Abraham Lincoln said that the purpose of government is to do for people what they cannot do for themselves. Government
also should serve to keep people from hurting themselves and to restrain man's greed, which otherwise cannot be self-controlled.
Anyone who seeks to own productive power that they cannot or won't use for consumption are beggaring their neighbor––the equivalency
of mass murder––the impact of concentrated capital ownership.
The words "OWN" and "ASSETS" are the key descriptors of the definition of wealth. But these words are not well understood by
the vast majority of Americans or for that matter, global citizens. They are limited to the vocabulary used by the wealthy ownership
class and financial publications, which are not widely read, and not even taught in our colleges and universities.
The wealthy ownership class did not become wealthy because they are "three times as smart." Still there is a valid argument
that the vast majority of Americans do not pay particular attention to the financial world and educate themselves on wealth building
within the current system's limited past-savings paradigm. Significantly, the wealthy OWNERSHIP class use their political power
(power always follows property OWNERSHIP) to write the system rules to benefit and enhance their wealth. As such they have benefited
from forging trade policy agreements which further concentrate OWNERSHIP on a global scale, military-industrial complex subsidies
and government contracts, tax code provisions and loopholes and collective-bargaining rules – policy changes they've used their
wealth to champion.
Gary Reber 5 Dec 2015 16:44
Unfortunately, when it comes to recommendations for solutions to economic inequality, virtually every commentator, politician
and economist is stuck in viewing the world in one factor terms – human labor, in spite of their implied understanding that the
rich are rich because they OWN the non-human means of production – physical capital. The proposed variety of wealth-building programs,
like "universal savings accounts that might be subsidized for low-income savers," are not practical solutions because they rely
on savings (a denial of consumption which lessens demand in the economy), which the vast majority of Americans do not have, and
for those who can save their savings are modest and insignificant. Though, millions of Americans own diluted stock value through
the "stock market exchanges," purchased with their earnings as labor workers (savings), their stock holdings are relatively minuscule,
as are their dividend payments compared to the top 10 percent of capital owners. Pew Research found that 53 percent of Americans
own no stock at all, and out of the 47 percent who do, the richest 5 percent own two-thirds of that stock. And only 10 percent
of Americans have pensions, so stock market gains or losses don't affect the incomes of most retirees.
As for taxpayer-supported saving subsidies or other wage-boosting measures, those who have only their labor power and its precarious
value held up by coercive rigging and who desperately need capital ownership to enable them to be capital workers (their productive
assets applied in the economy) as well as labor workers to have a way to earn more income, cannot satisfy their unsatisfied needs
and wants and sufficiently provide for themselves and their families. With only access to labor wages, the 99 percenters will
continue, in desperation, to demand more and more pay for the same or less work, as their input is exponentially replaced by productive
capital.
As such, the vast majority of American consumers will continue to be strapped to mounting consumer debt bills, stagnant wages
and inflationary price pressures. As their ONLY source of income is through wage employment, economic insecurity for the 99 percent
majority of people means they cannot survive more than a week or two without a paycheck. Thus, the production side of the economy
is under-nourished and hobbled as a result, because there are fewer and fewer "customers with money." We thus need to free economic
growth from the slavery of past savings.
I mentioned that political power follows property OWNERSHIP because with concentrated capital asset OWNERSHIP our elected representatives
are far too often bought with the expectation that they protect and enhance the interests of the wealthiest Americans, the OWNERSHIP
class they too overwhelmingly belong to.
Many, including the author of this article, have concluded that with such a concentrated OWNERSHIP stronghold the wealthy have
on our politics, "it's hard to see where this cycle ends." The ONLY way to reverse this cycle and broaden capital asset OWNERSHIP
universally is a political revolution. (Bernie Sanders, are you listening?)
The political revolution must address the problem of lack of demand. To create demand, the FUTURE economy must be financed
in ways that create new capital OWNERS, who will benefit from the full earnings of the FUTURE productive capability of the American
economy, and without taking from those who already OWN. This means significantly slowing the further concentration of capital
asset wealth among those who are already wealthy and ensuring that the system is reformed to promote inclusive prosperity, inclusive
opportunity, and inclusive economic justice.
yamialwaysright 5 Dec 2015 16:13
I was interested and in agreement until I read about structured racism. Many black kidsin the US grow up without a father in
the house. They turn to anti-social behaviour and crime. Once you are poor it is hard to get out of being poor but Journalists
are not doing justice to a critique of US Society if they ignore the fact that some people behave in a self-destructive way. I
would imagine that if some black men in the US and the UK stuck with one woman and played a positive role in the life of their
kids, those kids would have a better chance at life. People of different racial and ethnic origin do this also but there does
seem to be a disproportionate problem with some black US men and some black UK men. Poverty is one problem but growing up in poverty
and without a father figure adds to the problem.
What the author writes applies to other countries not just the US in relation to the super wealthy being a small proportion
of the population yet having the same wealth as a high percentage of the population. This in not a black or latino issue but a
wealth distribution issue that affects everyone irrespective of race or ethnic origin. The top 1%, 5% or 10% having most of the
wealth is well-known in many countries.
nuthermerican4u 5 Dec 2015 15:59
Capitalism, especially the current vulture capitalism, is dog eat dog. Always was, always will be. My advice is that if you
are a capitalist that values your heirs, invest in getting off this soon-to-be slag heap and find other planets to pillage and
rape. Either go all out for capitalism or reign in this beast before it kills all of us.
soundofthesuburbs 5 Dec 2015 15:32
Our antiquated class structure demonstrates the trickle up of Capitalism and the need to counterbalance it with progressive
taxation.
In the 1960s/1970s we used high taxes on the wealthy to counter balance the trickle up of Capitalism and achieved much greater
equality.
Today we have low taxes on the wealthy and Capitalism's trickle up is widening the inequality gap.
We are cutting benefits for the disabled, poor and elderly so inequality can get wider and the idle rich can remain idle.
They have issued enough propaganda to make people think it's those at the bottom that don't work.
Every society since the dawn of civilization has had a Leisure Class at the top, in the UK we call them the Aristocracy and
they have been doing nothing for centuries.
The UK's aristocracy has seen social systems come and go, but they all provide a life of luxury and leisure and with someone
else doing all the work.
Feudalism - exploit the masses through land ownership
Capitalism - exploit the masses through wealth (Capital)
Today this is done through the parasitic, rentier trickle up of Capitalism:
a) Those with excess capital invest it and collect interest, dividends and rent.
b) Those with insufficient capital borrow money and pay interest and rent.
The system itself provides for the idle rich and always has done from the first civilisations right up to the 21st Century.
The rich taking from the poor is always built into the system, taxes and benefits are the counterbalance that needs to be applied
externally.
Iconoclastick 5 Dec 2015 15:31
I often chuckle when I read some of the right wing comments on articles such as this. Firstly, I question if readers actually
read the article references I've highlighted, before rushing to comment.
Secondly, the comments are generated by cifers who probably haven't set the world alight, haven't made a difference in their
local community, they'll have never created thousands of jobs in order to reward themselves with huge dividends having and as
a consequence enjoy spectacular asset/investment growth, at best they'll be chugging along, just about keeping their shit together
and yet they support a system that's broken, other than for the one percent, of the one percent.
A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies issued this week analyzed the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans
and found that "the wealthiest 100 households now own about as much wealth as the entire African American population in the
United States". That means that 100 families – most of whom are white – have as much wealth as the 41,000,000 black folks walking
around the country (and the million or so locked up) combined.
Similarly, the report also stated that "the wealthiest 186 members of the Forbes 400 own as much wealth as the entire Latino
population" of the nation. Here again, the breakdown in actual humans is broke down: 186 overwhelmingly white folks have more
money than that an astounding 55,000,000 Latino people.
family wealth" predicts outcomes for 10 to 15 generations. Those with extreme wealth owe it to events going back "300
to 450" years ago, according to research published by the New Republic – an era when it wasn't unusual for white Americans
to benefit from an economy dependent upon widespread, unpaid black labor in the form of slavery.
soundofthesuburbs -> soundofthesuburbs 5 Dec 2015 15:26
It is the 21st Century and most of the land in the UK is still owned by the descendants of feudal warlords that killed people
and stole their land and wealth.
When there is no land to build houses for generation rent, land ownership becomes an issue.
David Cameron is married into the aristocracy and George Osborne is a member of the aristocracy, they must both be well acquainted
with the Leisure Class.
I can't find any hard work going on looking at the Wikipedia page for David Cameron's father-in-law. His family have been on
their estate since the sixteenth century and judging by today's thinking, expect to be on it until the end of time.
George Osborne's aristocratic pedigree goes back to the Tudor era:
"he is an aristocrat with a pedigree stretching back to early in the Tudor era. His father, Sir Peter Osborne, is the
17th holder of a hereditary baronetcy that has been passed from father to son for 10 generations, and of which George is next
in line."
If we have people at the bottom who are not working the whole of civilisation will be turned on its head.
"The modern industrial society developed from the barbarian tribal society, which featured a leisure class supported
by subordinated working classes employed in economically productive occupations. The leisure class is composed of people exempted
from manual work and from practicing economically productive occupations, because they belong to the leisure class."
The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, by Thorstein Veblen. It was written a long time ago but
much of it is as true today as it was then. The Wikipedia entry gives a good insight.
DBChas 5 Dec 2015 15:13
"income inequality" is best viewed as structural capitalism. It's not as if, did black and brown people and female people somehow
(miraculously) attain the economic status of the lower-paid, white, male person, the problem would be solved--simply by adjusting
pay scales. The problem is inherent to capitalism, which doesn't mean certain "types" of people aren't more disadvantaged for
their "type." No one is saying that. For capitalists, it's easier to rationalize the obscene unfairness (only rich people say,
"life's not fair") when their "type" is regarded as superior to a different "type," whether that be with respect to color or gender
or both.
Over time--a long time--the dominant party (white males since the Dark Ages, also the life-span of capitalism coincidentally
enough) came to dominance by various means, too many to try to list, or even know of. Why white males? BTW, just because most
in power and in money are white males does not mean ALL white males are in positions of power and wealth. Most are not, and these
facts help to fog the issue.
Indeed, "income inequality," is not an accident, nor can it be fixed, as the author notes, by tweaking (presumably he means
capitalism). And he's quite right too in saying, "You can't take down the master's house with the master's tools..." I take that
ALSO to mean, the problem can't be fixed by way of what Hedges has called a collapsing liberal establishment with its various
institutions, officially speaking. That is, it's not institutional racism that's collapsing, but that institution is not officially
recognized as such.
HOWEVER, it IS possible, even when burdened with an economics that is capitalism, to redistribute wealth, and I don't just
mean Mark Zuckerberg's. I mean all wealth in whatever form can be redistributed if/when government decides it can. And THIS TIME,
unlike the 1950s-60s, not only would taxes on the wealthy be the same as then but the wealth redistributed would be redistributed
to ALL, not just to white families, and perhaps in particular to red families, the oft forgotten ones.
This is a matter of political will. But, of course, if that means whites as the largest voting block insist on electing to
office those without the political will, nothing will change. In that case, other means have to be considered, and just a reminder:
If the government fails to serve the people, the Constitution gives to the people the right to depose that government. But again,
if whites as the largest voting block AND as the largest sub-group in the nation (and women are the largest part of that block,
often voting as their men vote--just the facts, please, however unpleasant) have little interest in seeing to making necessary
changes at least in voting booths, then...what? Bolshevism or what? No one seems to know and it's practically taboo even to talk
about possibilities. Americans did it once, but not inclusively and not even paid in many instances. When it happens again, it
has to happen with and for the participation of ALL. And it's worth noting that it will have to happen again, because capitalism
by its very nature cannot survive itself. That is, as Marx rightly noted, capitalism will eventually collapse by dint of its internal
contradictions.
mbidding Jeremiah2000 5 Dec 2015 15:08
Correction: The average person in poverty in the U.S. does not live in the same abject, third world poverty as you might
find in Honduras, Central African Republic, Cambodia, or the barrios of Sao Paulo.
Since our poor don't live in abject poverty, I invite you to live as a family of four on less than $11,000 a year anywhere
in the United States. If you qualify and can obtain subsidized housing you may have some of the accoutrements in your home that
you seem to equate with living the high life. You know, running water, a fridge, a toilet, a stove. You would also likely have
a phone (subsidized at that) so you might be able to participate (or attempt to participate) in the job market in an honest attempt
to better your family's economic prospects and as is required to qualify for most assistance programs.
Consider as well that you don't have transportation to get a job that would improve your circumstances. You earn too much to
qualify for meaningful levels of food support programs and fall into the insurance gap for subsidies because you live in a state
that for ideological reasons refuses to expand Medicaid coverage. Your local schools are a disgrace but you can't take advantage
of so-called school choice programs (vouchers, charters, and the like) as you don't have transportation or the time (given your
employer's refusal to set fixed working hours for minimum wage part time work) to get your kids to that fine choice school.
You may have a fridge and a stove, but you have no food to cook. You may have access to running water and electricity, but
you can't afford to pay the bills for such on account of having to choose between putting food in that fridge or flushing that
toilet. You can't be there reliably for your kids to help with school, etc, because you work constantly shifting hours for crap
pay.
Get back to me after six months to a year after living in such circumstances and then tell me again how Americans don't really
live in poverty simply because they have access to appliances.
Earl Shelton 5 Dec 2015 15:08
The Earned Income Tax Credit seems to me a good starting point for reform. It has been around since the 70s -- conceived by
Nixon/Moynihan -- and signed by socialist (kidding) Gerald Ford -- it already *redistributes* income (don't choke on the term,
O'Reilly) directly from tax revenue (which is still largely progressive) to the working poor, with kids.
That program should be massively expanded to tax the 1% -- and especially the top 1/10 of 1% (including a wealth tax) -- and
distribute the money to the bottom half of society, mostly in the form of work training, child care and other things that help
put them in and keep them in the middle class. It is a mechanism already in existence to correct the worst ravages of Capitalism.
Use it to build shared prosperity.
oKWJNRo 5 Dec 2015 14:40
So many dutiful neoliberals on here rushing to the defense of poor Capitalism. Clearly, these commentators are among those
who are in the privileged position of reaping the true benefits of Capitalism - And, of course, there are many benefits to reap
if you are lucky enough to be born into the right racial-socioeconomic context.
We can probably all agree that Capitalism has brought about widespread improvements in healthcare, education, living conditions,
for example, compared to the feudal system that preceded it... But it also disproportionately benefits the upper echelons of Capitalist
societies and is wholly unequal by design.
Capitalism depends upon the existence of a large underclass that can be exploited. This is part of the process of how surplus
value is created and wealth is extracted from labour. This much is indisputable. It is therefore obvious that capitalism isn't
an ideal system for most of us living on this planet.
As for the improvements in healthcare, education, living conditions etc that Capitalism has fostered... Most of these were
won through long struggles against the Capitalist hegemony by the masses. We would have certainly chosen to make these improvements
to our landscape sooner if Capitalism hadn't made every effort to stop us. The problem today is that Capitalism and its powerful
beneficiaries have successfully convinced us that there is no possible alternative. It won't give us the chance to try or even
permit us to believe there could be another, better way.
Martin Joseph -> realdoge 5 Dec 2015 14:33
Please walk us through how non-capitalist systems create wealth and allow their lowest class people propel themselves to
the top in one generation. You will note that most socialist systems derive their technology and advancements from the more capitalistic
systems. Pharmaceuticals, software, and robotics are a great example of this.
I shutter to think of what the welfare of the average citizen of the world would be like without the advancements made via
the capitalist countries.
VWFeature 5 Dec 2015 14:29
Markets, economies and tax systems are created by people, and based on rules they agree on. Those rules can favor general prosperity
or concentration of wealth. Destruction and predation are easier than creation and cooperation, so our rules have to favor cooperation
if we want to avoid predation and destructive conflicts.
In the 1930's the US changed many of those rules to favor general prosperity. Since then they've been gradually changed to
favor wealth concentration and predation. They can be changed back.
The trick is creating a system that encourages innovation while putting a safety net under the population so failure doesn't
end in starvation.
A large part of our current problems is the natural tendency for large companies to get larger and larger until their failure
would adversely affect too many others, so they're not allowed to fail. Tax law, not antitrust law, has to work against this.
If a company can reduce its tax rate by breaking into 20 smaller (still huge) companies, then competition is preserved and no
one company can dominate and control markets.
Robert Goldschmidt -> Jake321 5 Dec 2015 14:27
Bernie Sanders has it right on -- we can only heal our system by first having millions rise up and demand an end to the corruption
of the corporations controlling our elected representatives. Corporations are not people and money is not speech.
moonwrap02 5 Dec 2015 14:26
The effects of wealth distribution has far reaching consequences. It is not just about money, but creating a fair society -
one that is co-operative and cohesive. The present system has allowed an ever divide between the rich and poor, creating a two
tier society where neither the twain shall meet. The rich and poor are almost different species on the planet and no longer belong
to the same community. Commonality of interest is lost and so it's difficult to form community and to have good, friendly relationships
across class differences that are that large.
"If capitalism is to be seen to be fair, the same rules are to apply to the big guy as to the little guy,"
Sorry. I get it now. You actually think that because the Washington elite has repealed Glass-Steagel that we live in a unregulated
capitalistic system.
This is so far from the truth that I wasn't comprehending that anyone could think that. You can see the graph of pages published
in the Federal Register here. Unregulated capitalism? Wow.
Dodd Frank was passed in 2010 (without a single Republican vote). Originally it was 2,300 pages. It is STILL being written
by nameless bureaucrats and is over 20,000 pages. Unregulated capitalism? Really?
But the reality is that Goliath is conspiring with the government to regulate what size sling David can use and how many stones
and how many ounces.
So we need more government regulations? They will disallow David from anything but spitwads and only two of those.
neuronmaker -> AmyInNH 5 Dec 2015 14:16
Do you understand the concept of corporations which are products of capitalism?
The legal institutions within each capitalist corporations and nations are just that, they are capitalist and all about making
profits.
The law is made by the rich capitalists and for the rich capitalists. Each Legislation is a link in the chain of economic slavery
by capitalists.
Capitalism and the concept of money is a construction of the human mind, as it does not exist in the natural world. This construction
is all about using other human beings like blood suckers to sustain a cruel and evil life style - with blood and brutality as
the core ideology.
Marcedward -> MarjaE 5 Dec 2015 14:12
I would agree that our system of help for the less-well-off could be more accessible and more generous, but that doesn't negate
that point that there is a lot of help out there - the most important help being that totally free educational system. Think about
it, a free education, and to get the most out of it a student merely has to show up, obey the rules, do the homework and study
for tests. It's all laid out there for the kids like a helicopter mom laying out her kids clothes. How much easier can we make
it? If people can't be bothered to show up and put in effort, how is their failure based on racism
tommydog -> martinusher 5 Dec 2015 14:12
As you are referring to Carlos Slim, interestingly while he is Mexican by birth his parents were both Lebanese.
slightlynumb -> AmyInNH 5 Dec 2015 14:12
Why isn't that capitalism? It's raw capitalism on steroids.
Zara Von Fritz -> Toughspike 5 Dec 2015 14:12
It's an equal opportunity plantation now.
Robert Goldschmidt 5 Dec 2015 14:11
The key to repairing the system is to identify the causes of our problems.
Here is my list:
The information technology revolution which continues to destroy wages by enabling automation and outsourcing.
The reformation of monopolies which price gouge and block innovation.
Hitting ecological limits such as climate change, water shortages, unsustainable farming.
Then we can make meaningful changes such as regulation of the portion of corporate profit that are pay, enforcement of national
and regional antitrust laws and an escalating carbon tax.
Zara Von Fritz -> PostCorbyn 5 Dec 2015 14:11
If you can believe these quality of life or happiness indexes they put out so often, the winners tend to be places that have
nice environments and a higher socialist mix in their economy. Of course there are examples of poor countries that practice the
same but its not clear that their choice is causal rather than reactive.
We created this mess and we can fix it.
Zara Von Fritz -> dig4victory 5 Dec 2015 14:03
Yes Basic Income is possibly the mythical third way. It socialises wealth to a point but at the same time frees markets from
their obligation to perpetually grow and create jobs for the sake of jobs and also hereford reduces the subsequent need for governments
to attempt to control them beyond maintaining their health.
Zara Von Fritz 5 Dec 2015 13:48
As I understand it, you don't just fiddle with capitalism, you counteract it, or counterweight it. A level of capitalism, or
credit accumulation, and a level of socialism has always existed, including democracy which is a manifestation of socialism (1
vote each). So the project of capital accumulation seems to be out of control because larger accumulations become more powerful
and meanwhile the power of labour in the marketplace has become less so due to forces driving unemployment. The danger is that
capital's power to control the democratic system reaches a point of no return.
Jeremiah2000 -> bifess 5 Dec 2015 13:42
"I do not have the economic freedom to grow my own food because i do not have access to enough land to grow it and i do not
have the economic clout to buy a piece of land."
Economic freedom does NOT mean you get money for free. It means that means that if you grow food for personal use, the federal
government doesn't trash the Constitution by using the insterstate commerce clause to say that it can regulate how much you grow
on your own personal land.
Economic freedom means that if you have a widget, you can choose to set the price for $10 or $100 and that a buyer is free
to buy it from you or not buy it from you. It does NOT mean that you are entitled to "free" widgets.
"If capitalism has not managed to eradicate poverty in rich first world countries then just what chance if there of capitalism
eradicating poverty on a global scale?"
The average person in poverty in the U.S. doesn't live in poverty:
In fact, 80.9 percent of households below the poverty level have cell phones, and a healthy majority-58.2 percent-have computers.
Fully 96.1 percent of American households in "poverty" have a television to watch, and 83.2 percent of them have a video-recording
device in case they cannot get home in time to watch the football game or their favorite television show and they want to record
it for watching later.
Refrigerators (97.8 percent), gas or electric stoves (96.6 percent) and microwaves (93.2 percent) are standard equipment in
the homes of Americans in "poverty."
More than 83 percent have air-conditioning.
Interestingly, the appliances surveyed by the Census Bureau that households in poverty are least likely to own are dish washers
(44.9 percent) and food freezers (26.2 percent).
However, most Americans in "poverty" do not need to go to a laundromat. According to the Census Bureau, 68.7 percent of households
in poverty have a clothes washer and 65.3 percent have a clothes dryer.
From what I have understood ( and as well you will, by extensive reading ) this, and other
till now seeminlgy unknown initiatives, is the source
of the whole Russian meddling campaign,
and Skripal and other "poisonings" issue,
the rise of neonazis in Ukraine and the rest of Europe,
the provocations in the Kerch Strait,
various "colour revolutions" along European history,
"independentist movements" and last wars in Europe and the Middle East,
or money laundering schemes for unconfessable activities, with special chapter
dedicated to the recruiting, conditioning and military trainning of Muslim youth from
disadvantaged outcomes/neighborhoods to alleged "increase of opportunities",
which has all the look of the formation of our well know "proxy" army to use in the
Middle East and various "terrorist attacks" in European soil, where the perpetrators always
resulted having a close relation, or were "well known" with the intelligence services.
"... We can be actually confident not just that the journalists in the MSM are on the payroll but that the invoices and accounts for their bribes are carefully preserved. Murray's blog is almost always worth following, just as 'b's is. Yesterday more news about the Skripal case emerged: it seems that the British government was prepared well in advance for the sudden attack on Skripal. ..."
Craig Murray today publishes accounts from the "Integrity Initiative" showing that
journalists in Scotland are receiving retainers of 2500 a month Sterling, plus expenses and
payment for actual articles published.
And if this is going on in Scotland we can be quite sure that it is actually happening in
North America and Europe, generally, and, of course, in the less prosperous parts of the
world where standards of integrity are just as low as they are hereabouts.
We can be actually confident not just that the journalists in the MSM are on the
payroll but that the invoices and accounts for their bribes are carefully preserved. Murray's
blog is almost always worth following, just as 'b's is. Yesterday more news about the Skripal
case emerged: it seems that the British government was prepared well in advance for the
sudden attack on Skripal.
What we are witnessing is the complete incompetence of those running the Empire. While
malicious, indeed deadly, they simply cannot keep up with the critics of imperialism. Their
power rests entirely on their ability to use force, both physical and financial. Their
attempts to use social medias to their advantage are lame and ineffective. It seems clear to
me that they will soon be reduced to using their power not just to hobble but to cripple
critics- net neutrality is already finished.
From what I have understood ( and as well you will, by extensive reading ) this, and other
till now seeminlgy unknown initiatives, is the source of the whole Russian meddling campaign,
and Skripal and other "poisonings" issue, the rise of neonazis in Ukraine and the rest of
Europe, the provocations in the Kerch Strait, various "colour revolutions" along European
history, "independentist movements" and last wars in Europe and the Middle East, or money
laundering schemes for unconfessable activities, with special chapter dedicated to the
recruiting, conditioning and military trainning of Muslim youth from disadvantaged
outcomes/neighborhoods to alleged "increase of opportunities", which has all the look of the
formation of our well know "proxy" army to use in the Middle East and various "terrorist
attacks" in European soil, where the perpetrators always resulted having a close relation, or
were "well known" with the intelligence services.
"... The list is headed CND gen list 2. CND is Christopher Nigel Donnelly, Director of the Institute for Statecraft and the Integrity Initiative and a very senior career Military Intelligence Officer. ..."
"... Murder in Samarkand ..."
"... Now let us tie that in with the notorious name further down the list; Pablo Miller, the long-term MI6 handler of Sergei Skripal, who lived in Salisbury with Skripal. Miller is the man who was, within 24 hours of the Skripal attack, protected by a D(SMA) notice banning the media from mentioning him. Here Pablo Miller is actively involved, alongside serving FCO and MOD staff, in a government funded organisation whose avowed intention is to spread disinformation about Russia. The story that Miller is in an inactive retirement is immediately and spectacularly exploded. ..."
"... Now look at another name on this list. Howard Body. Assistant Head of Science Support at Porton Down chemical weapon research laboratory, just six miles away from Salisbury and the Skripal attack, a role he took up in December 2017. He combines this role with Assistant Head of Strategic Analysis at MOD London. "Science Support" at Porton Down is a euphemism for political direction to the scientists – Body has no scientific qualifications. ..."
"... Zachary Harkenrider is the Political Counsellor at the US Embassy in London. There are normally at least two Political Counsellors at an Embassy this size, one of whom will normally be the CIA Head of Station. I do not know if Harkenrider is CIA but it seems highly likely. ..."
"... So what do we have here? We have a programme, the Integrity Initiative, whose entire purpose is to pump out covert disinformation against Russia, through social media and news stories secretly paid for by the British government. And we have the Skripals' MI6 handler, the BBC, Porton Down, the FCO, the MOD and the US Embassy, working together in a group under the auspices of the Integrity Initiative. The Skripal Case happened to occur shortly after a massive increase in the Integrity Initiative's budget and activity, which itself was a small part of a British Government decision to ramp up a major information war against Russia. ..."
"... Working Group on Syria, Media, and the Propaganda ..."
Craig Murray's latest provides convincing evidence that whatever happened to the Skripals in Salisbury was part of the Integrity
Initiative's propaganda campaign against Russia.
It is worth starting by noting that a high percentage of the Integrity Initiative archive has been authenticated. The scheme
has been admitted by the
FCO and defended as legitimate government activity. Individual items like the minutes of the meeting with David Leask
are authenticated. Not one of the documents has so far been disproven, or even denied.
Which tends to obscure some of
the difficulties with the material. There is no metadata showing when each document was created, as opposed to when Anonymous
made it into a PDF. Anonymous have released it in tranches and made plain there is more to come. The reason for this methodology
is left obscure.
Most frustratingly, Anonymous' comments on the releases indicate that they have vital information which is not, so far,
revealed. The most important document of all appears to be a simple contact list, of a particular group within the hundreds
of contacts revealed in the papers overall. This is it in full:
Tantalisingly, Anonymous
describe this as a list of people who attended a meeting with the White Helmets. But there is no evidence of that in the
document itself, nor does any other document released so far refer to this meeting. There is very little in the documents released
so far about the White Helmets at all. But there is a huge amount about the Skripal case. With the greatest of respect to Anonymous
and pending any release of further evidence, I want you to consider whether this might be a document related to the Skripal
incident.
The list is headed CND gen list 2. CND is Christopher Nigel Donnelly, Director of the Institute for Statecraft and the Integrity
Initiative and a very senior career Military Intelligence Officer.
The first name on the list caught my eye. Duncan Allan was the young FCO Research Analyst who, as detailed in Murder
in Samarkand, appears in my Ambassadorial office in Tashkent, telling me of the FCO staff who had been left in tears by
the pressure put on them to sign up to Blair's dodgy dossier on Iraqi WMD. During the process of clearing the manuscript with
the FCO, I was told (though not by him) that he denied having ever said it. It was one of a very few instances where I refused
to make the changes requested to the text, because I had no doubt whatsoever of what had been said.
If Duncan did lie about having told me, it did his career no harm as he is now Deputy Head of FCO Research Analysts and,
most importantly, the FCO's lead analyst on Russia and the Former Soviet Union.
Now let us tie that in with the notorious name further down the list; Pablo Miller, the long-term MI6 handler of Sergei
Skripal, who lived in Salisbury with Skripal. Miller is the man who was, within 24 hours of the Skripal attack, protected by
a D(SMA) notice banning the media from mentioning him. Here Pablo Miller is actively involved, alongside serving FCO and MOD
staff, in a government funded organisation whose avowed intention is to spread disinformation about Russia. The story that
Miller is in an inactive retirement is immediately and spectacularly exploded.
Now look at another name on this list. Howard Body. Assistant Head of Science Support at Porton Down chemical weapon research
laboratory, just six miles away from Salisbury and the Skripal attack, a role he took up in December 2017. He combines this
role with Assistant Head of Strategic Analysis at MOD London. "Science Support" at Porton Down is a euphemism for political
direction to the scientists – Body has no scientific qualifications.
Another element brought into this group is the state broadcaster, through Helen Boaden, the former Head of BBC News and
Current Affairs.
In all there are six serving MOD staff on the list, all either in Intelligence or in PR. Intriguingly one of them, Ian Cohen,
has email addresses both at the MOD and at the notoriously corrupt HSBC bank. The other FCO name besides Duncan Allan, Adam
Rutland, is also on the PR side.
Zachary Harkenrider is the Political Counsellor at the US Embassy in London. There are normally at least two Political Counsellors
at an Embassy this size, one of whom will normally be the CIA Head of Station. I do not know if Harkenrider is CIA but it seems
highly likely.
So what do we have here? We have a programme, the Integrity Initiative, whose entire purpose is to pump out covert disinformation
against Russia, through social media and news stories secretly paid for by the British government. And we have the Skripals'
MI6 handler, the BBC, Porton Down, the FCO, the MOD and the US Embassy, working together in a group under the auspices of the
Integrity Initiative. The Skripal Case happened to occur shortly after a massive increase in the Integrity Initiative's budget
and activity, which itself was a small part of a British Government decision to ramp up a major information war against Russia.
I find that very interesting indeed.
With a hat-tip to members of the Working Group on Syria, Media, and the Propaganda, who are preparing a major and
important publication which is imminent. UPDATE Their extremely important
briefing
note on the Integrity Initiative is now online, prepared to the highest standards of academic discipline. I shall be drawing
on and extrapolating from it further next week.
"... In his just published book, War With Russia? ..."
"... To paraphrase Putin: "You are making Russia a threat by declaring us to be one, by discarding facts and substituting orchestrated opinions that your propagandistic media establish as fact via endless repetition." ..."
"... Cohen is correct that during the Cold War every US president worked to defuse tensions, especially Republican ones. Since the Clinton regime every US president has worked to create tensions. What explains this dangerous change in approach? The end of the Cold War was disadvantageous to the military/security complex whose budget and power had waxed from decades of cold war. Suddenly the enemy that had bestowed such wealth and prestige on the military/security complex disappeared. ..."
"... The New Cold War is the result of the military/security complex's resurrection of the enemy. In a democracy with independent media and scholars, this would not have been possible. But the Clinton regime permitted in violation of anti-trust laws 90% of the US media to be concentrated in the hands of six mega-corporations, thus destroying an independence already undermined by the CIA's successful use of the CIA's media assets to control explanations. Many books have been written about the CIA's use of the media, including Udo Ulfkotte's "Bought Journalism," the English edition of which was quickly withdrawn and burned. ..."
Throughout the long Cold War Stephen Cohen, professor of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University was a
voice of reason. He refused to allow his patriotism to blind him to Washington's contribution to the conflict and to criticize only
the Soviet contribution. Cohen's interest was not to blame the enemy but to work toward a mutual understanding that would remove
the threat of nuclear war. Although a Democrat and left-leaning, Cohen would have been at home in the Reagan administration, as Reagan's
first priority was to end the Cold War. I know this because I was part of the effort. Pat Buchanan will tell you the same thing.
In 1974 a notorious cold warrior, Albert Wohlstetter, absurdly accused the CIA of underestimating the Soviet threat. As the CIA
had every incentive for reasons of budget and power to overestimate the Soviet threat, and today the "Russian threat," Wohlstetter's
accusation made no sense on its face. However he succeeded in stirring up enough concern that CIA director George H.W. Bush, later
Vice President and President, agreed to a Team B to investigate the CIA's assessment, headed by the Russiaphobic Harvard professor
Richard Pipes. Team B concluded that the Soviets thought they could win a nuclear war and were building the forces with which to
attack the US.
The report was mainly nonsense, and it must have have troubled Stephen Cohen to experience the setback to negotiations that Team
B caused.
Today Cohen is stressed that it is the United States that thinks it can win a nuclear war. Washington speaks openly of using "low
yield" nuclear weapons, and intentionally forecloses any peace negotiations with Russia with a propaganda campaign against Russia
of demonization, vilification, and transparent lies, while installing missile bases on Russia's borders and while talking of incorporating
former parts of Russia into NATO. In his just published book, War With Russia? , which I highly recommend, Cohen makes a
convincing case that Washington is asking for war.
I agree with Cohen that if Russia is a threat it is only because the US is threatening Russia. The stupidity of the policy toward
Russia is creating a Russian threat. Putin keeps emphasizing this. To paraphrase Putin: "You are making Russia a threat by declaring
us to be one, by discarding facts and substituting orchestrated opinions that your propagandistic media establish as fact via endless
repetition."
Cohen is correct that during the Cold War every US president worked to defuse tensions, especially Republican ones. Since the
Clinton regime every US president has worked to create tensions. What explains this dangerous change in approach? The end of the Cold War was disadvantageous to the military/security complex whose budget and power had waxed from decades of
cold war. Suddenly the enemy that had bestowed such wealth and prestige on the military/security complex disappeared.
The New Cold War is the result of the military/security complex's resurrection of the enemy. In a democracy with independent media
and scholars, this would not have been possible. But the Clinton regime permitted in violation of anti-trust laws 90% of the US media
to be concentrated in the hands of six mega-corporations, thus destroying an independence already undermined by the CIA's successful
use of the CIA's media assets to control explanations. Many books have been written about the CIA's use of the media, including Udo
Ulfkotte's "Bought Journalism," the English edition of which was quickly withdrawn and burned.
The demonization of Russia is also aided and abetted by the Democrats' hatred of Trump and anger from Hillary's loss of the presidential
election to the "Trump deplorables." The Democrats purport to believe that Trump was installed by Putin's interference in the presidential
election. This false belief is emotionally important to Democrats, and they can't let go of it.
Although Cohen as a professor at Princeton and NYU never lacked research opportunities, in the US Russian studies, strategic studies,
and the like are funded by the military/security complex whose agenda Cohen's scholarship does not serve. At the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, where I held an independently financed chair for a dozen years, most of my colleagues were dependent on
grants from the military/security complex. At the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, where I was a Senior Fellow for three
decades, the anti-Soviet stance of the Institution reflected the agenda of those who funded the institution.
I am not saying that my colleagues were whores on a payroll. I am saying that the people who got the appointments were people
who were inclined to see the Soviet Union the way the military/security complex thought it should be seen.
As Stephen Cohen is aware, in the original Cold War there was some balance as all explanations were not controlled. There were
independent scholars who could point out that the Soviets, decimated by World War 2, had an interest in peace, and that accommodation
could be achieved, thus avoiding the possibility of nuclear war.
Stephen Cohen must have been in the younger ranks of those sensible people, as he and President Reagan's ambassador to the Soviet
Union, Jack Matloff, seem to be the remaining voices of expert reason on the American scene.
If you care to understand the dire threat under which you live, a threat that only a few people, such as Stephen Cohen, are trying
to lift, read his book.
If you want to understand the dire threat that a bought-and-paid-for American media poses to your existence, read Cohen's accounts
of their despicable lies. America has a media that is synonymous with lies.
If you want to understand how corrupt American universities are as organizations on the take for money, organizations to whom
truth is inconsequential, read Cohen's book.
If you want to understand why you could be dead before Global Warming can get you, read Cohen's book.
The trouble with CIA democrats is not that they are stupid, but that that are evil.
Hillary proved to be really destructive witch during her Obama stunt as the Secretary of State. Destroyed Libya and Ukraine,
which is no small feat.
Notable quotes:
"... The policy of the Obama administration, and particularly Hillary Clinton's State Department, was – and still is – regime change in Syria. This overrode all other considerations. We armed, trained, and "vetted" the Syrian rebels, even as we looked the other way while the Saudis and the Gulf sheikdoms funded groups like al-Nusra and al-Qaeda affiliates who wouldn't pass muster. And our "moderates" quickly passed into the ranks of the outfront terrorists, complete with the weapons we'd provided. ..."
"... She is truly an idiot. Thanks again, Ivy League. ..."
The Grauniad just quoted a tweet from a predictably OUTRAGED @HillaryClinton:
Actions have consequences, and whether we're in Syria or not, the people who want to
harm us are there & at war. Isolationism is weakness. Empowering ISIS is dangerous.
Playing into Russia & Iran's hands is foolish. This President is putting our national
security at grave risk.
This from the woman who almost singlehandedly (i.e. along with David Cameron and Sarkovy)
destroyed Libya and allowed -- if not encouraged -- the flow of US weapons to go into the
hands of ISIS allies in the US-Saudi-Israeli obsession with toppling Assad regardless of the
consequences. As Justin Raimondo wrote in
Antiwar.com in 2015:
The policy of the Obama administration, and particularly Hillary Clinton's State
Department, was – and still is – regime change in Syria. This overrode all
other considerations. We armed, trained, and "vetted" the Syrian rebels, even as we looked
the other way while the Saudis and the Gulf sheikdoms funded groups like al-Nusra and
al-Qaeda affiliates who wouldn't pass muster. And our "moderates" quickly passed into the
ranks of the outfront terrorists, complete with the weapons we'd provided.
This crazy policy was an extension of our regime change operation in Libya, a.k.a.
"Hillary's War," where the US – "leading from behind" – and a coalition of our
Western allies and the Gulf protectorates overthrew Muammar Qaddafi. There, too, we
empowered radical Islamists with links to al-Qaeda affiliates – and then used them to
ship weapons to their Syrian brothers, as another document uncovered by Judicial Watch
shows.
After HRC's multiple foreign policy fiascos she is the last person who should be
commenting on this matter.
a different chris, December 21, 2018 at 11:50 am
> the people who want to harm us are there & at war
Sounds like then they are too busy to harm us? She is truly an idiot. Thanks again, Ivy League.
you're one
of the millions of human beings who, despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, still
believe there is such a thing as "the truth," you might not want to read this essay. Seriously,
it can be extremely upsetting when you discover that there is no "truth" or rather, that what
we're all conditioned to regard as "truth" from the time we are children is just the product of
a technology of power, and not an empirical state of being. Humans, upon first encountering
this fact, have been known to freak completely out and start jabbering about the "Word of God,"
or "the immutable laws of quantum physics," and run around burning other people at the stake or
locking them up and injecting them with Thorazine. I don't want to be responsible for anything
like that, so consider this your trigger warning.
OK, now that that's out of the way, let's take a look at how "truth" is manufactured. It's
actually not that complicated. See, the "truth" is well, it's a story, essentially. It's
whatever story we are telling ourselves at any given point in history ("we" being the majority
of people, those conforming to the rules of whatever system wields enough power to dictate the
story it wants everyone to be telling themselves). Everyone understands this intuitively, but
the majority of people pretend they don't in order to be able to get by in the system, which
punishes anyone who does not conform to its rules, or who contradicts its story. So, basically,
to manufacture the truth, all you really need is (a) a story, and (b) enough power to coerce a
majority of people in your society to pretend to believe it.
I'm not going to debunk the Guardian article here. It has been debunked by better
debunkers than I (e.g., Jonathan
Cook ,
Craig Murray ,
Glenn Greenwald , Moon of Alabama, and many others). [ ed. including
us ]
The short version is, The Guardian's Luke Harding, a shameless hack who will affix
his name to any propaganda an intelligence agency feeds him, alleged that Paul Manafort,
Trump's former campaign manager, secretly met with Julian Assange (and unnamed "Russians") on
numerous occasions from 2013 to 2016, presumably to conspire to collude to brainwash Americans
into not voting for Clinton. Harding's earth-shaking allegations, which The Guardian
prominently featured and flogged, were based on well, absolutely nothing, except the usual
anonymous "intelligence sources." After actual journalists pointed this out, The
Guardian quietly revised the piece (employing the subjunctive mood rather
liberally), buried it in the back pages of its website, and otherwise pretended like they had
never published it.
The Guardian's latest attack on Julian Assange was not only a fallacious smear, it
represented a desperate attempt on behalf of the British intelligence community to conflate the
pending US charges against the journalist with Russiagate. The Guardian's article seeks to
deflect from the reality that the prosecution of Assange will
focus on Chelsea Manning-Era releases and Vault 7, not the DNC or Podesta emails.
We assert this claim based on the timing of the publication, the Guardian's history of
subservience to British intelligence agencies, animosity between The Guardian and WikiLeaks,
and the longstanding personal feud between Guardian journalist Luke Harding and Assange. This
conclusion is also supported by Harding's financial and career interest in propping up the
Russiagate narrative
"... " The information in this post alone should make everyone question why in the world the Guardian would continue to use a source like Villavicencio who is obviously tied to the U.S. government, the CIA, individuals like Thor Halvorssen and Bill Browder, and opponents of both Julian Assange and former President Rafael Correa." ..."
"... 2014 Ecuador's Foreign Ministry accused the Guardian of publishing a story based on a document it says was fabricated by Fernando Villavicencio, pictured below with the authors of the fake Manafort-Assange 'secret meeting' story, Harding and Collyns." ..."
"... "There is also evidence that the author of this falsified document is Fernando Villavicencio, a convicted slanderer and opponent of Ecuador's current government. This can be seen from the file properties of the document that the Guardian had originally posted (but which it has since taken down and replaced with a version with this evidence removed)." ..."
"... " This video from the news wire Andes alleges that Villavicencio's name appeared in the metadata of the document originally uploaded alongside The Guardian's story." ..."
"... One of my greatest journalistic experiences was working for months on Assange's research with colleagues from the British newspaper the Guardian, Luke Harding, Dan Collins and the young journalist Cristina Solórzano from @ somos_lafuente " ..."
"... The tweet suggests, but does not specifically state, that Villavicencio worked with the disastrous duo on the Assange-Manafort piece. Given the history and associations of all involved, this statement alone should cause extreme skepticism in any unsubstantiated claims, or 'anonymously sourced' claims, the Guardian makes concerning Julian Assange and Ecuador. ..."
"... The two photographs of Villavicencio with Harding and Collyns as well as the evidence showing he co-authored the piece doesn't just capture a trio of terrible journalists, it documents the involvement of multiple actors associated with intelligence agencies and fabricated stories. ..."
"... Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win." ..."
"... That Harding and Collyns worked intensively with Villavicencio for "months" on the "Assange story," the fact that Villavicencio was initially listed as a co-author on the original version of the Guardian's article, and the recent denial by Fidel Narvaez , raises the likelihood that Harding and the Guardian were not simply the victims of bad sources who duped them, as claimed by some. ..."
Regular followers of WikiLeaks-related news are at this point familiar with the multiple
serious infractions of journalistic ethics by Luke Harding and the Guardian, especially (though
not exclusively) when it comes to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. However, another individual at
the heart of this matter is far less familiar to the public. That man is Fernando
Villavicencio, a prominent Ecuadorian political activist and journalist, director of the
USAID-funded NGO Fundamedios and editor of online publication FocusEcuador .
Most readers are also aware of the Guardian's recent publication of claims that Julian
Assange met with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort on three occasions. This has now
been
definitively debunked by Fidel Narvaez, the former Consul at Ecuador's London embassy
between 2010 and 2018, who says Paul Manafort has never visited the embassy during the time he
was in charge there. But this was hardly the first time the outlet published a dishonest smear
authored by Luke Harding against Assange. The paper is also no stranger to publishing stories
based on fabricated documents.
In May,
Disobedient Media reported on the Guardian's hatchet-job relating to 'Operation Hotel,' or
rather, the normal
security operations of the embassy under former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. That
hit-piece ,
co-authored by Harding and Dan Collyns, asserted among other things that (according to an
anonymous source) Assange hacked the embassy's security system. The allegation was promptly
refuted by Correa as "absurd" in an interview with The Intercept , and also by WikiLeaks as an "anonymous libel" with which the
Guardian had "gone too far this time. We're suing."
How is Villavicencio tied to The Guardian's latest smear of Assange? Intimately, it turns
out.
Who is Fernando Villavicencio?
Earlier this year, an independent journalist writing under the pseudonym Jimmyslama penned a
comprehensive report
detailing Villavicencio's relationships with pro-US actors within Ecuador and the US. She sums
up her findings, which are worth reading in full :
" The information in this post alone should make everyone question why in the world the
Guardian would continue to use a source like Villavicencio who is obviously tied to the U.S.
government, the CIA, individuals like Thor Halvorssen and Bill Browder, and opponents of both
Julian Assange and former President Rafael Correa."
As most readers recall, it was Correa who granted Assange asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy
in London. Villavicencio was so vehemently opposed to Rafael Correa's socialist government that
during the failed 2010 coup against Correa he falsely accused the President of "crimes against
humanity" by ordering police to fire on the crowds (it was actually Correa who was being shot
at). Correa sued him for libel, and won, but pardoned Villavicencio for the damages awarded by
the court.
Assange legal analyst Hanna Jonasson
recently made the link between the Ecuadorian forger Villavicencio and Luke Harding's Guardian
stories based on dubious documents explicit. She Tweeted : 2014 Ecuador's
Foreign Ministry accused the Guardian of publishing a story based on a document it says was
fabricated by Fernando Villavicencio, pictured below with the authors of the fake
Manafort-Assange 'secret meeting' story, Harding and Collyns."
Jonasson included a link to a 2014 official Ecuadorian government statement which reads in part:
"There is also evidence that
the author of this falsified document is Fernando Villavicencio, a convicted slanderer and
opponent of Ecuador's current government. This can be seen from the file properties of the
document that the Guardian had originally posted (but which it has since taken down and
replaced with a version with this evidence removed)."
The statement also notes that
Villavicencio had fled the country after his conviction for libeling Correa during the 2010
coup and was at that time living as a fugitive in the United States.
It is incredibly significant, as Jonasson argues, that the authors of the Guardian's latest
libelous article were photographed with
Villavicencio in Ecuador shortly before publication of the Guardian's claim that Assange
had conducted meetings with Manafort.
Jonasson's Twitter thread also states: " This video from the news wire
Andes alleges that Villavicencio's name appeared in the metadata of the document originally
uploaded alongside The Guardian's story." The 2014 Guardian piece, which aimed a falsified
shot at then-President Rafael Correa, would not be the last time Villavicencio's name would
appear on a controversial Guardian story before being scrubbed from existence.
Just days after the backlash against the Guardian reached fever-pitch, Villavicencio had the
gall to publish another image of himself
with Harding and Collyns, gloating : "
One of my greatest journalistic experiences was
working for months on Assange's research with colleagues from the British newspaper the
Guardian, Luke Harding, Dan Collins and the young journalist Cristina Solórzano from @somos_lafuente " [Translated from Spanish]
The tweet suggests, but does not specifically state, that Villavicencio worked with the
disastrous duo on the Assange-Manafort piece. Given the history and associations of all
involved, this statement alone should cause extreme skepticism in any unsubstantiated claims,
or 'anonymously sourced' claims, the Guardian makes concerning Julian Assange and Ecuador.
Astoundingly, and counter to Villavicencio's uncharacteristic coyness, a recent video posted
by WikiLeaks via Twitter does show that
Villavicencio was originally listed as a co-author of the Guardian's Manafort-Assange
allegations, before his name was edited out of the online article. The original version can be
viewed, however, thanks to archive services.
The two photographs of Villavicencio with Harding and Collyns as well as the evidence
showing he co-authored the piece doesn't just capture a trio of terrible journalists, it
documents the involvement of multiple actors associated with intelligence agencies and
fabricated stories.
All of this provoke the question: did Villavicencio provide more bogus documents to Harding
and Collyns – Harding said he'd seen a document, though he didn't publish one (or even
quote from it) so readers might judge its veracity for themselves – or perhaps these
three invented the accusations out of whole-cloth?
Either way, to quote WikiLeaks, the Guardian has "gone too far this time" and its
already-tattered reputation is in total shambles.
Successful Propaganda, Failed Journalism
Craig Murray calls Harding an " MI6
tool ", but to this writer, Harding seems worse than an MI6 stooge: He's a wannabe-spook,
hanging from the coat-tails of anonymous intelligence officers and publishing their drivel as
fact without so much as a skeptical blink. His lack of self-awareness and conflation of
anecdote with evidence sets him apart as either one of the most blatant, fumbling propagandists
of our era, or the most hapless hack journalist to stain the pages of printed news.
To provide important context on Harding's previous journalistic irresponsibility, we again
recall that he co-authored the infamous book containing the encryption password of the entire
Cablegate archive, leading to a leak of the unredacted State Department Cables across the
internet. Although the guilty Guardian journalists tried to blame Assange for the debacle, it
was they themselves who ended up on the receiving end of some well-deserved scorn.
In addition to continuing the Guardian's and Villavicencio's vendetta against Assange and
WikiLeaks, it is clearly in Harding's financial interests to conflate the
pending prosecution of Assange with Russiagate. As this writer
previously noted , Harding penned a book on the subject, titled: " Collusion: Secret
Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win." Tying Assange to
Russiagate is good for business, as it stokes public interest in the self-evidently faulty
narrative his book supports.
Even more concerning is the claim amongst publishing circles, fueled by recent events, that
Harding may be writing another book on Assange, with publication presumably timed for his
pending arrest and extradition and designed to cash in on the trial. If that is in fact the
case, the specter arises that Harding is working to push for Assange's arrest, not just on
behalf of US, UK or Ecuadorian intelligence interests, but also to increase his own book
sales.
That Harding and Collyns worked intensively with Villavicencio for "months" on the "Assange
story," the fact that Villavicencio was initially listed as a co-author on the original version
of the Guardian's article, and the recent denial by Fidel Narvaez
, raises the likelihood that Harding and the Guardian were not simply the victims of bad
sources who duped them, as claimed by some.
It indicates that the fake story was constructed deliberately on behalf of the very same
intelligence establishment that the Guardian is nowadays only too happy to take the knee
for.
In summary, one of the most visible establishment media outlets published a fake story on
its front page, in an attempt to manufacture a crucial cross-over between the pending
prosecution of Assange and the Russiagate saga. This represents the latest example in an
onslaught of fake news directed at Julian Assange and WikiLeaks ever since they published the
largest CIA leak in history in the form of Vault 7, an onslaught which appears to be building
in both intensity and absurdity as time goes on.
The Guardian has destroyed its reputation, and in the process, revealed the desperation of
the establishment when it comes to Assange.
Matt o'Brien and Barbara Ortutay, AP Technology Writers
,
Associated Press
•
December
17, 2018
<img alt="Key takeaways from new reports on Russian disinformation" src="https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/9VGA29inJ83dPeqC.cvqTg--~A/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAwO2lsPXBsYW5l/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/images/US_AHTTP_AP_HEADLINES_BUSINESS/e66de17c8e1a4cecaf1da81f2bf87093_original.jpg" itemprop="url"/>
Some suspected Russian-backed fake social media accounts on Facebook.
Russians seeking to influence U.S. elections through social media had their
eyes on Instagram and the black community.
These were among the findings in two reports released Monday by the Senate
intelligence committee. Separate studies from University of Oxford researchers
and the cybersecurity firm New Knowledge reveal insights into how Russian
agents sought to influence Americans by saturating their favorite online
services and apps with hidden propaganda.
Here are the highlights:
INSTAGRAM'S "MEME WARFARE"
Both reports show that misinformation on Facebook's Instagram may have had
broader reach than the interference on Facebook itself.
The New Knowledge study says that since 2015, the Instagram posts generated
187 million engagements, such as comments or likes, compared with 77 million
on Facebook.
And the barrage of image-centric Instagram "memes" has only grown since the
2016 election. Russian agents shifted their focus to Instagram after the
public last year became aware of the widespread manipulation on Facebook and
Twitter.
NOT JUST ADS
Revelations last year that Russian agents used rubles to pay for some of their
propaganda ads drew attention to how gullible tech companies were in allowing
their services to be manipulated.
But neither ads nor automated "bots" were as effective as unpaid posts
hand-crafted by human agents pretending to be Americans. Such posts were more
likely to be shared and commented on, and they rose in volume during key dates
in U.S. politics such as during the presidential debates in 2016 or after the
Obama administration's post-election announcement that it would investigate
Russian hacking.
"These personalized messages exposed U.S. users to a wide range of
disinformation and junk news linked to on external websites, including content
designed to elicit outrage and cynicism," says the report by Oxford
researchers, who worked with social media analysis firm Graphika.
DEMOGRAPHIC TARGETING
Both reports found that Russian agents tried to polarize Americans in part by
targeting African-American communities extensively. They did so by campaigning
for black voters to boycott elections or follow the wrong voting procedures in
2016, according to the Oxford report.
The New Knowledge report added that agents were "developing Black audiences
and recruiting Black Americans as assets" beyond how they were targeting
either left- or right-leaning voters.
The reports also support previous findings that the influence operations
sought to polarize Americans by sowing political divisions on issues such as
immigration and cultural and religious identities. The goal, according to the
New Knowledge report, was to "create and reinforce tribalism within each
targeted community."
Such efforts extended to Google-owned YouTube, despite Google's earlier
assertion to Congress that Russian-made videos didn't target specific segments
of the population.
PINTEREST TO POKEMON
The New Knowledge report says the Russian troll operation worked in many ways
like a conventional corporate branding campaign, using a variety of different
technology services to deliver the same messages to different groups of
people.
Among the sites infiltrated with propaganda were popular image-heavy services
like Pinterest and Tumblr, chatty forums like Reddit, and a wonky geopolitics
blog promoted from Russian-run accounts on Facebook and YouTube.
Even the silly smartphone game "Pokemon Go" wasn't immune. A Tumblr post
encouraged players to name their Pokemon character after a victim of police
brutality.
WHAT NOW?
Both reports warn that some of these influence campaigns are ongoing.
The Oxford researchers note that 2016 and 2017 saw "significant efforts" to
disrupt elections around the world not just by Russia, but by domestic
political parties spreading disinformation.
They warn that online propaganda represents a threat to democracies and public
life. They urge social media companies to share data with the public far more
broadly than they have so far.
"Protecting our democracies now means setting the rules of fair play before
voting day, not after," the Oxford report says.
4 hours
ago
so where's the evidence that Russian
facebook or twitter posts changed a single vote?
Swing between extremes, however, consistent in US history, economic predatory dependence on
free/ultra cheap labor with no legal rights. Current instantiation, offshored and illegal and
"temporary" immigrant labor. Note neither party in the US is proposing "immigration reform"
is green card upon hire. Ds merely propose green card for time served for those over X number
of years donated as captive/cheap.
The entitled to cheap/captive now want it in law, national laws and trade agreements.
All privilege/no responsibilities, including taxes.
Doesn't scale. 1929 says so, 2008 says so.
Liberals, the Left, Progressives -- whatever you want to call them suffer from a basic
problem. They don't work together and have no common goals. As the article stated they
complain but offer no real solutions that they can agree on. Should we emphasize gay pride or
should we emphasize good-paying jobs and benefits with good social welfare benefits? Until
they can agree at least on priorities they will never reform the current corrupt system -- it
is too entrenched. Even if the Capitalist Monstrosity we have now self-destructs as the
writer indicates -- nothing good will replace it until the Left get their act together.
"Lesser of two evils" needs to go on the burn pile.
Encumbent congress needs a turn over.
Not showing up to vote is not okay. If people can't think of someone they want to write-in,
"none of the above" is a protest vote. Not voting is silence, which equals consent.
Local elections, beat back Koch/ALEC, hiding on ballots as "Libertarian". "Privatize
everything" is their mantra, so they can further profitize via inescapeable taxes, while
gutting "regulation" - safety and market integrity, with no accountability.
Corporation 101: limited liability. While means we are left holding the bag. As in bailout -
$125 billion in 1990, up to $7.7 trillion in 2008.
Anything the Economist presents as the overriding choice is probably best relegated to
one factor among many. I respect Milanovic's work, but he's seeing things from where we are
now. Remember we've seen populist surges come and go from the witch-burnings and religious
panics of the 17th century to 1890s Bryanism and the 1930s far right, and each time they've
yielded to a more articulate vision, though the last time it cost sixty million dead - not
something we want to see repeated. This time it's hard because dissent still clings to a
"post-ideological" delusion that those on top never succumbed to. But change will come as
what I'd term "post-rational" alternatives fail to deliver. Let's hope it's sooner rather
than later.
"Brexit, too, was primarily a working-class revolt." Thank you Martin, at least someone
writing in the Guardian has got the point!
We voted against the EU's unelected European Central Bank, its unelected European Commission,
its European Court of Justice, its Common Agricultural Policy and its Common Fisheries
Policy.
We voted against the EU's treaty-enshrined 'austerity' (= depression) policies, which have
impoverished Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
We voted against the EU/US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which would
privatise all our public services, which threatens all our rights, and which discriminates
against the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
We voted against the EU's tariffs against African farmers' cheaper produce.
We opposed the City of London Corporation, the Institute of Directors, the CBI, the IMF,
Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, which all wanted us to
stay in the EU.
We voted against the EU's undemocratic trilogue procedure and its pro-austerity Semester
programme. We voted to leave this undemocratic, privatisation-enforcing, austerity-enforcing
body.
Bailout was because that was public savings, pensions, 401ks, etc. the banks were playing
with, and lost. Bailout is billing all of us for it. Bad, letting the banks/financial
"services" not only survive but continue the exact same practices.
Bailout: $7.2 to $7.7 trillion. Current derivative holdings: $500 trillion.
Not just moral hazard but economic hazard when capitalism basic rule is broken, allow bad
businesses to die of their own accord. Subversion currently called "too big to fail", rather
than tell the public "we lost all your savings, pensions, ...".
Relocating poverty from the East into the West isn't improvement.
Creating sweatshops in the East isn't raising their standard of living.
Creating economies so economically unstable that population declines isn't improvement.
Trying to bury that fact with immigration isn't improvement.
Configuring all of the above for record profit for the benefit of a tiny percentage of the
population isn't improvement.
Gaming tax law to avoid paying into/for extensive business use of federal services and tax
base isn't improvement.
Game over. Time for a reboot.
I am glad you finally concede a point on neo-liberalism. The moral hazard argument is
extremely poor and typical in this era of runaway CEO pay, of a tendency to substitute
self-help fables (a la "The monk who sold his Ferrari) and pop psychology ( a la Moral
Hazard) for credible economic analysis.
The economic crisis is rooted in the profit motive just as capitalist economic growth is.
Lowering of Tarrif barriers, outsourcing, changes in value capture (added value), new
financial instruments, were attempts to restore the falling rate of profit. They did for a
while, but, as always happens with Capitalism, the seeds of the new crisis were in the
solution to the old.
And all the while the state continues growing in an attempt to keep capitalism afloat.
Neoliberalism failed ( or should I say "small state" ) and here is the graph to prove it: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/include/usgs_chartSp03t.png
Interesting, and I believe accurate, analysis of the economic and political forces afoot.
However it is ludicrous to state that Donald trump, who is a serial corpratist, out-sourcer,
tax avoider and scam artist, actually believes any of those populist principles that you
ascribe so firmly to him. The best and safest outcome of our election, in my opinion, would
be to have a Clinton administration tempered by the influences from the populist wings of
both parties.
Great article, however the elite globalists are in complete denial in the US. Our only choice
is to vote them out of power because the are owned by Wall Street. Both Bernie and Trump
supporters should unite to vote establishment out of Washington.
There were similar observations in the immediate aftermath of 2008, and doubtless before.
Many of us thought the crisis would trigger a rethink of the whole direction of the previous
three decades, but instead we got austerity and a further lurch to the right, or at best
Obama-style stimulus and modest tweaks which were better than the former but still rather
missed the point. I still find it flabbergasting and depressing, but on reflection the 1930s
should have been a warning of not just the economic hazards but also the political fallout,
at least in Europe. The difference was that this time left ideology had all but vacated the
field in the 1980s and was in no position to lead a fightback: all we can hope for is better
late than never.
Yes it is, it's an extremely bad thing destroying the fabric of society. Social science
has documented that even the better off are more happy, satisfied with life and feel safer in
societies (i.e. the Scandinavian) where there is a relatively high degree of economic
equality. Yes, economic inequality is a BAD thing in itself.
Oh, give me a break. Social science will document anything it can publish, no matter how
spurious. If Scandanavia is so great, why are they such pissheads? There has always been
inequality, including in workers' paradises like the Soviet Union and Communist China.
Inequality is what got us where we are today, through natural selection. Phenotype is largely
dependent on genotype, so why shouldn't we pass on material wealth as well as our genes?
Surely it is a parent's right to afford their offspring advantages if they can do so?
Have you got any numbers? Or references for your allegations. I say the average or median
wealth, opportunity, economic circumstance and health measures are substantially better than
a generation (lets say 30 years) ago.
Again I don't think our system is perfect. I don't deny that some in our societies
struggle and don't benefit, particularly the poorly educated, disabled, mentally ill and drug
addicted. I actually agree that we could better target our social redistribution from those
that have to those that need help. I disagree that we need higher taxes, protectionism,
socialism, more public servants, more legislation. Indeed I disagree with proposition that
other systems are better.
George Orwell said, in the 30s, that the price of social justice would include a lowering of
living standards for the working- & middle-classes, at least temporarily, so I follow
your line of thought. However, the outrageous tilt toward the upper .1% has no "adjustment"
fluff to shield it from the harsh despotism it represents. So, do put that in your
statistical pipe and smoke it.
Add to this that Trump changed his election slogan from "make America [ "working class"]
great again" to "make Amerca [financial oligarchy] great again"
The only problem is that 'America' does not exist. America is a part description of a
continent and I think we are talking about the USA (only one country on North American
soil) Why do the yanks always have to exaggerate their own importance like the Olympics
bloke who claimed he was robbed at gunpoint lol! Do the USAians actually have an
inferiority complex?
"... Sounds to me like that Integrity initiative dude needs to go on a 'de-radicalisation program !!! ..."
"... the powerbrokers have always been in London and now its hypercentralized endgame in Brussels. You can say that it is the US through and through, but ask yourself who has more to gain from US FP abroad: average Americans or the global elites? ..."
"... Those former-Eastern Bloc countries, i.e. Poland and Ukraine, do not count as power brokers. They have and will always be pawns in the game. So what if they still worship Icons of Americanism which is a remnant culture of their F*ed up narrative where they still believe they are fighting the commies. ..."
"... Integrity Initiative ..."
"... From his curriculum vitae (pdf) we learn that Donnelly was a long time soldier in the British Army Intelligence Corps where he established and led the Soviet Studies Research Centre at RMA Sandhurst. He later was involved in creating the US Army's Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) at Ft. Leavenworth. ..."
"... He worked at the British Ministry of Defence and as an advisor to several Secretaries General of NATO. He is a director of the Statecraft Institute since 2010. Donnelly also advises the Foreign Minister of Lithuania. He is a "Security and Justice Senior Mentor" of the UK's Stabilisation Unit which is tasked with destabilizing various countries. He serves as a Honorary Colonel of the Specialist Group Military Intelligence (SGMI). ..."
"... This was an order from the core of the British thinking to Donnelly to get even deeper into the inner-British influence business. Hype Russia as a threat so more money can be taken from the 'vested interests' of the people and dumped into the military machine. ..."
"... That particular advise of General Barrons was accepted. In 2017 the Integrity Initiative bid for funding from the Ministry of Defence (pdf) for various projects to influence the public, the parliament and the government as well as foreign forces. The bid lists "performance indicators" that are supposed to measure the success of its activities. The top indicator for the Initiative's proposed work is a "Tougher stance in government policy towards Russia" ..."
"... In March 2014, shortly after Crimea split from the Ukraine, Donnelly suggested Military measures (pdf) to be taken by the Ukraine with regards to Crimea: ..."
"... Think for a moment how Russia would have responded to a mining of Sevastopol harbor, the frying of its satellites or the destruction of its fighter jets in Crimea. Those "guestures" would have been illegal acts of war against the forces of a nuclear power which were legally stationed in Crimea. And how was the west to immediately supply gas to Ukraine and Ukraine's pipeline network is designed to unidirectionally receive gas from Russia? ..."
"... Yes, Putin really believes his own propaganda ..."
"... Putin's paranoia is driving his foreign adventures ..."
"... Russian information warfare - airbrushing reality ..."
"... Distract, deceive, destroy: Putin at war in Syria ..."
"... Russian penetration in Germany ..."
"... Russian conspiracy theory and foreign policy ..."
"... The most recent release of Integrity Initiative documents includes lots of in-depth reports (pdf) about foreign media reactions to the Skripal affair. One wonders why the Initiative commissioned such research (pdf) and paid for it. ..."
"... Here is an interesting look at how little the Russia-linked entities spent on advertising on Google during the 2016 election: https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2018/12/google-russia-and-4700-in-advertising.html Slowly but surely, the Russian meddling narrative is falling apart. ..."
"... McCarthyesque smear campaigns to discredit opponents and squash dissent has become normal practice. Integrity Initiative tweets against Corbyn is a stark example, but there have been MANY other people and groups that have been tarred with claims of being sponsored/led/influenced by Russia, including Catalonian independence activists and Yellow vest protesters. ..."
"... Dear god, what has gotten into the minds of the military and political "elite" within the UK! Mining Sevastopol would have been an obvious act of war against Russia and Russia would have responded with force. ..."
"... It looks like one of the decision was to get closer to France (after getting very close friends in Homs and Aleppo?) See the list of people in the French II cluster dumped yesterday by Anonymous: half the names work at the fr Min of F Affairs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancaster_House_Treaties and http://www.gmfus.org/publications/frances-defense-partnerships-and-dilemmas-brexit ..."
"... This group may have officially formed in 2015, but its work is no different from the British propaganda that swamped the MSM when MH17 was downed. Tied into the Steel dossier and Russian collusion in the US. This is the anglosphere or five eyes permanent state. ..."
"... it is apparent that this "Integrity Initiative" was engaged in to ensure that the regime was in the safe hands of the harpy. ..."
"... It is interesting that Trudeau, the Canadian figurehead, clothes his country's kidnapping of the Chinese business figure as "in defence of the rule of law." All in all, it is now apparent we would be far better off if the Kaiserreich, with all of its militaristic and bombastic flaws, had triumphed in the Great War. No Hitler, no Stalin, no five eyes fascism. ..."
"... Rules of the game are made up as the game is played to suit the players. There you have it real life imitates art. ..."
"... Better yet, can anyone name an NGO, any NGO ever, that's not closely if not directly linked to "a secret military intelligence operation." Anyone? Mueller? ..."
"... Thank you very much for this terrific analysis. Donnelly: "... it is we who must either generate the debate or wait for something dreadful to happen to shock us into action. " Numerous American publications featured very similar language in the years ahead of 9/11, with "Islamic terrorist threat" substituted for the Russians. ..."
"... Vesti News has published an excellent documentary on how "clusters" work....not only to spread Russophobia...but also on continuous intends to overthrown Russian legitimate government... https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=E8-Stfrl5aM ..."
"... The last two periods of the US FP could be understood thusly: (1) Pre-Soviet collapse which was marked by a horrifically tragic and misplaced ideal of defending against communism (Good guys v. Bad Guys); and (2) Post-Soviet collapse which has been a period of coup d'etats where our hijacked military has been used for a Globalist Agenda for increasingly opaque (less defensible) reasons and missions. ..."
"... right after 2016 US elections there was a facade of split between military and intelligence differentiation. Seems that veil has been dispensed with ..."
"... Yeah, they hijacked a few other countries too, including Russia. Or if not hijacking, setting the mood right for some shenanigans in the near future... I think you're quite right about the cheif host of the globalist neolib parasite. Hijacked near fully. Being bled dry. That unaccounted for 21 Trillion at the pentagon is a bit of a giveaway. All under the guise of free markets and democracy. ..."
"... 'Integrity Initiative' - A Military Intelligence Operation Designed To Create A New Enemy ..."
Sounds to me like that Integrity initiative dude needs to go on a 'de-radicalisation
program !!! How many billions is that guna save us all ! not to mention lives saved.
Wrong JR. It seems quite the obvious that the big boy in the west, the US, would seem to be
the one spearheading the whole globalist agenda.
But this is a retarded proposition.
The US is nothing more than a Golem. It has been reduced to somnambulism and hijacked,
utilized for the ends of these Non-National elites. Sure, like many posters here, it feels good
to blame the US for everything. But the powerbrokers have always been in London and now its
hypercentralized endgame in Brussels. You can say that it is the US through and through, but
ask yourself who has more to gain from US FP abroad: average Americans or the global
elites?
Those former-Eastern Bloc countries, i.e. Poland and Ukraine, do not count as power
brokers. They have and will always be pawns in the game. So what if they still worship Icons of
Americanism which is a remnant culture of their F*ed up narrative where they still believe they
are fighting the commies.
Muntadhar al-Zaidi was arrested and tortured for it...
"They broke my teeth, my nose, my leg, they electrocuted me, lashed me, they would beat me,
they even broke a table or a chair over my back. I don't know, they had my eyes covered,"
al-Zaidi recalled. "This was one thing I never experienced before. Torture by the
authorities, by the rule of law."
I wish it had been a hand grenade.
The British government financed Integrity Initiative is tasked with spreading
anti-Russian propaganda and with influencing the public, military and governments of a number
of countries. What follows is an incomplete analysis of the third batch of the Initiative's
papers which was
dumped yesterday.
Christopher Nigel Donnelly (CND) is the co-director of The Institute for Statecraft and founder of its offshoot
Integrity Initiative . The
Initiative claims to "Defend Democracy Against Disinformation".
Both, the Institute as well as the Initiative, claim to be independent Non-Government
Organizations. Both are financed by the British government, NATO and other state donors.
Among the documents
lifted by some anonymous person from the servers of the Institute we find several papers
about Donnelly as well as some memos written by him. They show a russophobe mind with a lack of
realistic strategic thought.
There is also
a file (pdf) with a copy of his passport:
From his
curriculum vitae (pdf) we learn that Donnelly was a long time soldier in the British Army
Intelligence Corps where he established and led the Soviet Studies Research Centre at RMA
Sandhurst. He later was involved in creating the US Army's Foreign Military Studies Office
(FMSO) at Ft. Leavenworth.
He worked at the British Ministry of Defence and as an advisor to several Secretaries
General of NATO. He is a director of the Statecraft Institute since 2010. Donnelly also advises
the Foreign Minister of Lithuania. He is a "Security and Justice Senior Mentor" of the UK's
Stabilisation Unit which
is tasked with destabilizing various countries. He serves as a Honorary Colonel of the
Specialist Group Military Intelligence (SGMI).
During his time as military intelligence analyst in the 1980s Donnelly wrote several books
and papers about the Soviet Union and its military.
Our problem is that, for the last 70 years or so, we in the UK and Europe have been living in
a safe, secure rules-based system which has allowed us to enjoy a holiday from history.
... ... ...
Unfortunately, this state of affairs is now being challenged. A new paradigm of conflict
is replacing the 19th & 20th Century paradigm.
... ... ...
In this new paradigm, the clear distinction which most people have been able to draw
between war and peace, their expectation of stability and a degree of predictability in life,
are being replaced by a volatile unpredictability, a permanent state of instability in which
war and peace become ever more difficult to disentangle . The "classic" understanding of
conflict being between two distinct players or groups of players is giving way to a world of
Darwinian competition where all the players – nation states, sub-state actors, big
corporations, ethnic or religious groups, and so on – are constantly striving with each
other in a "war of all against all". The Western rules-based system, which most westerners
take for granted and have come to believe is "normal", is under attack from countries and
organisations which wish to replace our system with theirs. This is not a crisis which faces
us; it is a strategic challenge, and from several directions simultaneously.
In reality the "Western rules-based system", fully implemented after the demise of the
Soviet Union, is a concept under which 'the west' arbitrarily makes up rules and threatens to
kill anyone who does not follow them. Witness the wars against Serbia, the war on Iraq, the
destruction of Libya, the western led coup in Ukraine and the war by Jihadi proxies against the
people of Syria and Iraq. None of these actions were legal under international law. Demanding a
return to strict adherence to the rule of international law, as Russia,
China and others now do, it is not an attempt to replace "our system with theirs". It is a
return to the normal state of global diplomacy. It is certainly not a "Darwinian
competition".
In October 2016 Donnelly had a Private
Discussion with Gen Sir Richard Barrons (pdf), marked as personal and confidential. Barrons
is a former commander of the British Joint Forces Command. The nonsensical top line is: "The UK
defence model is failing. UK is at real risk."
Some interesting nuggets again reveal a paranoid mindset. The talk also includes some
realistic truthiness about the British military posture Barrons and others created:
There has been a progressive, systemic demobilisation of NATO militarily capability and a run
down of all its members' defences
...
We are seeing new / reinvented ways of warfare – hybrid , plus the reassertion of hard
power in warfare
...
Aircraft Carriers can be useful for lots of things, but not for war v China or Russia, so we
should equip them accordingly. ...
The West no longer has a military edge on Russia. ...
Our Nuclear programme drains resources from conventional forces and hollows them out. ...
The UK Brigade in Germany is no good as a deterrent against Russia. ...
Our battalion in Estonia are hostages, not a deterrent. ...
The general laments the lack of influence the military has on the British government and its
people. He argues for more government financed think tank research that can be fed back into
the government:
So, if no catastrophe happens to wake people up and demand a response, then we need to find a
way to get the core of government to realise the problem and take it out of the political
space. We will need to impose changes over the heads of vested interests. NB We did this in
the 1930s
My conclusion is that it is we who must either generate the debate or wait for something
dreadful to happen to shock us into action. We must generate an independent debate outside
government .
...
We need to ask when and how do we start to put all this right? Do we have the national
capabilities / capacities to fix it? If so, how do we improve our harnessing of resources to
do it? We need this debate NOW. There is not a moment to be lost.
This was an order from the core of the British thinking to Donnelly to get even deeper
into the inner-British influence business. Hype Russia as a threat so more money can be taken
from the 'vested interests' of the people and dumped into the military machine.
That particular advise of General Barrons was accepted. In 2017 the Integrity Initiative
bid for funding from the Ministry of Defence (pdf) for various projects to influence the
public, the parliament and the government as well as foreign forces. The bid lists "performance
indicators" that are supposed to measure the success of its activities. The top indicator for
the Initiative's proposed work is a "Tougher stance in government policy towards Russia"
.
Asking for government finance to influence the government to take a "tougher stand towards
Russia" seems a bit circular. But this is consistent with the operation of other Anglo-American
think tanks and policy initiatives in which one part of the government, usually the hawkish
one, secretly uses NGO's and think-tanks to lobby other parts of the government to support
their specific hobbyhorse and budget.
Here is how it is done. The 'experts' of the 'charity' Institute for Statecraft and
Integrity Initiative
testified
in the British parliament. While they were effectively paid by the government they lobbied
parliament under the cover of their NGO. This circularity also allows to use international
intermediates. Members of the Spanish cluster
(pdf) of the Initiative
testified in the British Parliament about the Catalan referendum and related allegations
against Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange. (It is likely that this testimony led to the change
in the position of the Ecuadorian government towards Assange.)
Unfortunately, or luckily, such lobbying operations are mostly run by people who are
incompetent in the specific field they are lobbying for. Chris Donnelly, despite a life long
experience in military intelligence, has obviously zero competence as a military strategist or
planner.
In March 2014, shortly after Crimea split from the Ukraine, Donnelly suggested
Military
measures (pdf) to be taken by the Ukraine with regards to Crimea:
If I were in charge I would get the following implemented asp
Set up a cordon sanitaire across the Crimean Isthmus and on the coast N. of Crimea with
troops and mines
Mine Sevastopol harbour/bay. Can be done easily using a car ferry if they have no
minelayers. Doesn't need a lot of mines to be effective. They could easily buy some
mines.
Get their air force into the air and activate all their air defences. If they can't fly
the Migs on the airfield in Crimea those should be destroyed as a gesture that they are
serious. Going "live" electronically will worry the Russians as the Ukrainians have the
same electronic kit. If the Russians jam it they jam their own kit as well.
Ukraine used to have some seriously important weapons, such as a big microwave
anti-satellite weapon. If they still have this, they should use it.
The government needs a Strategic communication campaign-so far everything is coming
from Moscow. They need to articulate a long-term vision that will inspire the people,
however hard that is to do. Without it, what have people to fight for?
They should ask the west now to start supplying Oil and gas. There is plenty available
due to the mild winter.
I am trying to get this message across
Think for a moment how Russia would have responded to a mining of Sevastopol harbor, the
frying of its satellites or the destruction of its fighter jets in Crimea. Those "guestures"
would have been illegal acts of war against the forces of a nuclear power which were legally
stationed in Crimea. And how was the west to immediately supply gas to Ukraine and Ukraine's
pipeline network is designed to unidirectionally receive gas from Russia?
Such half-assed thinking is typical for the Institute and its creation of propaganda. One of
its employees/contractors is Hugh Benedict Nimmo who the Initiative paid to produce
anti-Russian propaganda that was then disseminated through various western publications.
According to the (still very incomplete) Initiative files Ben Nimmo
received a monthly consultancy fee of £2.500 between December 2015 and March 2016. In
August 2016 he sent an invoice
(pdf) of £5,000 for his "August work on Integrity Initiative". A
Production Timetable (pdf) for March to June 2016 lists the following Nimmo outputs and
activities:
17 March Atlantic Council: Yes, Putin really believes his own propaganda , Ben
Nimmo
21 March Newsweek: Putin's paranoia is driving his foreign adventures , Ben
Nimmo
22 March, UK House of Commons: Russian information warfare - airbrushing
reality , Jonathan Eyal and Ben Nimmo
Mid May: Atlantic Council: Distract, deceive, destroy: Putin at war in Syria .
Ben Nimmo et al (Major study)
Early May timeframe: Russian penetration in Germany , Harold Elletson, Ben
Nimmo et al - 10,000 words
June timeframe: Atlantic Council, major report on Russian conspiracy theory and
foreign policy , Ben Nimmo (potential launch events in London and / or
Washington)
End-June: Mapping Russia's whole influence machine , Ben Nimmo - 10,000
words
One wonders how often Ben Nimmo double billed his various sponsors for these copy-paste
fantasy pamphlets.
In late 2017 Ben Nimmo and Guardian 'journalist' Carole Cadwalladr disseminated
allegations that Russia used Facebook ads to influence the Brexit decision. Cadwalladr even
received a price for her work. Unfortunately the price was not revoked when Facebook revealed
that "Russia linked" accounts had spend a total of 97 cents on Brexit ads. It is unexplained
how that was enough to achieve their alleged aim.
Cadwalladr is listed
as a speaker (pdf) at a "skill sharing" conference the Institute organized for November 1-2
under the headline: "Tackling Tools of Malign Influence - Supporting 21st Century
Journalism".
This year Ben Nimmo became notorious for claiming that
several real persons with individual opinions were "Russian trolls". As we
noted :
Nimmo, and several other dimwits quoted in the piece, came to the conclusion that Ian56 is
a Kremlin paid troll, not a real person. Next to Ian56 Nimmo 'identified' other 'Russian
troll' accounts:
One particularly influential retweeter (judging by the number of accounts which then
retweeted it) was @ValLisitsa, which posts in English and Russian. Last year, this account
joined the troll-factory #StopMorganLie campaign.
Had Nimmo, a former NATO spokesperson, had some decent education he would have
know that @ValLisitsa, aka Valentina Lisitsa , is a famous
American- Ukrainian pianist. Yes, she sometimes tweets in Russian language to her many fans
in Russia and the Ukraine. Is that now a crime? The videos of her world wide
performances on Youtube have more than 170 million views. It is absurd to claim that she is a
'Russian troll' and to insinuate that she is taking Kremlin money to push 'Russian troll'
opinions.
The
Institute for Statecraft Expert Team (pdf) list several people with military intelligence
backgrounds as well as many 'journalists'. One of them is:
Mark Galeotti
Specialist in Russian strategic thinking; the application of Russian disinformation and
hybrid warfare; the use of organised crime as a weapon of hybrid warfare. Educational and
mentoring skills, including in a US and E European environment, and the corporate world.
Russian linguist
Galeotti is the infamous inventor of the 'Gerasimov doctrine' and of the propaganda about
Russia's alleged 'hybrid' warfare. In February 2013 the Russian General Valery Gerasimov, then
Russia's chief of the General Staff, published a paper that analysed the way the 'west' is
waging a new type of war by mixing propaganda, proxy armies and military force into one unified
operation.
Galeotti claimed that Gerasimov's analysis of 'western' operations was a new Russian
doctrine of 'hybrid war'. He invented the term 'Gerasimov doctrine' which then took off in the
propaganda realm. In February 2016 the U.S. Army Military Review
published a longer analysis of Gerasimov's paper that debunked the nonsense (pdf). It
concluded:
Gerasimov's article is not proposing a new Russian way of warfare or a hybrid war, as has
been stated in the West.
But anti-Russian propagandist
repeated Galeotti's nonsense over and over. Only in March 2018, five years after Galeotti
invented the 'Germasimov doctrine' and two years after he was thoroughly debunked, he finally
recanted
:
Everywhere, you'll find scholars, pundits, and policymakers talking about the threat the
"Gerasimov doctrine" -- named after Russia's chief of the general staff -- poses to the West.
It's a new way of war, "an expanded theory of modern warfare," or even "a vision of total
warfare."
There's one small problem. It doesn't exist. And the longer we pretend it does, the longer
we misunderstand the -- real, but different -- challenge Russia poses.
I feel I can say that because, to my immense chagrin, I created this term, which has since
acquired a destructive life of its own, lumbering clumsily into the world to spread fear and
loathing in its wake.
The Institute for Statecraft's "Specialist in Russian strategic thinking", an expert of
disinformation and hybrid warfare, created a non-existing Russian doctrine out of hot air and
used it to press for anti-Russian measures. Like Ben Nimmo he is an aptly example of the
quality of the Institute's experts and work.
One of the newly released documents headlined CND Gen list 2
(pdf) (CND= Chris Nigel Donnelly) includes the names and email addresses of a number of
military, government and think tank people. The anonymous releaser of the documents claims that
the list is "of employees who attended a closed-door meeting with the white helmets". (No
document has been published yet that confirms this.) One name on the list is of special
interest:
Pablo Miller was the handler and friend of Sergej Skripal, the British double agent who was
"novichoked" in Salisbury. When Miller's name was mentioned in the press the British government
issued a D-Notice to suppress its further publishing,
Pablo Miller, a British MI6 agent, had
recruited Sergej Skripal. The former MI6 agent in Moscow, Christopher Steele, was also
involved in the case. Skripal was caught by the Russian security services and went to jail.
Pablo Miller, the MI6 recruiter, was also the handler of Sergej Skripal after he was released
by Russia in a spy swap. He reportedly also lives in Salisbury. Both Christopher Steele and
Pablo Miller work for Orbis Business Intelligence which created the "Dirty Dossier" about
Donald Trump.
At the very beginning of the Skripal affair, before there was any talk of 'Novichok', we
asked
if Skripal was involved in creating the
now debunked "Dirty Dossier" and if that was a reason for certain British insiders to move
him out of the way:
Here are some question:
Did Skripal help Steele to make up the "dossier" about Trump?
Were Skripal's old connections used to contact other people in Russia to ask about
Trump dirt?
Did Skripal threaten to talk about this?
If there is a connection between the dossier and Skripal, which seems very likely to me,
then there are a number of people and organizations with potential motives to kill him. Lots
of shady folks and officials on both sides of the Atlantic were involved in creating and
running the anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign. There are several investigations and some very
dirty laundry might one day come to light. Removing Skripal while putting the blame on Russia
looks like a convenient way to get rid of a potential witness.
The
most recent release of Integrity Initiative documents includes lots of in-depth
reports (pdf) about foreign media reactions to the Skripal affair. One wonders why the
Initiative commissioned
such research (pdf) and paid for it.
After two years the Muller investigation found zero
evidence for the 'collusion' between Russia and the Trump campaign that the fake Steele
dossier suggested. The whole collusion claim is a creation by 'former' British intelligence
operatives who likely acted on request of U.S. intelligence leaders Clapper and Brennan. How
deep was the Russia specialist Chris Donnelly and his Institute for Statecraft involved in this
endeavor?
Checking through all the released Initiative papers and lists one gets the impression of a
secret military intelligence operation, disguised as a public NGO. Financed by millions of
government money the Institute for Statecraft and the Integrity Initiative work under a charity
label to create and disseminate disinformation to the global public and back into the
government and military itself.
The paranoia about Russia, which does way less harm than the 'western' "rules based system"
constantly creates, is illogical and not based on factual analysis. It creates Russia as an
"enemy" when it is none. It hypes a "threat" out of hot air. The only people who profit from
this are the propagandists and the companies and people who back them.
The Initiatives motto "Defend Democracy Against Disinformation" is a truly Orwellian
construct. By disseminating propaganda and using it to influence the public, parliament, the
military and governments, the Institute actively undermines the democratic process that depends
on the free availability of truthful information.
It should be shut down immediately.
---
Note: There have already been attempts to delete the released files from the Internet. A
complete archive of all Integrity Initiative files published so far is here . Should
the public links cease to work, you can contact the author of this blog for access to private
backups.
Aside from the fact that the government itself funds this organization, the creepiest thing
about it is that the "non-governmental individuals" that help fund it are the same people
that run the think tanks: a bunch of Rhodesians.
"Such half-assed thinking...Think for a moment how Russia would have responded to a mining of
Sevastopol harbor, the frying of its satellites or the destruction of its fighter jets in
Crimea. Those "gestures" would have been illegal acts of war against the forces of a nuclear
power which were legally stationed in Crimea."
It sure seems like this half-assed thinking isn't just the domain of a fringe element, but
is increasingly mainstream among the elites. Doesn't bode well.
Thank you B. It is truly amazing to watch the UK elites unravel as they have become truly
unhinged by their own connivances. It is a bad joke at the commoner's expense that they
propagandize and demonize in the name of the 'Western rules based system' even as they are
busy shooting themselves in both feet by committing Brexit. Although there are legitimate
grievances with the EU, it is clear that Brexit is a Tory power play that is all politics and
zero governance. Alas, Perfidious Albion has succumbed to Mad Cow disease.
What remains mysterious (not really) is why --if these initiatives are truly meant to save
and strengthen democracy-- they aren't proudly proclaimed and advertised, in the open,
transparent, for everyone one to see and judge, like an adult democracy that they claim to
stand for might want to debate and form an opinion on.
The fact that it isn't, is testimony to the nefarious anti-democratic, authoritarian and
totalitarian streak that runs in between every two lines that they put on paper.
McCarthyesque smear campaigns to discredit opponents and squash dissent has become normal
practice. Integrity Initiative tweets against Corbyn is a stark example, but there have been
MANY other people and groups that have been tarred with claims of being
sponsored/led/influenced by Russia, including Catalonian independence activists and Yellow
vest protesters.
Every time one scratches the surface of such smears, it seems there is a connection to
US/British MIC, Ukraine, or Israel - essentially, those who benefit (financially or
otherwise) from greater tensions with Russia.
At what point does neocon doubling-down on failed foreign policy become more than just
picking our pockets and warping our minds? At what point do they start killing our kids in
another unnecessary war?
Cold War has been over for nearly 30 years. It's time enough for Western countries to send
into real retirement every single cold-warrior, their time is over, their mindset is quaint
and useless, if not downright dangerous and counter-productive.
Thank you 'b'
I'll just say -- - there is safety in numbers ! Already valuable information, important to
the public good and democracy has been spread wide enough to be certain, this gene won't go
back in the bottle ! D notice or no ! And by doing that, has made the fearless journalists
and investigators lives all the safer ! Safety in numbers, spread this wide everyone?
Thanks for the continued exposition of this story b.....may it go viral
I want to comment on some of the wording you quote Donnelly as writing
" .....is giving way to a world of Darwinian competition where all the players
– nation states, sub-state actors, big corporations, ethnic or religious groups, and
so on – are constantly striving with each other in a "war of all against all".
"
This is Donnelly's characterization of a world in which finance is a public utility
instead of the private jackboot that it currently is. This is the delusion these people have
been led to believe.
So instead of his "war of all against all" that some might call human cooperation on the
basis of merit we have a mythical God of Mammon religion that continues to instantiate the
private finance led world of the West with it parasitic elite and fawning acolytes.
Dear god, what has gotten into the minds of the military and political "elite" within the
UK! Mining Sevastopol would have been an obvious act of war against Russia and Russia would
have responded with force.
Thankfully it wasn't done but the fact this was even discussed by senior figures confirms
that there was at least a sizable minority pushing for it. 30 years after the fall of the
Soviet Union, the Western elite have truly abandoned all sense of reality and embraced a
consequence free view of the use of force. After Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya they haven't
learned a thing! I'm becoming more and more certain that a peaceful transition to the
multipolar world is impossible and that it will only happen after the US or one of its'
vassal states blunder into a proxy war and get utterly and comprehensively defeated, forcing
a radical world realignment, but with nuts like John Bolton and the neocons in the Whitehouse
it could easily lead to a nuclear war
This group may have officially formed in 2015, but its work is no different from the
British propaganda that swamped the MSM when MH17 was downed. Tied into the Steel dossier and
Russian collusion in the US. This is the anglosphere or five eyes permanent state.
exiled off mainstreet , Dec 15, 2018 2:22:39 PM |
link
As an aside this happens to be "Bill of Rights Day", the anniversary of the passage of the
Bill of Rights as amendments to the yankee constitution. This reveals again how far from the
rule of law the yankee imperium, now the key element of the British Empire they supposedly
seceded from, has strayed, since it is apparent that this "Integrity Initiative" was
engaged in to ensure that the regime was in the safe hands of the harpy.
It has also ensured that the victorious candidate has been neutered and faithfully follows
the world control line put forward by the five eyes spy-masters making up the empire in its
present iteration. This also shows what a farce the regime, based on the rule of law, now
presents.
It is interesting that Trudeau, the Canadian figurehead, clothes his country's
kidnapping of the Chinese business figure as "in defence of the rule of law." All in all, it
is now apparent we would be far better off if the Kaiserreich, with all of its militaristic
and bombastic flaws, had triumphed in the Great War. No Hitler, no Stalin, no five eyes
fascism.
The "Western-based rules system" described in this article reminds me of a game called
"Calvin Ball" which appeared in the former comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes." In the strip
Calvin a wildly imaginative adolescent boy who plays a free-form of football with his
imaginary pet toy tiger (Hobbes). Rules of the game are made up as the game is played to
suit the players. There you have it real life imitates art.
b, I downloaded the zip file, and had also downloaded all the PDF's from pdf-archive
yesterday. There are more files in the zip, but the following were on pdf-archive and are NOT
in the zip:
integrity-france.pdf (this is a dud, looks like html, prob. response from a failed
attempt to put a file up on pdf-archive)
Better yet, can anyone name an NGO, any NGO ever, that's not closely if not directly
linked to "a secret military intelligence operation." Anyone? Mueller?
Thank you very much for this terrific analysis. Donnelly: "... it is we who must either
generate the debate or wait for something dreadful to happen to shock us into action. "
Numerous American publications featured very similar language in the years ahead of 9/11,
with "Islamic terrorist threat" substituted for the Russians.
Emmanuel Goldstein , Dec 15, 2018 4:21:51 PM |
link
The transcript of his conversation with the general shows very starkly that we would last
about two minutes in a nuclear exchange, but about half a day in a conventional one. No
reserves, no equipment stockpiles, a navy consisting of two fat targets, neither of which has
any aircraft and some destroyers which have propulsion problems, a smallish air force and
very small numbers of troops. The tripwire force in Estonia is wholly sacrificial. In fact he
lays bare the whole fallacy of biting the bear. With the armed forces in the state he
describes, and with the recruitment and retention problems, wouldn't it be better, as one
defense minister said, 'to go away and shut up'...
Thanks b and especially the link to Valentina Lisitsa who I had tinkling in the background as
I read your grand expose. These people are seditious morons, parasites infesting the state
apparatus. Shut these fools down. Nice touch publishing the passport image. I can just
imagine the frenzied aftermath of Kit's visit to the basement. Big thanks to anonymous and
Craig Murray too. Their IT personel are probably visiting Devil's Island or Diego Garcia as
we read.
Vesti News has published an excellent documentary on how "clusters" work....not only to
spread Russophobia...but also on continuous intends to overthrown Russian legitimate
government... https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=E8-Stfrl5aM
The British and US connections to loot and evade Russian riches and funds are exposed, as
well as the origin of sanctions, supposed "alt-media" "truth-seakers" like Meduza...or
supposed "pro-Russian" US intelligence operatives married to Russian women....
Amongst the many issues he usually passes over trying to make himself the fool, while at
the same time trying to convince us of the oustanding intellectual capacities, honesty and
classy stance of him and his "comittee"...
For that travel, to end bluntly and in such public view siding with the nazis of the "Azov
Regiment" and other criminals of war, there was no need of so many saddlebags, so as
pretending that the people who supported Trump as if there was no tomorrow, were enlightened
people who only wanted to rescue "America" for the "Americans", as if there would not be a
sign of blatant exceptionalism in appropriating of the term "Americans" for themselves in
such a huge continent....
In my view, the USA's FP has been undermined by EURO elites which is forcing a game of
chicken with Russia.
The FP pre-Soviet collapse consisted of one MO: GET THE COMMIES!
Since then, Neocons and Neolibs which are frontmen for this Non-National Globalized Elite,
have hijacked our country's military and have steered it to a Global agenda where dominance
in the ME means either superiority for these EURO elites or Vassal-hood.
The last two periods of the US FP could be understood thusly: (1) Pre-Soviet collapse
which was marked by a horrifically tragic and misplaced ideal of defending against communism
(Good guys v. Bad Guys); and (2) Post-Soviet collapse which has been a period of coup d'etats
where our hijacked military has been used for a Globalist Agenda for increasingly opaque
(less defensible) reasons and missions.
The average American could care less about the ME and the US would be 1000x better-off
reverting to an isolationist stance.
But this will not happen so long as Nationalism in the US and UK is repeatedly put-down.
It seems as though there is going to be another Brexit vote. Does anyone doubt that
miraculously the people by then will have second-guessed their will to Brexit and so will
vote against it given another crack at a vote?
Import IT workers and staff science faculties from abroad w dual citizens while kkr
buys wafer labs that outsource to mainland for manufacturing
Cry boo hoo hoo to wake up with indigenous capacity decades behind world players like
Russia, China, India, etc who operate on fractional budgets...
But this drama also exposes ashura/emigods intra necine warfare: right after 2016 US
elections there was a facade of split between military and intelligence differentiation.
Seems that veil has been dispensed with , but it invites other questions, insofar as UK
is Her Majesty's Service, so are we to read this with Prince Harry or Philip's culture, or a
"consent by silence") in mind? Defending crown or EU "Saturnus Sattelitus"?
Yeah, they hijacked a few other countries too, including Russia. Or if not hijacking,
setting the mood right for some shenanigans in the near future... I think you're quite right
about the cheif host of the globalist neolib parasite. Hijacked near fully. Being bled dry.
That unaccounted for 21 Trillion at the pentagon is a bit of a giveaway. All under the guise
of free markets and democracy.
Good to see Trump finally give it a face... 'you need freedom and security now pay up
bitches'
In my view, the USA's FP has been undermined by EURO elites which is forcing a game of
chicken with Russia.... Globalist Agenda
I think the opposite is true.
The US-led Empire and their globalist sycophants seek to weaken Europe so that it can not
act independently in its own best interests. They will do what ever they can to ensure that
the vassals never join with Russia/China and the SCO.
Russian scare-mongering and immigration have been effective in furthering this agenda.
Also note: what USA has termed "new Europe" - eastern European states like Poland and Ukraine
- are solidly pro-American.
Exploitation is high on the priority list of any Tory government, wealth should be
distributed much more fairly than it currently is. The tories only serve the rich, they have
no time or empathy for the poor.
Empathy and compassion are vacant in the tory philosophy of the world. These two
components make up a psychopathic personality.
Skripal father probably fully participated to the whole story. These kinds of narratives are
useful to distract the masses from the complete impotency of their politicians.
He now enjoys a forced holiday in Brasil under a new name and a new face, and the same for
his daughter, who had to share in this involuntarily .
It is very interesting and educational to read this pre-election article two years later and see where the author is
right and where he is wrong. The death of neoliberalism was greatly exaggerated. It simply mutated in the USA into "national
neoliberalism" under Trump. As no clear alternative exists it remain the dominant ideology and universities still
brainwash students with neoclassical economics. And in way catchy slogan "Make America great again" under Trump
means "Make American working and lower middle class great again"
It is also clear that Trump betrayed or was forced to betray most of his election promises. Standrd of living of common
americans did not improve under his watch. most of hi benefits of his tax cuts went to large corporations and financial
oligarch. He continued the policy of financial deregulation, which is tantamount of playing with open fire trying to
warm up the house
What we see under Trump is tremendous growth of political role of intelligence agencies which now are real kingmakers and can
sink any candidate which does not support their agenda. And USA intelligence agencies operated in 2016 in close cooperation
with the UK intelligence agencies to the extent that it is not clear who has the lead in creating Steele dossier. They are
definitely out of control of executive branch and play their own game. We also see a rise of CIA democrats as a desperate
attempt to preserve the power of Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ('soft neoliberals" turned under Hillary into into warmongers
and neocons) . Hillary and Bill themselves clearly belong to CIA democrats too, not only to Wall Street democrats, despite the fact
that they sold Democratic Party to Wall Street in the past. New Labor in UK did the same.
But if it is more or less clear now what happened in the USa in 2016-2018, it is completely unclear what will happen next.
I think in no way neoliberalism will start to be dismantled. there is no social forces powerful enough to start this job, We
probably need another financial crisi of the scale of 2008 for this work to be reluctantly started by ruling
elite. And we better not to have this repetition of 2008 as it will be really devastating for common people.
Notable quotes:
"... the causes of this political crisis, glaringly evident on both sides of the Atlantic, are much deeper than simply the financial crisis and the virtually stillborn recovery of the last decade. They go to the heart of the neoliberal project that dates from the late 70s and the political rise of Reagan and Thatcher, and embraced at its core the idea of a global free market in goods, services and capital. The depression-era system of bank regulation was dismantled, in the US in the 1990s and in Britain in 1986, thereby creating the conditions for the 2008 crisis. Equality was scorned, the idea of trickle-down economics lauded, government condemned as a fetter on the market and duly downsized, immigration encouraged, regulation cut to a minimum, taxes reduced and a blind eye turned to corporate evasion. ..."
"... It should be noted that, by historical standards, the neoliberal era has not had a particularly good track record. The most dynamic period of postwar western growth was that between the end of the war and the early 70s, the era of welfare capitalism and Keynesianism, when the growth rate was double that of the neoliberal period from 1980 to the present. ..."
"... In the period 1948-1972, every section of the American population experienced very similar and sizable increases in their standard of living; between 1972-2013, the bottom 10% experienced falling real income while the top 10% did far better than everyone else. In the US, the median real income for full-time male workers is now lower than it was four decades ago: the income of the bottom 90% of the population has stagnated for over 30 years . ..."
"... On average, between 65-70% of households in 25 high-income economies experienced stagnant or falling real incomes between 2005 and 2014. ..."
"... As Thomas Piketty has shown, in the absence of countervailing pressures, capitalism naturally gravitates towards increasing inequality. In the period between 1945 and the late 70s, Cold War competition was arguably the biggest such constraint. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been none. As the popular backlash grows increasingly irresistible, however, such a winner-takes-all regime becomes politically unsustainable. ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... "'Populism' is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens that they don't like." Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually both. ..."
"... According to a Gallup poll, in 2000 only 33% of Americans called themselves working class; by 2015 the figure was 48%, almost half the population. ..."
"... The re-emergence of the working class as a political voice in Britain, most notably in the Brexit vote, can best be described as an inchoate expression of resentment and protest, with only a very weak sense of belonging to the labour movement. ..."
"... Economists such as Larry Summers believe that the prospect for the future is most likely one of secular stagnation . ..."
"... those who have lost out in the neoliberal era are no longer prepared to acquiesce in their fate – they are increasingly in open revolt. We are witnessing the end of the neoliberal era. It is not dead, but it is in its early death throes, just as the social-democratic era was during the 1970s. ..."
In the early 1980s the author was one of the first to herald the emerging dominance of neoliberalism in the west. Here he argues
that this doctrine is now faltering. But what happens next?
The western financial crisis of 2007-8 was the worst since 1931, yet its immediate repercussions were surprisingly modest. The
crisis challenged the foundation stones of the long-dominant neoliberal ideology but it seemed to emerge largely unscathed. The banks
were bailed out; hardly any bankers on either side of the Atlantic were prosecuted for their crimes; and the price of their behaviour
was duly paid by the taxpayer. Subsequent economic policy, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, has relied overwhelmingly on monetary
policy, especially quantitative easing. It has failed. The western economy has stagnated and is now approaching its lost decade,
with no end in sight.
After almost nine years, we are finally beginning to reap the political whirlwind of the financial crisis. But how did neoliberalism
manage to survive virtually unscathed for so long? Although it failed the test of the real world, bequeathing the worst economic
disaster for seven decades, politically and intellectually it remained the only show in town. Parties of the right, centre and left
had all bought into its philosophy, New Labour a classic
in point. They knew no other way of thinking or doing: it had become the common sense. It was, as Antonio Gramsci put it, hegemonic.
But that hegemony cannot and will not survive the test of the real world.
The first inkling of the wider political consequences was evident in the turn in public opinion against the banks, bankers and
business leaders. For decades, they could do no wrong: they were feted as the role models of our age, the default troubleshooters
of choice in education, health and seemingly everything else. Now, though, their star was in steep descent, along with that of the
political class. The effect of the financial crisis was to undermine faith and trust in the competence of the governing elites. It
marked the beginnings of a wider political crisis.
But the causes of this political crisis, glaringly evident on both sides of the Atlantic, are much deeper than simply the financial
crisis and the virtually stillborn recovery of the last decade. They go to the heart of the neoliberal project that dates from the
late 70s and the political rise of Reagan and Thatcher, and embraced at its core the idea of a global free market in goods, services
and capital. The depression-era system of bank regulation was dismantled, in the US in the 1990s and in Britain in 1986, thereby
creating the conditions for the 2008 crisis. Equality was scorned, the idea of trickle-down economics lauded, government condemned
as a fetter on the market and duly downsized, immigration encouraged, regulation cut to a minimum, taxes reduced and a blind eye
turned to corporate evasion.
It should be noted that, by historical standards, the neoliberal era has not had a particularly good track record. The most dynamic
period of postwar western growth was that between the end of the war and the early 70s, the era of welfare capitalism and Keynesianism,
when the growth rate was double that of the neoliberal period from 1980 to the present.
But by far the most disastrous feature of the neoliberal period has been the huge growth in inequality. Until very recently, this
had been virtually ignored. With extraordinary speed, however, it has emerged as one of, if not the most important political issue
on both sides of the Atlantic, most dramatically in the US. It is, bar none, the issue that is driving the political discontent that
is now engulfing the west. Given the statistical evidence, it is puzzling, shocking even, that it has been disregarded for so long;
the explanation can only lie in the sheer extent of the hegemony of neoliberalism and its values.
But now reality has upset the doctrinal apple cart. In the period 1948-1972, every section of the American population experienced
very similar and sizable increases in their standard of living; between 1972-2013, the bottom 10% experienced falling real income
while the top 10% did far better than everyone else. In the US, the median real income for full-time male workers is now lower than
it was four decades ago: the income of the bottom 90% of the population has
stagnated for over 30 years .
A not so dissimilar picture is true of the UK. And the problem has grown more serious since the financial crisis. On average,
between 65-70% of households in 25 high-income economies experienced stagnant or falling real
incomes between 2005 and 2014.
Large sections of the population in both the US and the UK are now in revolt against their lot
The reasons are not difficult to explain. The hyper-globalisation era has been systematically stacked in favour of capital against
labour: international trading agreements, drawn up in great secrecy, with business on the inside and the unions and citizens excluded,
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the
Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) being but the latest examples; the politico-legal attack on the unions;
the encouragement of large-scale immigration in both the US and Europe that helped to undermine
the bargaining power of the domestic workforce; and the failure to retrain displaced workers in any meaningful way.
As Thomas Piketty has shown, in the absence of
countervailing pressures, capitalism naturally gravitates towards increasing inequality. In the period between 1945 and the late
70s, Cold War competition was arguably the biggest such constraint. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been none.
As the popular backlash grows increasingly irresistible, however, such a winner-takes-all regime becomes politically unsustainable.
Large sections of the population in both the US and the UK are now in revolt against their lot, as graphically illustrated by
the support for Trump and Sanders in the US and the Brexit vote in the UK. This popular revolt is often described, in a somewhat
denigratory and dismissive fashion, as populism. Or, as Francis Fukuyama writes in a recent excellent
essay
in Foreign Affairs : "'Populism' is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens
that they don't like." Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is
generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually both.
Brexit is a classic example of such populism. It has overturned a fundamental cornerstone of UK policy since the early 1970s.
Though ostensibly about Europe, it was in fact about much more: a cri de coeur from those who feel they have lost out and been left
behind, whose living standards have stagnated or worse since the 1980s, who feel dislocated by large-scale immigration over which
they have no control and who face an increasingly insecure and casualised labour market. Their revolt has paralysed the governing
elite, already claimed one prime minister, and left the latest one fumbling around in the dark looking for divine inspiration.
The wave of populism marks the return of class as a central agency in politics, both in the UK and the US. This is particularly
remarkable in the US. For many decades, the idea of the "working class" was marginal to American political discourse. Most Americans
described themselves as middle class, a reflection of the aspirational pulse at the heart of American society. According to a Gallup
poll, in 2000 only 33% of Americans called themselves working class; by 2015 the figure was 48%, almost half the population.
Brexit, too, was primarily a working-class revolt. Hitherto, on both sides of the Atlantic, the agency of class has been in retreat
in the face of the emergence of a new range of identities and issues from gender and race to sexual orientation and the environment.
The return of class, because of its sheer reach, has the potential, like no other issue, to redefine the political landscape.
The working class belongs to no one: its orientation, far from predetermined, is a function of politics
The re-emergence of class should not be confused with the labor movement. They are not synonymous: this is obvious in the US
and increasingly the case in the UK. Indeed, over the last half-century, there has been a growing separation between the two in Britain.
The re-emergence of the working class as a political voice in Britain, most notably in the Brexit vote, can best be described as
an inchoate expression of resentment and protest, with only a very weak sense of belonging to the labour movement.
Indeed, Ukip has been as important – in the form of immigration and Europe – in shaping its current attitudes as the Labour party.
In the United States, both Trump and Sanders have given expression to the working-class revolt, the latter almost as much as the
former. The working class belongs to no one: its orientation, far from predetermined, as the left liked to think, is a function of
politics.
The neoliberal era is being undermined from two directions. First, if its record of economic growth has never been particularly
strong, it is now dismal. Europe is barely larger than it was on the eve of the financial crisis in 2007; the United States has done
better but even its growth has been anaemic. Economists such as Larry Summers believe that the prospect for the future is most likely
one of secular stagnation .
Worse, because the recovery has been so weak and fragile, there is a widespread belief that another financial crisis may well
beckon. In other words, the neoliberal era has delivered the west back into the kind of crisis-ridden world that we last experienced
in the 1930s. With this background, it is hardly surprising that a majority in the west now believe their children will be worse
off than they were. Second, those who have lost out in the neoliberal era are no longer prepared to acquiesce in their fate – they
are increasingly in open revolt. We are witnessing the end of the neoliberal era. It is not dead, but it is in its early death throes,
just as the social-democratic era was during the 1970s.
A sure sign of the declining influence of neoliberalism is the rising chorus of intellectual voices raised against it. From the
mid-70s through the 80s, the economic debate was increasingly dominated by monetarists and free marketeers. But since the western
financial crisis, the centre of gravity of the intellectual debate has shifted profoundly. This is most obvious in the United States,
with economists such as Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Dani Rodrik and Jeffrey Sachs becoming increasingly influential. Thomas Piketty's
Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been a massive seller. His work and that of
Tony Atkinson
and Angus Deaton have pushed the question of the inequality to the top of the political agenda. In the UK,
Ha-Joon Chang , for long isolated within the economics
profession, has gained a following far greater than those who think economics is a branch of mathematics.
Meanwhile, some of those who were previously strong advocates of a neoliberal approach, such as Larry Summers and the Financial
Times 's Martin Wolf, have become extremely critical. The wind is in the sails of the critics of neoliberalism; the neoliberals
and monetarists are in retreat. In the UK, the media and political worlds are well behind the curve. Few recognize that we are at
the end of an era. Old attitudes and assumptions still predominate, whether on the BBC's Today programme, in the rightwing
press or the parliamentary Labor party.
Following Ed Miliband's resignation as Labour leader, virtually no one foresaw the triumph of
Jeremy Corbyn in the subsequent leadership election.
The assumption had been more of the same, a Blairite or a halfway house like Miliband, certainly not anyone like Corbyn. But the
zeitgeist had changed. The membership, especially the young who had joined the party on an unprecedented scale, wanted a complete
break with New Labour. One of the reasons why the left has failed to emerge as the leader of the new mood of working-class disillusionment
is that most social democratic parties became, in varying degrees, disciples of neoliberalism and uber-globalisation. The most extreme
forms of this phenomenon were New Labour and the Democrats, who in the late 90s and 00s became its advance guard, personified by
Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, triangulation and the third way.
But as David Marquand observed in a review for the New Statesman , what is the point of a social democratic party if
it doesn't represent the less fortunate, the underprivileged and the losers? New Labour deserted those who needed them, who historically
they were supposed to represent. Is it surprising that large sections have now deserted the party who deserted them? Blair, in his
reincarnation as a money-obsessed consultant to a shady bunch of presidents and dictators, is a fitting testament to the demise of
New Labour.
The rival contenders – Burnham, Cooper and Kendall – represented continuity. They were swept away by Corbyn, who won nearly 60%
of the votes. New Labour was over, as dead as Monty Python's parrot. Few grasped the meaning of what had happened. A Guardian
leader welcomed the surge in membership and then, lo and behold, urged support for Yvette Cooper, the very antithesis of the
reason for the enthusiasm. The PLP refused to accept the result and ever since has tried with might and main to remove Corbyn.
Just as the Labour party took far too long to come to terms with the rise of Thatcherism and the birth of a new era at the end
of the 70s, now it could not grasp that the Thatcherite paradigm, which they eventually came to embrace in the form of New Labour,
had finally run its course. Labour, like everyone else, is obliged to think anew. The membership in their antipathy to New Labour
turned to someone who had never accepted the latter, who was the polar opposite in almost every respect of Blair, and embodying an
authenticity and decency which Blair patently did not.
Labour may be in intensive care, but the condition of the Conservatives is not a great deal better
Corbyn is not a product of the new times, he is a throwback to the late 70s and early 80s. That is both his strength and also
his weakness. He is uncontaminated by the New Labour legacy because he has never accepted it. But nor, it would seem, does he understand
the nature of the new era. The danger is that he is possessed of feet of clay in what is a highly fluid and unpredictable political
environment, devoid of any certainties of almost any kind, in which Labour finds itself dangerously divided and weakened.
Labour may be in intensive care, but the condition of the Conservatives is not a great deal better. David Cameron was guilty of
a huge and irresponsible miscalculation over Brexit. He was forced to resign in the most ignominious of circumstances. The party
is hopelessly divided. It has no idea in which direction to move after Brexit. The Brexiters painted an optimistic picture of turning
away from the declining European market and embracing the expanding markets of the world, albeit barely mentioning by name which
countries it had in mind. It looks as if the new prime minister may have an anachronistic hostility towards China and a willingness
to undo the good work of George Osborne. If the government turns its back on China, by far the fastest growing market in the world,
where are they going to turn?
Brexit has left the country fragmented and deeply divided, with the very real prospect that Scotland might choose independence.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives seem to have little understanding that the neoliberal era is in its death throes.
Dramatic as events have been in the UK, they cannot compare with those in the United States. Almost from nowhere,
Donald Trump rose to capture the Republican nomination
and confound virtually all the pundits and not least his own party. His message was straightforwardly anti-globalisation. He believes
that the interests of the working class have been sacrificed in favour of the big corporations that have been encouraged to invest
around the world and thereby deprive American workers of their jobs. Further, he argues that large-scale immigration has weakened
the bargaining power of American workers and served to lower their wages.
He proposes that US corporations should be required to invest their cash reserves in the US. He believes that the North American
Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) has had the effect of exporting American jobs to Mexico. On similar grounds, he is opposed to the TPP
and the TTIP. And he also accuses China of stealing American jobs, threatening to impose a 45% tariff on Chinese imports.
To globalisation Trump counterposes economic nationalism: "Put America first". His appeal, above all, is to the white working
class who, until Trump's (and Bernie Sander's) arrival on the political scene, had been ignored and largely unrepresented since the
1980s. Given that their wages have been falling for most of the last 40 years, it is extraordinary how their interests have been
neglected by the political class. Increasingly, they have voted Republican, but the Republicans have long been captured by the super-rich
and Wall Street, whose interests, as hyper-globalisers, have run directly counter to those of the white working class. With the arrival
of Trump they finally found a representative: they won Trump the Republican nomination.
Trump believes that America's pursuit of great power status has squandered the nation's resources
The economic nationalist argument has also been vigorously pursued by
Bernie Sanders , who ran Hillary Clinton extremely
close for the Democratic nomination and would probably have won but for more than 700 so-called super-delegates, who were effectively
chosen by the Democratic machine and overwhelmingly supported Clinton. As in the case of the Republicans, the Democrats have long
supported a neoliberal, pro-globalisation strategy, notwithstanding the concerns of its trade union base. Both the Republicans and
the Democrats now find themselves deeply polarised between the pro- and anti-globalisers, an entirely new development not witnessed
since the shift towards neoliberalism under Reagan almost 40 years ago.
Another plank of Trump's nationalist appeal – "Make America great again" – is his position on foreign policy. He believes that
America's pursuit of great power status has squandered the nation's resources. He argues that the country's alliance system is unfair,
with America bearing most of the cost and its allies contributing far too little. He points to Japan and South Korea, and NATO's
European members as prime examples. He seeks to rebalance these relationships and, failing that, to exit from them.
As a country in decline, he argues that America can no longer afford to carry this kind of financial burden. Rather than putting
the world to rights, he believes the money should be invested at home, pointing to the dilapidated state of America's infrastructure.
Trump's position
represents a major critique of America as the world's hegemon. His arguments mark a radical break with the neoliberal, hyper-globalisation
ideology that has reigned since the early 1980s and with the foreign policy orthodoxy of most of the postwar period. These arguments
must be taken seriously. They should not be lightly dismissed just because of their authorship. But Trump is no man of the left.
He is a populist of the right. He has launched a racist and xenophobic attack on Muslims and on Mexicans. Trump's appeal is to a
white working class that feels it has been cheated by the big corporations, undermined by Hispanic immigration, and often resentful
towards African-Americans who for long too many have viewed as their inferior.
A Trump America would mark a descent into authoritarianism characterised by abuse, scapegoating, discrimination, racism, arbitrariness
and violence; America would become a deeply polarised and divided society. His threat to impose
45%
tariffs on China , if implemented, would certainly provoke retaliation by the Chinese and herald the beginnings of a new era
of protectionism.
Trump may well lose the presidential election just as Sanders failed in his bid for the Democrat nomination. But this does not
mean that the forces opposed to hyper-globalisation – unrestricted immigration, TPP and TTIP, the free movement of capital and much
else – will have lost the argument and are set to decline. In little more than 12 months, Trump and Sanders have transformed the
nature and terms of the argument. Far from being on the wane, the arguments of the critics of hyper-globalisation are steadily gaining
ground. Roughly two-thirds of Americans agree that "we should not think so much in international terms but concentrate more on our
own national problems". And, above all else, what will continue to drive opposition to the hyper-globalisers is inequality.
End of cheap oil is the next milestone in the development of neoliberalism. It remain to be seen if it can survive the end of
cheap oil.
Notable quotes:
"... According to a Gallup poll, in 2000 only 33% of Americans called themselves working class; by 2015 the figure was 48%, almost half the population. ..."
"... American politicians, Obama in particular, constantly talk about "the middle class" when they want to refer to the bulk of the working population, as if almost everybody were doctors, lawyers, teachers and managers. ..."
"... This situation in the USA remind me of Australia where we have a choice between two right wing parties ..."
"... austerity for the working class while the rich go untouched even to pay a fair share of taxation. It's world wide the servants of the 1% who own 50% of the world's economy. ..."
"... There is no country in the world that doesn't have a mixture of both. The mix is probably a bit strained in north Korea but those countries where private capital is supreme all have intolerable conditions for workers. The Nordic countries probably have the most enlightened approach and best living standards for the majority. Remember well the old adage: With communism man exploits man. With capitalism it's the other way round. ..."
"... one can only hope neoliberalism is dead and/or dying.... ..."
"... Trump does not truly represent the labor or economically frustrated class. He is saying things that they'd like to hear. He is a rich and pompous man who belongs to the class which benefited tremendously from neoliberalistic policies. People are so fed up with inequality, their emotions can be directed in any direction and manipulated. Anger needs a target - Mexicans, Blacks, women, Muslims, immigrants and the list expands. Trump is misleading them by speaking in their voices while enjoying the comfort of luxury that he built by exploiting those very people. ..."
Quote: According to a Gallup poll, in 2000 only 33% of Americans called themselves working
class; by 2015 the figure was 48%, almost half the population.
How strange. American politicians, Obama in particular, constantly talk about "the middle
class" when they want to refer to the bulk of the working population, as if almost everybody
were doctors, lawyers, teachers and managers. It's good therefore to know that the American
people know better than their politicians how to classify themselves.
This situation in the USA remind me of Australia where we have a choice between two right
wing parties. The LNP is extreme/ultra right wing and our Labor Party is right wing
controlled. At least in Britain you have a choice, from afar it seems that your Conservative
Party is equal to our LNP but your Labour Party seems to be a little more Left wing than our
Labor Party which is a good thing for Britain.
willpodmore your next target must be your tory government, they are doing to you what our
tory government in Australia is doing to us and if Trump gets elected the USA tory government
will do to them, austerity for the working class while the rich go untouched even to pay a
fair share of taxation. It's world wide the servants of the 1% who own 50% of the world's
economy. If you don't believe me type the 1% own 50% of Earth's economy into Dr Goggle and
see what come up.
The one thing all Left leaning people do agree on is 'fairness' and equity for all, in
economic terms it means that huge corporations pay a fair share of tax, as working people do.
Sadly Tory govts ignore the profits of corporations and fail to force them to pay a fair
share of tax. The basic problem that the neo-cons suffer from is insatiable greed where
enough is never enough, selfishness is also a trait along with lack of empathy or compassion
for their fellow mankind.
"neoliberalism" is simply unregulated capitalism as practiced by Tory governments around the
world. Labour governments usually regulate and force these huge corporations to pay a fair
share of taxation from their huge incomes. The corporations are owned by the 1% who own 50%
of the world economy and continuing to grow on a daily basis.
Yes, nothing has changed in my lifetime except the 1% now own 50% of Earth's economy. Working
people have always struggled while the rich build their mansions, both Bernie Sanders and
Jeremy Corbyn have the right idea of a fair distribution of wealth. This means these huge
corporations paying their fair share of their income in taxes to the host country so "all"
the people receive some benefit, apart from the 1%.
blaster1, the joke of the century, globalisation -- which will only increase to the benefit of
everyone eventually. You obviously have little knowledge apart from what the Tories feed you.
1% of the global population own 50% of Earth's economy and through their corporations who the
tories allow to avoid paying tax will build on that 50% how long will it eventually take the
other 99% to receive any benefit? 200,000 years?
Exploitation is high on the priority list of any Tory government, wealth should be
distributed much more fairly than it currently is. The tories only serve the rich, they have
no time or empathy for the poor. Empathy and compassion are vacant in the tory philosophy of
the world. These two components make up a psychopathic personality.
pantomimetorie yes, and England could also be if you had a government who were not merely
servants of the rich. A government interested in the fair distribution of wealth. Not a tory
government, obviously!
There's no such thing as neoliberalism, it's just capitalism and capitalism actually works,
unlike socialism.
Yes it works alright, it works for the 1% of the global population who own 50% of the global
economy, sadly it leaves in its wake an underclass of people living below the poverty line
struggling to survive. It works for the rich, but there is no mechanism in the system that
the conservative will use to force the rich to pay their fair share of taxation to the
country included in that are the multibillion pound multinational corporations who pay little
to naught in taxes also which leaves a huge swathe of the population on Struggle Street and
the sooner that democratic socialism is instituted the better off the other 99% will be.
Keep up! There is no country in the world that doesn't have a mixture of both. The mix is
probably a bit strained in north Korea but those countries where private capital is supreme
all have intolerable conditions for workers. The Nordic countries probably have the most
enlightened approach and best living standards for the majority. Remember well the old
adage:
With communism man exploits man.
With capitalism it's the other way round.
Think they call it lobbying. Companies pay professional lobby firms staffed with ex MPs or
whatever to ' meet' ministers. The PR companies make 'donations' to party funds and push for
government contracts, changes in legislation, favorable to their industry tax breaks. You
can do it of course. Write to your mp to get your local roads, parks, libraries, improved.
Don't hold your breath.
That has to be the joke of the year if not the century!!!!!!!!!!!!
The most dynamic period of postwar western growth was that between the end of the war and
the early 70s, the era of welfare capitalism and Keynesianism, when the growth rate was
double that of the neoliberal period from 1980 to the present.
It would be interesting to see those growth figures with inflation taken into account or
to average them out across the whole world and not just the West. I suspect that if the
massive growth in India, China and the rest of Asia was taken into account the growth figures
wouldn't be so bad.
Excuse me? You're the one claiming rural inhabitants "have no idea" what city life entails.
That may have been the case centuries ago, but not now. Offshoring is small potatoes in the shift of global production. It may have been big news
a decade ago. We aren't a decade ago.
"Poverty = no kids" is your myth. Human history proves otherwise. Nobody's "decimating western/westernized population for profit". Is what you're about
really more white people, fewer brown people? Just say it, this is the Guardian, we've heard
it all before.
So run your country then. But intelligently, not on the basis of twisted myth-making and
dodgy race myths that we had enough of in 1945.
The left, at least as far as I know, have not been able to build up a solid set of
ideas on which to build a political agenda nor have they sought to gain traction for their
ideas in sites of knowledge production. The neoliberals were organised and waiting when
their turn came. For me, the left have fragmented and have turned to cultural critiques and
identity politics, forgoing any kind of realistic transformative agenda.
Apologies for not answering earlier.
i) Traction in sites of knowledge production is happening certainly. Again I can point to the
article for support - Stiglitz, Ha-Joon Chang, Piketty etc did not arise to such prominence
due to an organised left-wing agenda but because events in the real world demanded an
explanation for why neoliberalism wasn't delivering its universal benison as promised, and
indeed was showing empirical signs that it might be poisonous to economic activity in certain
fundamental ways.
ii) In my view it is quite possible to support identity politics (social liberalism if you
like) and a more left wing view of economics. At present the more enthusiastic placard wavers
are seeing identity politics as more likely to produce a beneficial change, but many are
recognising that the former hegemony of neoliberalism is breaking, and the best way to really
enhance the welfare of vulnerable groups is to promote universal economic justice in some
form.
iii) You appear to want to replace one hegemonic system of thought with another. But these
are the wrong tactics for me, since we have things to do in the real world.
By all means explain some of the properties your new left hegemonic theory should have, I'd
be very interested to hear them.
But in the end the practical steps are obvious and consist of applying left wing principles
to the modern economy. An example would be privatising the natural monopoly of the
railways.
If that sounds retro, it isn't, because we've never had to deal with an economy in this
condition before. We must proceed step by step in my view. The hegemony of neoliberalism was
damaging and lasted 40 years and counting. We must be pragmatic to be successful, given what
we know about the modern economy, and proceed by finding successful strategies rather than an
abstruse new theory that ignores the messy present in favour of some pure, simple conception
of the world backed up by the PR department. As I said above, one of the critical faults of
neoliberalism is its insistence that it is the answer to everyone's prayers. That certainty
is also the seed of its destruction, because to avoid doubts it eventually has to answer
those unrealistic prayers.
Trump does not truly represent the labor or economically frustrated class. He is saying
things that they'd like to hear. He is a rich and pompous man who belongs to the class which
benefited tremendously from neoliberalistic policies. People are so fed up with inequality,
their emotions can be directed in any direction and manipulated. Anger needs a target -
Mexicans, Blacks, women, Muslims, immigrants and the list expands. Trump is misleading them
by speaking in their voices while enjoying the comfort of luxury that he built by exploiting
those very people.
Billions of Chinese and Indian have never seen a toilet in their life, so yes, they really
don't know what life in a city is. And that doesn't make them "dumb". In their domain,
farming, you don't look like a brain storm either.
Offshoring isn't a "tiny element". We are no longer self sustaining and if China slammed the
door (as they did for a brief instant on Japan), there'd be serious heartburn in the US
before transitioning.
The official western tautology is fail/fail for the public. Not enough jobs to consider
having kids? Too bad. Not enough money to raise your kids? Too bad. Due to natural events?
No, due to political gaming.
Decimating western/westernized population for profit. It's not complicated. It is you who
claim immigration is needed to leave it as it is. "Ending our ability to pay pensions by
ending immigration isn't improvement either. "
The west has no business meddling with the rest of the planet if it can't run their own
countries.
People aren't so dumb as you imagine. They really didn't know about life in the city? Every
village had its emigrant. I've no such disdain for those who made that move.
Offshoring's now a tiny element in western deindustrialisation. Your costs are too high,
you can't compete: don't blame those worse off than yourself, put your own house in order and
educate your workforce to do better than flip burgers.
"Birth control brings down reproduction rates" is a meaningless tautology. People have
been practising birth control for centuries, mainly by delaying marriage. The PRB peddles
malthusian nonsense that the past half-century has clearly discredited. I thought you were
for population growth anyway: "economies so economically unstable that population declines"?
Make your mind up.
The ridiculous boom did crash, in 2008. Maybe you missed it. I want to know how we go
forward. But people need to pay attention to what's going on outside our head too.
I correct misrepresentations of the truth such as yours.
And the problem with communism is that it suspends peoples right in favour of central
control.
Communism and socialism is a post -capitalist society, means exactly the same thing to
me as they did to Marx also.
The common ownership and democratic control by us all, of all the means and instruments
for creating and distributing wealth. 'Common' and 'social' mean the same.
Nothing to do with state ownership or corporate or private ownership.
Nothing to do with central control either . It is a post-capitalist system
which utilises the technological advances of capitalism to produce for use to satisfy human
needs, using self feeding loopback informational tools for stock measurements and control
with direct inputs at local regional and global levels to allow calculation in kind, as
opposed to the economic calculation of capitalism, only necessary to satisfy profit
taking.
The reality is that we can all choose to be rich or poor. We are free to do as we wish
(within the law).
Nonsense. If you are born poor you will most likely die poor. Poverty is both absolute
and relative.
All wealth comes from the exploited abour of the working class which creates a surplus value
above its rationed access (wages). A commonly owned society, would not have rich or poor, we
would all have free access to the commonly produced wealth, with no elite classes creaming it
off and storing it.
Other than that, mind your own damn business, if you can't deal with the arguments.
One of the biggest downsides of the rise of Corbyn and Sanders, interesting though it is, is
the oxygen it seems to be giving to several old Marxist hacks who have made a good living for
decades banging on about their discredited and blood soaked ideology, ie Jacques et al.
Recently joined by that newly hatched Marxist harpie on the block, the hipster bearded and
thoroughly poisonous Richard Seymour.
The fact is there is not and never was any such thing as "neoliberalism". What they are
really referring to is globalisation- which will only increase to the benefit of everyone
eventually. The world is shrinking ever faster and that is no bad thing. Progress, evolution,
the future, call it what you want. To try and make out that it is halting or in reverse is
plainly nonsense.
???
What I remember of Reagan,
- spent like a drunken sailor, "defense" spending, til it broke US economy
- unbounded "adjustable rate" and "balloon" mortgages, first bank bailout, bill kicked down
the road to Bush Sr., $125 billion, when it blew up
- "trickle down", wealth transfer, via having taxed public pick up the tab for not just his
defense binge spending, but also corporate welfare programs (patent office, Import/Export
bank, infrastructure, etc.)
- first soup kitchens, adults panhandling/will work for food signs that I'd ever seen
- illegal immigrant amnesty, millions
- "War On Drugs" and right after that black neighborhoods flooded with crack
Reagan and Thatcher kicking off their "gut the public of wealth" agenda.
Their story is "you're a failure". Because a) you don't work hard enough/long enough, b) hold
your household together (if you were at work all waking hours), c) don't know how to raise
decent, independent kids (whilst being at work every waking hour), d) aren't motivated to
improve your lot in life if you need to work every waking hour and e) probably need to take
stress management classes if this gets on your nerves because you personally are driving up
"our" health care costs with your irresponsible neglect of your health.
Or, as the economists tout in the papers, "Productivity is up!" Or as the oligarchical put
it, "we need immigrant work force", who'll do it for cheaper and not complain or
burden us with their need for an actual life outside of work.
Clinton is, was, and still is. despite her recent fake reversal, a staunch supporter of TPP
and other trade agreements that will further impoverish the working class. She is the
furthest thing from a populist. Case closed.
"... It seemed to start with Bill Browder being kicked out of Russia. So I would assume that the main reason is that the west became aware that Russia was (had been) taking back control of their economy and resources and kicking out the western carpet-baggers. ..."
"... In June of 2016 a bill named Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 was introduced into the house by Congressmen Adam Kinzinger and Ted Lieu. H.R. 5181 sought a "whole-government approach without the bureaucratic restrictions" to counter "foreign disinformation and manipulation," which they believe threaten the world's "security and stability." A similar bill was introduced in March in the Senate long before Russia gate. It was passed signed by Obama in December after the Russia Gate was played up following the election. ..."
"... Like I said US and UK are basically one entity on such matters. Soon after being passed we saw Prop or Not introduce its hit list of alt media sites. Sadly over the last 2 years alt media has been decimated. Engdahl seems to be the latest to fall, helped no doubt by Soros suit for 1 million against him for calling out his daughters NGO. Now he has fallen into line and backing Trump. Maybe next he will support the Climate Change meme. ..."
"... As I posted on an earlier thread, the demonization of Russia by Anglos began with the First Afghan War in the late 1830s and has continued at differing degrees of intensity ever since always due to geopolitics. ..."
"... The US State Department gives the title "public diplomacy" to its propaganda. ..."
"... Just ask John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer who was sent to prison for telling the truth about US torture. ..."
"... Thanks, that looks great and should be reposted across alternative media- most of these groups use "anti-Russia" as a front to dismantle dissent and left-wing politics on behalf of the Multinationals and the Neoliberal Establishment- let's call it the "blob," and let's call that list Counter-Propornot. ..."
"... karlof1... my impression is the anti russian meme got real traction somewhere about 2014-2015 with the advent of Ukraine dynamics and Russia commitment to going into Syria.. around that time it all really picked up steam.. now you have think tanks and etc. etc. profiting from the sale of anti-russia spin.. there appears to be endless money available for this.. ..."
"... This is an incomplete narrative, think tanks are basically mercenaries who relieve the population from the need to think about the complicated matters, letting the folks to believe what is either true or should be believed to be true for the "common good". ..."
"... And indeed, Russian danger was identified ca. 2014 as the major worthy theme in the central parts of that nexus. So who are the paymasters? In part, "capitalists", wealthy individuals with means and motivation to set the course for the West and all forces of good. In part, intelligence agencies. Here Integrity Initiative seems an erratic creature: apparently, run by spooks on military and intelligence payroll, and yet also benefiting from a government grant that makes them a quango, "a semipublic administrative body outside the civil service but receiving financial support from the government, which makes senior appointments to it." In other words, they double dip. The total amount is relatively modest, so rather than getting fat on taxpayer money they merely double or triple they spare official salaries thus reaching "upper middle class" level. Therefore the morale in the outfit was mediocre and we can see one of the more amusing leaks of 2018. ..."
"... Note: Kissinger's WSJ Op-Ed was published on August 29, 2014. Within weeks of its publication, the Obama Administration was in full anti-Russia swing. Trump would enter the race for Republican nomination 9 1/2 months after Kissinger's Op-Ed (June 15, 2015). ..."
"... The hate campaign against Russia is just the old campaign, against any country resisting the Empire's hegemony, focused on the one power that had resisted since 1917 and was able to do so, returning to its old role of saying 'Niet' when all the rest of the world said either 'Aye Aye,Sir' "If you insist" or kept quiet and said nothing at all. ..."
"... One can't just edit a Wikipedia article, no matter how fact-based. It will almost immediately be retracted if it doesn't follow the 'official' narrative. If said person then tries to reestablish that content or tries to engage in a discussion with the admins, in many cases, they simply get banned then. ..."
"... Try this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlgGx9LM5cM It's about a former female STASI-employee turned fighter for freedom and democracy. Currently she is the head of the Antonio-Amadeo-Foundation dedicated, to put it bluntly, to doing the bidding for the usual suspects - and to add insult to injury taxpayer funded to a large part. ..."
"... Russia is the go to enemy when you need to bump up your purchasing of very expensive military equipment and to pour money into various security projects to achieve to goals (1 is to lock down infrastructure etc. but the other is to suppress the US citizens so a two-for). ..."
"... The long game plan, which continues unabated regardless of which party or who is in power, is American hegemony of the planet. When you consider the US has military bases in 155 countries (who essentially have become colonies) it seems like the goal is nearly completed unless you consider that major nuclear armed nations are resisting (Russia, China and maybe Pakistan and India as well). ..."
"... If you take a look at Russia during Yeltsin the US companies nearly bought everything in the country and the raping was in full vigor. Someone at DoS or the CIA very badly miscalculated letting Putin come into power. He was, after all, a minor minion and basically came out of no where. I am assuming they thought he would continue the raping and disarmament of all former Soviet weapons and Russian businesses. Sadly for them he turned out to be a patriot and actively resisted everything the US was trying to do to Russia. I believe the Yukos deal was the final straw which would have given nearly all Russian oil and gas to Exxon/Mobil. So, Putin has been battling the US successfully since and is very slowly eliminating all the oligarchs the US put into power and draining his swamp of Atlantacists and 5th column. ..."
"... i recall how quickly 'cambridge analytica' came and went, in spite of the strength of the data on them manipulating much... i imagine a similar story hee with 'integrity initiative'.. ..."
"... as for wikipedia - everyone knows it's a full on propaganda site masquerading as a neutral info site. ..."
"... the Chinese government currently has its hands around the financial windpipe of the man ultimately responsible for Ms. Meng's arrest ..."
"... "MAGA was as much a policy change as it was a campaign slogan....To prevail, Empire strategists recognized that USA needed to be able to call on regular troops and a deep sense of patriotism and righteousness that required re-developing nationalism. In short, 'MAGA'." ..."
"... Trump's invocation of MAGA on the campaign trail was presented in such a way as to seem to overwhelmingly favour a pullback from Imperialism in order to make things right at home. ..."
"... Trump engaged in a bare, pointed, often crass and bordering on contemptuous criticism of his predecessors' foreign policy. The irreverent tone was unprecedented in recent campaign history and was so plain and completely at odds with Hilary's stated positions that it essentially committed him (in my eyes anyway) to following through, or to make all efforts to follow through. If not, he would set one of the worst examples of a duplicitous politician, perhaps ever. The same applies to other bold campaign positions, such as the border wall, for example. ..."
"... Now Judge Emmet Sullivan wants expanded information, and wishes to see the actual notes (FD-302) that were mentioned by Flynn; and Judge Sullivan is directing the special counsel to provide all documents created by the FBI surrounding the Flynn interview: ..."
The person(s) who first published documents of the shady UK organization Integrity Initiative decided that the discussion is about
the Initiative is not yet sufficient and published more documents.
The
first dump on the Cyberguerilla site happened on November 5. We discussed it
here . A smaller
dump on November 29 revealed more about the UK government paid Integrity Initiatives influence work in Germany, Spain and Greece.
A
third dump followed today.
The leaker, who uses the widely abused Anonymous label, promises to publish more:
Well-coordinated efforts of the Anonymous from all over the world have forced the UK politicians to react to the unacceptable
and in fact illegal activity of the British government that uses public money to carry out misinformation campaigns not only in
the EU, US and Canada but in the UK as well, in particular campaigns against the Labour party.
The Integrity Initiative is now under first official investigation. We promise to give close scrutiny to the investigation that
we believe should be conducted honestly, openly and absolutely transparently for the society, rather than become an internal and
confidential case of the Foreign Office.
To show our expertise in the investigation as well as to warn the UK government that they must not even try to put it all down
to the activity of some charity foundations and public organizations we reveal a part of documents unveiling the true face of
The Institute for Statecraft and some information about its leadership.
...
As the scandal in the UK is gaining momentum, it is ever so striking that European leaders and official representatives remain
so calm about the Integrity Initiative's activity in their countries. We remind you that covert clusters made up for political
and financial manipulation and controlled by the UK secret services are carrying out London's secret missions and interfering
in domestic affairs of sovereign states right in front of you.
...
This is another part of documents that we have on the Integrity Initiative. We do not change the goals of this operation. When
we return with the next portion of revelations, names and facts depends on how seriously the UK and EU leaders take our intentions
this time.
The dump includes invoices, internal analyses of international media responses to the Skripal affair, the Initiative's operations
in Scotland, France and Italy, some strategy papers and various other stuff. There are some interesting bits about the cooperation
of the Initiative with British Ministry of Defense. It will take me a while to read through all of it.
A "strictly confidential" proposal by the French company Lexfo to spread
the Integrity Initiative's state-sponsored propaganda through an offensive online influence campaigns for a monthly pay per language
of €20-40.000. The proposal also includes an offer for "counter activism" through "negative PR, legal actions, ethical hack back,
etc." for €50,000 per month.
The offer claims that the company can launch hundreds of "news" pieces per day on as many websites. It notably also offers to
"edit" Wikipedia articles.
In short: This proposal describes large disinformation operations under the disguise of fighting alleged Russian disinformation.
It is at the core what the Integrity Initiative, which obviously requested the proposal, is about.
But as we saw in the information
revealed yesterday there is more to it. The Initiative, which has lots of 'former' military and intelligence people among its
staff, is targeting the political left in Britain as well as in other countries. It is there where it becomes a danger to the democratic
societies of Europe.
I'd bet a weeks wages on it that this is where Craig Summers came from and what he was ! This blog is the antidote to the official
spin! It was good to here from Craig Murray very thought provoking regards tactics.we all need our own method ! But not be gagged.
I respect others ways we are on the same side .being united is the defence against devide and rule.
I wonder what the Tory's
think of this scandal they must be angry at this attack on democracy, nah only joking! It'l be the dog that did'nt bark ! just
like the media oh and the police ! One rule for them 'no rule' opression for us 99%
thanks b.... aside from wondering if this is Russia accessing and sharing this, i think the sticking point is in this "Unintegrity
initiative" going after the uk political left... that is where i think this is going to get traction as more folks are going to
wake up if they see how deep and ugly this goes in targeting their own..
i could be wrong, but if this news catches on, or the uk MP women keeps hammering away on this, i think we will see some results..
i opened the pdf... here is a quick list of their objectives..
investigate sources of disinformation, perform threat assessment, and identify opportunities to combat false narratives
debunk fake news and black PR operations
discredit and intimidate the platforms broadcasting fake news
promote democratic principles and criticize the Russian illiberal model in the public debate, online. This plan should
be implemented in every targeted country and language, including Russian.
In Australia the scale of tendentious anti-Chinese propaganda is absurd . Australia is flailing around trying to cope with changing
circumstances . Already at a disadvantage in 'reading ' the world because of her geographical isolation the clear bias of information
she now faces from the Anglo/ U S media and government systems puts her at a disadvantage in forming intelligent policies .
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Dec 14, 2018 4:38:49 PM |
link
Can anyone make a zip with all dumps and files? For sharing and archiving this would be much easier.. As i believe it will not
last long till the scribd uploads etc are DMCAed.. My LUKS+Veracrypt secured storage system would be a safe bet for archiving,
so i would volunteer..
Much appreciated!
Note that this document --and I've seen more-- presumes there is a large scale Russian disinformation campaign going on. Other
documents presume Skripal was poisoned by Russia.
Once you run with these documents, beware that you are making those presumptions yours . That may be the objective here.
Integrity Initiative got a lot of scrutiny because they used their Twitter account to attack Corbyn. In it's latest info dump,
Anonymous describes additional UK political manipulation, writing that the Director of The Institute for Statecraft Christopher
Donnelly:
... lobbied the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee for an inquiry into Russia's interference in
the Catalan referendum. He invited members of the Integrity Initiative Spain cluster Francisco de Borja Lasheras and Mira Milosevich-Juaristi.
At that moment they were receiving funds from the Foreign Office, i.e. the UK intelligence paid its own agents for fake
proof of Russia's interference in the Catalan referendum and later told them to lie to the Parliament to convince it to take
anti-Russian steps .
"Simon Bracey-Lane: Currently runs the IfS "Integrity Initiative" network communications and network development process; deep
experience in democratic election campaign processes in UK and especially in USA, viz: Regional Campaign Organiser: John Wisniewski
for Governor of New Jersey, USA. January - May 2017; Statewide Campaign Organiser: Bernie Sanders for President 2016, USA. Sept
2015 – May 2016; special study of Russian interference in the US electoral process."
Whatever the truth of the matter, he can definitely multitask. Running the II network communications and development process
(cultivating, recruiting, handling?) while also being a research fellow at the II's 'parent organization' Institute for Statecraft?
I wonder how many hours he has left in a day to sleep!
Then again he seems to have form in this regard. 'Special study of Russian interference in the election process' simultaneously
as being a key organizer in Sanders' campaign. Maybe he did his 'special study' in his free time?
Pure brazen depravity. And how will the average UK citizen become informed of what seems treasonous activity? Seems venders with
broadsheets in the style of yesteryear standing on street corners yelling EXTRA! need to return so the public can be informed
of its government's activities--Social Media is not sufficient.
Bevin and other UK citizens: What do you call your Swamp?
Any thoughts as to why exactly Russia became the chief demon? It seems the hysterical propaganda was focused exclusively on ISIS
until Putin spoke at the UN announcing Russia's intervention in Syria. Then the propaganda shifted, first directed at Putin, then
generally at Russia and Putin together. Is it anger over the prevention of imperialist design in the Middle East?
It seemed to start with Bill Browder being kicked out of Russia. So I would assume that the main reason is that the west
became aware that Russia was (had been) taking back control of their economy and resources and kicking out the western carpet-baggers.
This belated realisation, that the prize that the west had gained and plundered in the '90s (from the collapse of the Soviet
Union) had managed to wriggle free, seems to be something that the west can't accept.
In June of 2016 a bill named Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 was introduced into the house by Congressmen
Adam Kinzinger and Ted Lieu. H.R. 5181 sought a "whole-government approach without the bureaucratic restrictions" to counter "foreign
disinformation and manipulation," which they believe threaten the world's "security and stability." A similar bill was introduced in March in the Senate long before Russia gate. It was passed signed by Obama in December after
the Russia Gate was played up following the election.
Like I said US and UK are basically one entity on such matters. Soon after being passed we saw Prop or Not introduce its hit
list of alt media sites. Sadly over the last 2 years alt media has been decimated. Engdahl seems to be the latest to fall, helped
no doubt by Soros suit for 1 million against him for calling out his daughters NGO. Now he has fallen into line and backing Trump.
Maybe next he will support the Climate Change meme.
Oh well, looks like its almost over for Truth, although some truth probably gets allowed if enough of the lies are also presented. So my take is the anti Russia hysteria was just a clever way of getting support for a war on Truth (fake news).
Russia now has a similar initiative said to combat fakes news from US which will likely be used against Putin critics (US agents).
The law allows them "to block online content, including social media websites, whose activities are deemed "undesirable" or "extremist."
Maybe Putin is part of the Fake Wrestling game. Heel or Face, your choice.
I see the EU has set up a rapid alert system to help EU member states recognize disinformation campaigns, and increase the
budget set aside for the detection of disinformation from . It will also press technology companies to play their part in cracking
down on fake news. Major social media platforms have already signed up to a code of conduct. One minister said the EU would not
stand for "an internet that is the wild west, where anything goes".
Macron introduced a bill recently seeking to get " judges and the media sector's regulator involved in the fight against fake
news. A fact-checking state-run website would be created and social media would have to pitch in by warning users when a post
is sponsored -- or when someone pays to give it better visibility in a feed."
I suppose the War on Truth has gone global. I wont bother to mention China as they are the role model the West
follows.
As I posted on an earlier thread, the demonization of Russia by Anglos began with the First Afghan War in the late 1830s and
has continued at differing degrees of intensity ever since always due to geopolitics.
@14 What do you call your Swamp? "The Establishment", coined, I believe, by the historian AJP Taylor.
The founder of modern journalism William Cobbett used to call it "The Thing"
The US State Department gives the title "public diplomacy" to its propaganda. Robert Parry wrote about it, and its contrast with
truth, a couple years ago.
The idea of questioning the claims by the West's officialdom now brings calumny down upon the heads of those who dare do it.
"Truth" is being redefined as whatever the U.S. government, NATO and other Western interests say is true. Disagreement with
the West's "group thinks," no matter how fact-based the dissent is, becomes "fake news."
So, we have the case of Washington Post columnist David Ignatius having a starry-eyed interview with Richard Stengel, the State
Department's Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, the principal arm of U.S. government propaganda.
Entitled "The truth is losing," the column laments that the official narratives as deigned by the State Department and The
Washington Post are losing traction with Americans and the world's public.
Stengel, a former managing editor at Time magazine, seems to take aim at Russia's RT network's slogan, "question more," as
some sinister message seeking to inject cynicism toward the West's official narratives.
"They're not trying to say that their version of events is the true one. They're saying: 'Everybody's lying! Nobody's telling
you the truth!'," Stengel said. "They don't have a candidate, per se. But they want to undermine faith in democracy, faith
in the West." . . here
Just ask John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer who was sent to prison for telling the truth about US torture.
Blooming Barricade , Dec 14, 2018 8:47:12 PM |
link
@15
Thanks, that looks great and should be reposted across alternative media- most of these groups use "anti-Russia" as a front
to dismantle dissent and left-wing politics on behalf of the Multinationals and the Neoliberal Establishment- let's call it the
"blob," and let's call that list Counter-Propornot.
@ 15 jayc, @18 ADKC and @21 karlof1... my impression is the anti russian meme got real traction somewhere about 2014-2015 with
the advent of Ukraine dynamics and Russia commitment to going into Syria.. around that time it all really picked up steam.. now
you have think tanks and etc. etc. profiting from the sale of anti-russia spin.. there appears to be endless money available for
this..
... now you have think tanks and etc. etc. profiting from the sale of anti-russia spin.. there appears to be endless money available
for this..
Posted by: james | Dec 14, 2018 9:19:09 PM | 26
This is an incomplete narrative, think tanks are basically mercenaries who relieve the population from the need to think about
the complicated matters, letting the folks to believe what is either true or should be believed to be true for the "common good".
And the "common good" is decided by paymasters. Somewhere in between are mass media populated by folks particularly averse to
thinking -- again, they were selected by the employers not to think but to write and talk "correctly". But the press/TV lords
will not chisel all details of what is true and important, and what is false, unimportant or both, so journalists can absorb it
from think tanks and briefing from government informed sources. There are also astro-turfs and so on.
And indeed, Russian danger was identified ca. 2014 as the major worthy theme in the central parts of that nexus. So who are
the paymasters? In part, "capitalists", wealthy individuals with means and motivation to set the course for the West and all forces
of good. In part, intelligence agencies. Here Integrity Initiative seems an erratic creature: apparently, run by spooks on military
and intelligence payroll, and yet also benefiting from a government grant that makes them a quango, "a semipublic administrative
body outside the civil service but receiving financial support from the government, which makes senior appointments to it." In
other words, they double dip. The total amount is relatively modest, so rather than getting fat on taxpayer money they merely
double or triple they spare official salaries thus reaching "upper middle class" level. Therefore the morale in the outfit was
mediocre and we can see one of the more amusing leaks of 2018.
... my impression is the anti russian meme got real traction somewhere about 2014-2015 with the advent of ukraine dynamics
and russias commitment to going into syria..
I think we can surmise that the Russian objection to US bombing Syria in September 2013 was countered with a two-prong strategy:
> doubling down in Syria via ISIS;
> pushing hard for overthrow of Ukrainian government to: a) punish Russia, and b) keep Russia busy so that the Russians
refrain from any further support for Syria
It was a superb and well-thought out strategy . . . that failed miserably. The coup in Ukraine succeeded and ISIS came within
weeks of defeating Assad BUT Russia managed to secure the best parts of Ukraine -and- intervened in Syria anyway (along with Iran).
Even as the lessons of challenging decades are examined, the affirmation of America's exceptional nature must be sustained.
History offers no respite to countries that set aside their sense of identity in favor of a seemingly less arduous course
. But nor does it assure success for the most elevated convictions in the absence of a comprehensive geopolitical strategy.
So the strategy changed once again. MAGA was as much a policy change as it was a campaign slogan. Obama's devious faux peacefulness
that used covert action and proxy forces could not succeed against determined opposition from Russia/China. To prevail, Empire
strategists recognized that USA needed to be able to call on regular troops and a deep sense of patriotism and righteousness that
required re-developing nationalism. In short, "MAGA".
My reading is that Kissinger is asserting that the US can and should do whatever it takes to keep the US preeminent – even
if that means ignoring allies and/or the post-war international structure (UN, UNSC). That exceptional! message comes through
loud and clear despite his 'triage' formalism. And it is a message that is comforting to the elite who read the WSJ (before
a holiday weekend), though it should give Joe Sixpack nightmares if fully understood.
There is a lot more there which would take much longer to unpack. But I'll point to one more thing: Note how he forms
an equivalence between all the troubles that the 'West' now face, and ignores US/Western actions that have contributed to these
conflicts by conflating them. NC readers understand this via Merschemer's (in today's links) work on Ukraine and many links
regarding ISIS (like this one).
This comforting message [from Kissinger] is needed because the Ukraine gambit has failed miserably – as many independent
obeservers [sic] predicted– and a deeper conflict with Russia (possibly extending to others) is now in the cards. Like
the true neocon that he is, Kissinger has doubled down on Nuland's obnoxious and misguided "f*ck the EU" with an exceptional!
"f*ck the World".
Note: Kissinger's WSJ Op-Ed was published on August 29, 2014.
Within weeks of its publication, the Obama Administration was in full anti-Russia swing. Trump would enter the race for Republican nomination 9 1/2 months after Kissinger's Op-Ed (June 15, 2015).
Trump was the ONLY populist, out of 19 contenders, in the Republican race. Hillary told Democratic-friendly media to focus
on Trump and did things during the Presidential race that call into question her desire to actually win. Trump is a MUCH better
choice for a MAGA nationalist than Hillary.
You were right then, and you are right now. My one beef with your 2016 election analysis is that it seems to me you shortchange
slightly the evidence of a real conflict and possibly fissure within the oligarchic elite, only certain segments of which seem
convinced that now is the time for MAGA. Others among the actual power brokers would I think have preferred HRC and 4-8 more years
of neoliberal internationalist interventionist grift a la Obama before having to finally turn to the MAGA nationalist strategy
(which given the resource struggles that will emerge over the next decades was always inevitable once the Project for the New
American (Israeli) Century collapsed, as it was bound to once Russia called its bluff in Syria.) But this is a minor point. What
is much more important is that behind MAGA is an envisioned world war on the scale of WWI and WWII in which "The West" takes on
China-Russia leading to the death of probably everybody.
"..my impression is the anti russian meme got real traction somewhere about 2014-2015 with the advent of ukraine dynamics and
russias commitment to going into syria..."
I think that the proper context begins with the failure of Medvedev's Russia to veto the UNSC motion establishing a No Fly
zone over Libya. Inter alia this led to a real reverse for and an humiliation of China which had large financial investments as
well as large numbers of personnel involved in Ghadaffi's imaginative schemes.
My guess, and it is not a particularly well informed one, is that after the Libyan disaster-the worst sort of imperialist over
reach and brutality not only did China realise that Imperialism was reverting to its nightmarish type, but Russians leaders saw
that a permanent alliance-until the defeat of the empire- was the only alternative that it and China had to 'hanging separately'.
And that the same went for Iran and Syria-nobody could trust the west any longer and it would be foolish, and dangerous, to continue
to do so.
The hate campaign against Russia is just the old campaign, against any country resisting the Empire's hegemony, focused on the
one power that had resisted since 1917 and was able to do so, returning to its old role of saying 'Niet' when all the rest of
the world said either 'Aye Aye,Sir' "If you insist" or kept quiet and said nothing at all.
Of course, 2011 was the last in a long series of increasingly stupid US aggressions, all of which Russia knew very well were aimed
at it as much as the selected sacrificial victim.
Those who say that Saddam was about oil could not be more wrong: he was a human sacrifice, slaughtered ritually on the corpses
of a million of his fellows, to demonstrate that the USA can do what it chooses when it wishes.
Karl Rove was wrong: not even Empires can create their own realities. The extravagant and bloody theatre of decades swaggering
around the middle east finds the US not only poorer but weaker than it was in 1980.
"It notably also offers to "edit" Wikipedia articles." b
Wikipedia stopped being a reliable source for accurate information a long time ago.
Finding reliable alternatives is a bit more effort; but worth it for accurate information.
Wikipedia stopped being a reliable source for accurate information a long time ago.
Finding reliable alternatives is a bit more effort; but worth it for accurate information.
Posted by: V | Dec 14, 2018 11:37:12 PM | 32
It is more complicated. Wikipedia is sprawling and manipulations happen on entry basis, and it often leaves "controversies".
I also discovered that it is worth to brush up on language skills, if there are any. For example, on recent events in Crimea there
is an entry "Crimea Crisis" with Russian and Polish versions, and Polish "pro-Westerners" somehow left few traces of activity.
I wonder how is it in German and French Wikipedias. In English, think tanks and deep states indeed lack sufficient counter-activity.
Why didn't you make an archive yourself? Meanwhile the leakers account at Scribd has been slashed and all the files with it. Anyway - here is a Mediafire zip created yesterday of (allegedly) all files published so far.
IntegrityInitiative.zip
. Save it as long as it is available.
@ jackrabbit, I've heard other observers make the link with Kissinger's op-ed, but your demonstration is very convincing. William
Engdahl made the same call, Hillary's not a suitable player to pull off MAGA with masses of deplorables. Unfortunately for
Anglo-American
strategists, Trump with his linear cretinism lacks the necessary wherewithal to implement and execute a comprehensive geopolitical
strategy. Kissinger comes from another era, and probably cannot grasp how far devolution has taken American elites in the cesspit
of post modern hedonism.
Blooming Barricade , Dec 15, 2018 12:54:41 AM |
link
@V
It's illuminating to see this NATO-backed operation looking at a PR firm to edit Wikipedia because this brings to mind the
notorious "Philip Cross," which, for those not in the know, was uncovered by Craig Murray and others (
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the-philip-cross-affair/)
as having edited the pages of prominent left wing people and Labour Party people. In Germany, Left Party Bundestag member Diether
Dehm has highlighted a similar figure in German language Wikipedia, "Feliks," targeting socialists in that country. The similarities
of both to the proposals made by the PR firm above are eerie.
Can't speak for the French version of Wikipedia but with the German edition it is as bad as anywhere else when it comes to
social and political issues, particularly so if geopolitics (the West, ME, Russia ..) is concerned.
Two people, a biologist and a journalist, independently investigated networks on a senior editor and admin level active within
WikipediaG. What they found is rather shocking. One can't just edit a Wikipedia article, no matter how fact-based. It will almost
immediately be retracted if it doesn't follow the 'official' narrative. If said person then tries to reestablish that content
or tries to engage in a discussion with the admins, in many cases, they simply get banned then.
These guys can also be found on Youtube: Gruppe42 (group42)
Unfortunately their main documentaries are only available in German language but there's some other content 'Geschichten aus Wikihausen'
- 'The Tales of Wikihausen' with English subtitles.
Try this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlgGx9LM5cM
It's about a former female STASI-employee turned fighter for freedom and democracy.
Currently she is the head of the Antonio-Amadeo-Foundation dedicated, to put it bluntly, to doing the bidding for the usual suspects
- and to add insult to injury taxpayer funded to a large part.
The BBC won't taalk about it but when it is in the House of Commons they have to
Sole result of a search "Integrity Initiative" on the BBC news website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bv9zxj
(12/12 when then question was raised in the house of commons)
Posted by: Soft Asylum | Dec 15, 2018 4:36:27 AM | 39
Such people might be some of the worst examples of humans, but that doesn't mean they're trolls. In fact, plucking some
kind of motivations out of their psychopathic minds might be a good thing for the rest of us. If people such as them are posters
here, this would allow an opportunity to study them.
You feel you lack opportunities to study them? Pick up a newspaper, or turn on the cable news.
B: this info is astounding! Or perhaps not? Maybe the fact that the spooks are notoriously inept is what's astounding? I mean
you would think that what with all dweebs working for the state (eg GCHQ), they would be able to protect their own excreta? The earlier disinfo (it's a Russian plot etc) makes sense but it didn't work!
Old Microbiologist , Dec 15, 2018 7:09:31 AM |
link
Jay @15
Sorry, I didn't read any of this until this morning. Russia is the go to enemy when you need to bump up your purchasing of very
expensive military equipment and to pour money into various security projects to achieve to goals (1 is to lock down infrastructure
etc. but the other is to suppress the US citizens so a two-for).
Asymmetrical wars against tiny nations without air support are
hard to justify spending Trillions of dollars forever. That dog just won't hunt after 18 years of a no-win war in Afghanistan
(or anywhere else). So, Russia and now just to make it even more critical, China are enemies that demand massive military buildups
of equipment that won't ever actually (hopefully) be put to use. This is to fight a two theater war against two nuclear superpowers.
Basically, it is insanity but it will make a few people very rich.
The long game plan, which continues unabated regardless of which party or who is in power, is American hegemony of the planet.
When you consider the US has military bases in 155 countries (who essentially have become colonies) it seems like the goal is
nearly completed unless you consider that major nuclear armed nations are resisting (Russia, China and maybe Pakistan and India
as well).
If you take a look at Russia during Yeltsin the US companies nearly bought everything in the country and the raping
was in full vigor. Someone at DoS or the CIA very badly miscalculated letting Putin come into power. He was, after all, a minor
minion and basically came out of no where. I am assuming they thought he would continue the raping and disarmament of all former
Soviet weapons and Russian businesses. Sadly for them he turned out to be a patriot and actively resisted everything the US was
trying to do to Russia. I believe the Yukos deal was the final straw which would have given nearly all Russian oil and gas to
Exxon/Mobil. So, Putin has been battling the US successfully since and is very slowly eliminating all the oligarchs the US put
into power and draining his swamp of Atlantacists and 5th column.
That is the over simplified view but it sums it up enough to explain what we are seeing. It is as always all about money. So,
Putin has resisted aggressively all US encroachments into the Russian sphere of influence. The sanctions actually help Russia.
A devalued ruble is great for oil exports which are only 12% of Russia's GDP. More self sufficiency is also a huge benefit. A
partnership with China ensures the US cannot ever achieve their goals of global domination. The US military has proven for the
past 70+ years they are incapable of any meaningful fighting and that the military is woefully incompetent. The ABM test results
even when cheating heavily are only roughly a 50% hit rate. That is against "normal" ballistic missiles. Russia's new systems
already circumvent this system by mid-flight course corrections.
The biggest problem is the neocon elites really believe all their own propaganda. That is very scary.
Jayc: you ask why Russia and specifically Putin? Cast your mind back to 1991 and the fall of the USSR and Yeltsin's coup and
the theft of billions of Russia's capital resources by Goldman Sachs et al. The Empire figured what was left of the former USSR
was a pushover and its vast natural resources, highly educated population, ripe for plucking and along comes the Tatar Putin,
a descendent of Genghis Khan! Whoops!
And only just in time. Then think about the invasion of Iraq in 1991 and later in 2003 and then Libya. The Russians stood by.
But Syria was a step too far and too near!
Jayc, it's Western, racist hubris. The Russkies are just a bunch of jumped up peasants (Hitler made the same mistake), so when
they asserted their right to resist, and it really started in 2015 with the Western financed 'revolution' against Assad, it came
as a real shock to the system to see that Russia actually did have real guns that fired and real jets and satellites to watch
it all. After all, it was those peasant Russians who went into space first (Duck agogo Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the genuine father
of space exploration).
It must have rocked the bastards back on their heels. So they hate Putin! He restored Russia's faith in itself and that is
simply not permissible! And do it with a military budget a small fraction of the Empire's and one that Putin CUT by 10% this year!
Wakey-wakey!
Okay, this is a vastly simplified explanation and I'm not going to deal with the internal contradictions of Russia, that's
for the Russians to do. But it seems that once more, the Russkies are saving our tired, sorry Western arses.
Bill
Emmanuel Goldstein , Dec 15, 2018 9:29:46 AM |
link
William Bowles @ 57
I commented at the Saker at the time of the first Ukrainian war that it looks like Mother Russia is being set up to defeat
fascism for the second time in 100 years. History may not exactly repeat itself but it does rhyme.
If I were the West I would tread very carefully, after the catastrophes of the 1990's the Russians are in no mood to roll over
for anyone. The West was surprised at the weapons and operational arts displayed in Syria, and that was just the conventional
stuff....
karlofi - Britain doesn't have swamps (environmental sort), but it does have lots of Bogs. And Bog is also another term for lavatory/toilet
- so one might describe Westminster, the City of London and the rest of the bourgeois British world as one Big Bog (if only someone
would flush it).
Well, I was excited about the supposed "lots on Skripal" and thought maybe there would be a smoking gun. Disappointed (mediafire
zip linked by b)! All I opened was the files with the word skripal in the name - nothing but ultra-boring newspeak from what seem
like spotty adolescents trying their best to feed their paymasters with the propaganda they want. The only one of any interest at all was the one reporting on skripal news coverage in Greece: the author was relatively normal,
and coverage in Greece was pretty neutral and sceptical of the UK propaganda.
There were only 100 documents in the zip which was supposed to be everything released so far (i.e. all three dumps).
Is there any evidence to confirm that all three dumps were done by the same person/people? I can't help wondering whether the
third dump might have been damage control from the Integrity Initiative themselves, to try to show that there is not much there.
As I said though, I didn't open anything except the files with skripal in the filename, so maybe there is something interesting
somewhere else. It may be that by specifically looking for skripal I failed to find any files with policy or analysis. All the
files I looked at seemed to be reports from the clusters in various countries (often addressed to Simon), or pure propaganda (spotty
teenagers) with no analysis.
ZH has a posting up about the Integrity Initiative and gives MoA a hat tip for being early onto the issue. This should insure that it won't be buried but I suspect it is time for another big shiny thing to appear to distract the masses
See also Namebase, the original collection of intelligence agents.
NameBase - Wikipedia
Founder Daniel Brandt began collecting clippings and citations pertaining to influential people and intelligence agents in the
1960s and especially in the 1970s after becoming a member of Students for a Democratic Society, an organization that opposed US
foreign policy.
[Search domain en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spybase] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spybase
Posted by: William Bowles | Dec 15, 2018 11:16:15 AM | 67
That piece sums it up well, especially NATO's increasingly aggressive posture. And how self-righteously stupid the US is being.
I think 70% might be optimistic. This situation is even more like 1914 than 1914 was, in that the reallywantingwar-to-bluster
ratio looks even worse. Meanwhile Trump, with his self-indulgent saber-rattling, is like a twitter-empowered Kaiser. Imagine that
back then.
Another commenter up above says this'll be Russia's second go-round with fascism. Yup, and they can send US/NATO where they
sent Hitler, Napoleon, Charles XII.
Russ, I wish I could be that optimistic. Yes, madmen they may be but they're madmen with tactical nukes! And judging by another
End of Days scenario, they actually seem to be contemplating their use, gambling that the Russians wont call their bluff! More
like the Cuban Missile Crisis than Sarevevo. So which side will blink first?
And then of course, we have Global Heating, which the Empire figures will 'take care' of that surplus to requirement population,
whilst the 1% wait it out in their bunkers.
I'm glad I'm at the other end of my life, rather than the beginning.
" we have the certainty that matter remains eternally the same in all its transformations, that none of its attributes can
ever be lost, and therefore, also, that with the same iron necessity that it will exterminate on the earth its highest creation,
the thinking mind, it must somewhere else and at another time again produce it". -- Frederick Engels, from the introduction
to 'The Dialectics of Nature', 1883.
thanks everyone for giving a response to either my comment, or @jayc's initial comment on what started this russiaphobia... i
think many of the answers are relevant and there is no one answer...
i recall how quickly 'cambridge analytica' came and went, in spite of the strength of the data on them manipulating much...
i imagine a similar story hee with 'integrity initiative'..
as for wikipedia - everyone knows it's a full on propaganda site masquerading as a neutral info site... the fact that it is
mentioned in this integrity initiative data dump shows just how mainstream and 'go to' in the world of propaganda it is viewed
by the intel services and anyone else trying to get in on some of the gov't money handouts for this type propaganda.. it would
be very cool if the wikipedia site made a statement saying we no longer need donations, as the intel services of the west have
been paying us to continue... at what point does wikipedia become an official and open arm of western propaganda?? why continue
to try to hide this when it is so apparent??
"at what point does wikipedia become an official and open arm of western propaganda?? why continue to try to hide this when
it is so apparent??"
That's one of neoliberalism's refinements over classical fascism: Just as they figured out you don't need to kill dissenters
since no one listens to us anyway, so you also don't need formal Gleichshaltung under a de jure Geobbels ministry since
the MSM will happily "coordinate" itself and really doesn't need to be told what to do. They already know since theirs is the
same ideology.
Well, I'm only optimistic about that last part if they really can keep it to just shooting and not let the missiles fly.
On the other hand I'm not at all optimistic about that. Though even then I suspect it'll hit the West worst, precisely because
any such leveling is hardest on the most complex, most high maintenance, most just-in-time, least robust, least resilient, most
top-heavy Tower of Babel. That would be the US, Europe, and their dependencies.
from the link in b's post: As we see it, the main weakness in the Russians' disinformation campaign is their embrace of a quantity
- over quality and credibility - strategy as shown by their lack of credible spokespeople, their publication of a high volume
of "easily" identifiable propaganda and "fake news", and their heavy reliance on a few biased partisan sites, dubious social media
pages and uninspired trolls. Their stories are hard to believe,...
That sounds so much like a self-description of the US-UK MSM it is uncanny. (Bellingcat anyone? for ex.) Which, imho, shows
a complete lack of creativity, suppleness, or even a low-level semi-efficient approach to the general problem of information
/ narrative control. Because that is what it is all about: much of the discourse around it is waffle, which masquerades as
'new' as it invokes 'new info' double-speak: social circuits, fake news, distribution, deep learning, connectivity, targetting,
etc. (and other terms that are less readily comprehensible..)
Hah! I think it was Goebbels who said that the biggest mistake a propagandist can make is to believe his own propaganda and
I think your quote exemplifies it! But note it always has to contain an element of truth eg, 'as shown by their lack of credible
spokespeople'. Yes, the Russians, just like the North Koreans ain't very good at spin and thank goodness. It was a lesson that
Nixon never learned, the Emperor really is naked!
on the newest thread bjd make what i thought was an exceptional comment, which is easy enough to gloss over, but i think worth
repeating on this thread... here it is
"...why --if these initiatives are truly meant to save and strengthen democracy-- (aren't they) proudly proclaimed and advertised,
in the open, transparent, for everyone one to see and judge, like an adult democracy that they claim to stand for..."
The fact that they aren't, is testimony to the nefarious anti-democratic, authoritarian and totalitarian streak that runs in between
every two lines that they put on paper."
I'm sure Bernard is going to ban me soon but before he does, you have to read this from Ron Unz on the Huawei debacle:
Although it is far from clear whether the very elderly [Sheldon] Adelson played any direct personal role in Ms. Meng's arrest,
he surely must be viewed as the central figure in fostering the political climate that produced the current situation. Perhaps
he should not be described as the ultimate puppet-master behind our current clash with China, but any such political puppet-masters
who do exist are certainly operating at his immediate beck and call. In very literal terms, I suspect that if Adelson placed
a single phone call to the White House, the Trump Administration would order Canada to release Ms. Meng that same day.
Adelson's fortune of $33 billion ranks him as the 15th wealthiest man in America, and the bulk of his fortune is based on
his ownership of extremely lucrative gambling casinos in Macau, China. In effect, the Chinese government currently has
its hands around the financial windpipe of the man ultimately responsible for Ms. Meng's arrest and whose pro-Israel minions
largely control American foreign policy. I very much doubt that they are fully aware of this enormous, untapped source of political
leverage.(my emph.
Averting World Conflict With China
The PRC Should Retaliate by Targeting Sheldon Adelson's Chinese Casinos
"MAGA was as much a policy change as it was a campaign slogan....To prevail, Empire strategists recognized that USA needed to
be able to call on regular troops and a deep sense of patriotism and righteousness that required re-developing nationalism. In
short, 'MAGA'."
@28 Jackrabbit
I highlight these lines of your interesting post because, in the context of the Kissinger Op-Ed you refer to, they capture
an angle I had not considered and have to a degree nudged my thinking off what had been a steady course of assumptions and beliefs
relating to MAGA that go in the opposite direction from your hypothesis.
Trump's invocation of MAGA on the campaign trail was presented in such a way as to seem to overwhelmingly favour a pullback
from Imperialism in order to make things right at home. It drew from, and fed on, the angst and diminishing prosperity of the
segment of the population that had been hit hardest by Globalization of the economy, to which Imperial adventures can be, and
after are, associated. The possibility that MAGA was, in fact, a sly misdirection to co-opt the fervour of re-ignited passions
in a disenfranchised segment of the America people - to re-capture the kind of patriotic commitment and ardor that drove the war
effort in two world wars - into a renewed Imperial adventure was obviated, in my view, by Trump's loud and overt criticism of
past Imperial adventures such as the Iraq war and Obama's inaction regarding ISIS (the accusation that Obama "created" ISIS was
a bombshell, in my opinion).
Trump engaged in a bare, pointed, often crass and bordering on contemptuous criticism of his predecessors' foreign policy.
The irreverent tone was unprecedented in recent campaign history and was so plain and completely at odds with Hilary's stated
positions that it essentially committed him (in my eyes anyway) to following through, or to make all efforts to follow through.
If not, he would set one of the worst examples of a duplicitous politician, perhaps ever. The same applies to other bold campaign
positions, such as the border wall, for example.
But when viewed in the context of a deep state "policy change," such a clear and utter denunciation and discrediting of the
former policy would be necessary to shift the National mindset and would not necessarily preclude Trump from engaging in further
Imperial adventures, as long as they were different from the discredited policy.
Doing it smarter and better than Obama did seems to the ticket to legitimacy for whatever Trump does in the foreign policy
realm. Replacing ISIS with actual American troops (while protecting a core capacity to revive ISIS if needed) is an example of
doing it differently from Obama, but the net result – with parts of Syria denied to the legitimate government – still supports
stark Imperialist, interventionists goals in a different way. The Russians and Syrians have free reign to attack ISIS, but do
not have the same liberty against American troops. The flip-side is that the American troops do not have the freedom of action
of ISIS to attack Syria. This creates a static line that serves the purpose of a partitionist goal. (ISIS is being allowed to
survive to enable an element of proxy action, for harassment purposes).
I find I can no longer dismiss Trump's appointments, in particular Pompeo and Bolton to key positions directing and shaping
US foreign policy, as some kind of 5-D chess move. They are signs that he is either a hostage President, or he is in on the act.
There is so much that remains unknown, but the clear outward indicators are that nothing really has changed when it comes to US
foreign policy objectives, only the methods and approaches are different.
Remember Obama's 'Change' meme? We don't understand that behind all these guys, and they are mostly men, stands industry and
its skills; advertising, marketing, statistics, psychology, pr, on and on it goes. And billions, billions, to spend! We are the
amateurs! Remember Saatchi & Saatchi's campaign to have Thatcher elected?
A new extremely lucrative 'industry' has sprung up.
a) to exploit hugely massive data sets (Facebook's trove and money earner..) and influence ppl => attitudes, behavior, votes,
etc. For ex. Cambridge Analytica. Much of this stuff is for now on the level of a scam. E.g. Trump was not elected due to any
type of manipulation or meddling by anyone, excepting those who financed him (other story, hard bucks and bribes - not! internet
detritus or subliminal messages) and imho the US MSM - TV specially - who care more about ratings and the money it brings than
anything else.
These efforts have got a lot of press, imho it is all smoke. If anyone has a good ex. of success ? (The model is built on about
200 years of advertising lore.)
b) Further upstream is to control the information that goes out / the audiences who are allowed to see whatever info, react
to it, communicate it - other. With the corollary of repressing dissident, unwelcome, contradictory, info, etc. Been going on
since say the Upper Paleolithic.
Today, what has to be managed is the extreme free-flow (internet): the only way this can be done is:
- to limit the channel, block info or some proportion of it, make the channel too expensive / unusable / forbid, repress
- to limit or corral the users (via propaganda / coercion / permission / certification / numbers / privilege / cost, etc.)
- to triage the information, the 'news', the narratives, the opinions, the appeals, etc. which represents the ultimate control
and is the choice made by the US-UK to mention only those.
Noirette, yuo want proof? Check out 'Programming of the President' by Roland Perry, Aurum Books, 1984. It's About Richard Wirthlin
and the Mormons. Can a computer be used to elect a president? Wel it elected Ronald Reagan. It's only a coupleof quid on Abe Books.
Essential reading IMHOP.
Re: "The possibility that MAGA was, in fact, a sly misdirection to co-opt the fervour of re-ignited passions in a disenfranchised
segment of the America people - to re-capture the kind of patriotic commitment and ardor that drove the war effort in two world
wars - into a renewed Imperial adventure was obviated, in my view, by Trump's loud and overt criticism of past Imperial adventures
such as the Iraq war and Obama's inaction regarding ISIS (the accusation that Obama "created" ISIS was a bombshell, in my opinion).
Trump engaged in a bare, pointed, often crass and bordering on contemptuous criticism of his predecessors' foreign policy.
The irreverent tone was unprecedented in recent campaign history and was so plain and completely at odds with Hilary's stated
positions that it essentially committed him (in my eyes anyway) to following through, or to make all efforts to follow through.
If not, he would set one of the worst examples of a duplicitous politician, perhaps ever. The same applies to other bold campaign
positions, such as the border wall, for example.
But when viewed in the context of a deep state "policy change," such a clear and utter denunciation and discrediting of the
former policy would be necessary to shift the National mindset and would not necessarily preclude Trump from engaging in further
Imperial adventures, as long as they were different from the discredited policy."
Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency who came up through intelligence positions
in Iraq and Afghanistan, says that the George W. Bush administration's Iraq war was a tremendous blunder that helped to create
the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS.
"It was a huge error," Flynn said about the Iraq war in a detailed interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel published Sunday.
"As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him," Flynn went on to say. "The same is true for Moammar
Gadhafi and for Libya, which is now a failed state. The historic lesson is that it was a strategic failure to go into Iraq. History
will not be and should not be kind with that decision."
When told by Der Spiegel reporters Matthias Gebauer and Holger Stark that the Islamic State would not "be where it is now without
the fall of Baghdad," Flynn, without reservations, said: "Yes, absolutely."
Flynn, who served in the U.S. Army for more than 30 years, also said that the American military response following 9/11 was
not well thought-out at all and based on significant misunderstandings.
Interesting, very interesting. As noted in the Flynn sentencing memo last night there were some curiously framed explanations
of events surrounding his FBI inquisition.
Now Judge Emmet Sullivan wants expanded information, and wishes to see the actual notes (FD-302) that were mentioned by Flynn;
and Judge Sullivan is directing the special counsel to provide all documents created by the FBI surrounding the Flynn interview:
from the comments:
Curt says:
December 12, 2018 at 9:56 pm
This could be big news! Judge Emmet Sullivan was the same judge that had prosecutors investigated for criminal actions they took
in the Sen. Ted Stevens FALSE prosecution. Some on Mueller's team, including Weinstein, were held in contempt. One prosecutor
committed suicide. Others threatened with disbarment and some were suspended. "A federal judge dismissed the ethics conviction
of former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska on Tuesday after taking the extraordinary step of naming a special prosecutor to investigate
whether the government lawyers who ran the Stevens case (2008) should themselves be prosecuted for criminal wrongdoing.
Mueller
was also involved in that horrible attempt by prosecutors to frame Sen. Ted Stevens. Judge Sullivan has absolutely no use for
this group of prosecutors. He smells a rat here and is asking for all investigative materials, including 302s. This judge will
not hesitate to take action against these crooked prosecutors if he finds evidence of ANY wrong doing.
On April 7, 2009, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia unleashed his fury
before a packed courtroom. For 14 minutes, he scolded. He chastised. He fumed. "In nearly 25 years on the bench," he said, "I've
never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I've seen in this case.
. . .
For months Judge Sullivan had warned U.S. prosecutors about their repeated failure to turn over evidence. Then, after the jury
convicted Stevens, the Justice Department discovered previously unrevealed evidence. Meanwhile, a prosecution witness and an agent
from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) came forward alleging prosecutorial misconduct. Finally, newly appointed U.S. Attorney
General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that he had had enough and recommended that the seven-count conviction against the former
Alaska senator be dismissed.
On April 7, Judge Sullivan did just that. But he was far from done.
In an extraordinarily rare move, he ordered an inquiry into the prosecutors' handling of the case. Judge Sullivan insisted
that the misconduct allegations were "too serious and too numerous" to be left to an internal Justice Department investigation.
He appointed Washington lawyer Henry F. Schuelke III of Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler to investigate whether members of the trial
team should be prosecuted for criminal contempt.
12-13-18 Following the allegations, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan yesterday ordered that both the Mueller investigation and
the Flynn team turn over all documents [the "302s"] relating to the fateful interview, including all contemporaneous notes, before
3pm Friday.
In recent days we have discovered that Flynn was advised not to have counsel present during his FBI interview and that the
FBI is withholding the actual interview notes. The same FBI cabal that has dogged Trump - but AFAIK, Trump has said nothing about
the Flynn case.
Yet another reason to believe that Trump is not a "populist" savior but yet another agent of the establishment/Deep State.
Michael Flynn's a well known islamophobe who'd gladly defend zionist interests to the last american soldier. He'd fit right
in with Bolton on the NSC council. Flynn in his own words: "Islam is not a real religion, but a political ideology masked behind
a religion," While campaigning for Trump in 2016: ''Islamism a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people that has to
be excised "
I wonder how he planned on excising the cancer ? Deploying more stormtroopers to the levant to fight Iran ?
As Trump assumed control of the executive in early 2017, it didn't take long for Flynn to push for direct military involvement
in Yemen and confrontation with Iran: "Instead of being thankful to the United States for these agreements, Iran is now feeling
emboldened... As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice."
Michael Flynn was also a fellow at the foundation for defence of democracies a well known den of zionists and universal fascists
such as Michael Ledeen. In fact they both wrote a book together The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War against Radical
Islam and Its Allies, where we find such nuggets as:
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Putin has declared the United States (and NATO generally) to be a national security threat
to Russia, and "Death to America" is the official chant of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both the Putinists and the radical Iranian
Muslims agree on the identity of their main enemy. Hence, one part of the answer is surely that their alliance is simply the logical
outgrowth of their hostility toward America.''
"The Russians and Iranians have more in common than a shared enemy. There is also a shared contempt for democracy and an agreement
-- by all members of the enemy alliance -- that dictatorship is a superior way to run a country, an empire, or a caliphate."
Flynn's angle was to exploit any potential fissure to pry Russia away from Iran and China. Presumbably after having dealt with
Iran and the middle Kingdom, the hegemon could then strike a final blow to defeat and contain an isolated Russia. https://www.amazon.com/Field-Fight-Global-Against-Radical/dp/1250131626
Documents leaked by internet hackers of Anonymous reveal how a supposedly independent think-tank based in the UK is a government
funded and controlled operation of misinformation and fake news.
At the same time that the Western powers were accusing Russia of interference in democracy, the UK government and its intelligence
services MI5 and MI6 were busily preventing the nomination of a Spanish official to Director of National Security, one of Spain's
top advisory roles.
Details of the operation carried out by the Integrity Initiative (II), a project launched in 2015 by the Institute of Statecraft,
have been published by the web site CyberGuerilla.org. It is a trove of documents allegedly hacked from II, showing carefully worked
out campaigns, costs and internal guidelines, as well as names of individuals cooperating with the network.
Anonymous shows that the network:
1. Is mainly funded by the UK government through the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).
2. Cost Ł1,961,000 ($2.5 million) this year.
3. Has received Ł168,000 in funding from HQ NATO Public Diplomacy and Ł250,000 from the US State Department.
4. Is controlled by figures in the UK who manipulate "clusters" of politicians, high-ranking military officials, academics and
journalists.
5. Clusters are said to operate in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Norway, Serbia, and Montenegro.
6. Its activities are carried under absolute secrecy via named intelligence services operatives in British embassies.
The Integrity Initiative poses as "Defending Democracy against Misinformation," but does exactly the opposite, spreading fake
news against Russia in order to defend the national interests of the UK and its imperialist allies, influence Russian speakers in
Europe and North America and "change attitudes in Russia itself".
An example of II's activities was the operation launched last June against the nomination of Army reserve colonel Pedro Bańos
as Spain's Director of National Security. Attached to La Moncloa, the official residence and workplace of the prime minister of Spain,
the director's role is to advise the PM on existing and potential threats to the country and possible responses.
II's operation started after it was warned that the new Socialist Party (PSOE) government under Pedro Sánchez, which had just
been elected in parliament through a no confidence vote, was considering Bańos and was about to confirm his appointment on June 7,
2018.
Immediately, newspapers like El Mundo and El País published articles accusing Bańos of "sympathy for Russia."
Proof of this for El País was his "regular presence" on Russia Today and Sputnik , media outlets funded
by the Putin government. Further "evidence" was his tweet in response to a survey showing a domestic popularity rating of 74 percent
for Russian President Vladimir Putin: "Wouldn't we love to have a political leader half as popular right here in the European Union!!!"
Bańos was also quoted as saying, "Which country has everything that we lack? Russia does. We will not gain anything by provoking
Russia. So Russia wants to have its own sphere of influence? Of course it does, just like the United States or China do. It also
wants to have its markets and like-minded countries nearby."
Numerous articles also put in doubt Bańos' sanity for his participation in the popular offbeat TV show Cuarto Milenio that often
investigates topics such as conspiracy theories, ufology and parapsychology.
Bańos reflects a minority realpolitik opinion within the Spanish ruling class which opposes provocative military actions and sanctions
against Russia. He sees the need to defend Spain's imperialist interests through a European army and closer relations with Russia
-- positions also held by sections of the German and French ruling elite.
The UK-sponsored II, however, saw Bańos as a threat to British national interests and an obstacle to its anti-Russia campaign.
According to the hacked documents, at midday on June 7, 2018, the Spanish Cluster, obviously through informants at the highest levels
of the PSOE, "hear that a well-known pro-Kremlin voice, Pedro Bańos, is to be appointed at the weekend (09.06.2018) as the Director
of the National Security Department (DSN), which works closely with the Spanish PM's office (La Moncloa) and is very influential
in shaping policy."
An action plan is drawn up laying out how Institute of Statecraft Fellow and Spain Cluster leader Nicólas de Pedro will alert
"the rest of the cluster members and prepare[s] a dossier to inform the main Spanish media. The cluster starts a Twitter campaign...
trying to prevent an appointment."
Spanish Cluster members also include Borja Lasheras and Quique Badia-Masoni, writers and journalists well known for their hysterical
anti-Russian positions. They are supported by II Team UK members Chris Hernon, Simon Bracey-Lane and Ben Robinson, and StopFake Spanish
Desk members Alina Mosendz and Serbian Cluster member Jelena Milic.
At 15:45, "The head of the Spanish cluster urgently contacts the British cluster, which activates the II network in order to create
international support for the Twitter campaign. The British Cluster creates a group in the WhatsApp messenger... to coordinate the
reaction on Twitter, gets contacts on Twitter to spread concerns and encourage people to 'retweet' the material. He publishes material
written by the head of the Spanish cluster Niko de Pedro on the Spanish version of the StopFake website, which is also 'retweeted'
by key influential figures."
The Spanish cluster then sends material to El País and El Mundo to publish. On the same day, El País
publishes, "Spanish PM taps Russia supporter for National Security Director."
The documents reveal that by 19:45, barely eight hours after the start of the operation, the "campaign [had] raised significant
noise on Twitter Contacts in the Socialist Party confirmed that this information reached the Prime Minister. Some Spanish diplomats
also expressed their concern. In the end, both the People's Party and the Civil Party (Ciudadanos) asked the Prime Minister to stop
the appointment."
The following day, the government drops Bańos and nominates general Miguel Ángel Ballesteros instead.
The operation against Bańos is a graphic illustration of the inner workings of the intelligence services in collaboration with
alleged "independent" journalists and academics. The same forces that accuse Russia of meddling in European nations' internal affairs
are themselves meddling to stop elected governments from nominating officials when it conflicts with their interests. They use social
media in the same way they accuse the Kremlin of using it.
By showing the real sources of information on which they rely, newspapers like El País or El Mundo are exposed
as conduits of the intelligence services to support the suppression of maverick political viewpoints, in this case, Bańos' call for
closer relations with Russia.
Last year, El País carried out a
frenzied and paranoid campaign claiming that the Catalan crisis was not sparked by the Popular Party government's violent repression
of the secessionists, but was the result of Moscow and its "fake news." It quoted experts and specialists working for Spanish think
tanks like Instituto Elcano and Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB), and the European Council on Foreign Relations.
The leaked documents show that many members of these think tanks are members of the "Spanish Cluster" of the Integrity Initiative.
The most notorious is Senior Analyst for Instituto Elcano, Mira Milosevich-Juaristi who testified last year in parliament to claim
that Russia was promoting fake news.
The Bańos case is just one of the highlighted campaigns of Integrity Initiative, but according to Anonymous, similar operations
have been carried out in numerous other EU states.
"... MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given. They later put Michael Steele onto the project; he was a guy with credible Russian contacts. Basically, the scam worked like this: ..."
"... They funneled an MI6 intelligence file to Michael Steele (governments routinely keep such files on influential foreigners and what they are up to) so he could use his contacts to launder the information and make it appear that it came from sources within Russia; they then funneled the report back to elements of the FBI so they could use it to justify to the FISA court a spying campaign on Trump ..."
"... the Obama regime purposely mishandled information in regards to the spying program (ex: Michael Steele leaked his document to various news sources before the election and later lied to congress about it), ensuring it would leak to the press; the Obama regime illegally unmasked elements of Trump's personal contacts so they could clandestinely leak suggested targets off the record to the right people ..."
"... They lost the election anyway, so they then planted dirt and negative press to make the document look legit – lies about Manafort meeting Assange (Guardian is funded by the British government to police the left), WaPo lies claiming a vast Russian conspiracy just as Trump came into office (it was an effort to delegitimize him and create calls for Hillary to take his place), leaking bank records, the special counsel .and leaking information on Trump policies to the media using a secret security clearance credentials program enacted by Obama. ..."
"... The government takes CCTV footage of you at a grocery store; in the background there is an attractive woman. The woman then goes missing. The government illegally reads your emails and finds that you like sexual jokes. The government then interviews a friend of yours who claims that you once made a risque rape joke back in college. They also plant a mole in your workplace who befriends you and reports back all of your politically incorrect humor. Then the cops find the woman's body and the government claims that you killed her because you were in the area at the time and you make bad jokes, which has been confirmed by multiple credible people. You look guilty, don't you? The government 1) took information out of context 2) laundered circumstantial evidence through a credible witness when they originally obtained it elsewhere using nefarious sources. That's what they did to Trump, but much much much worse. ..."
"... And don't forget the Skripals' affair and the relationships (via M16) between Mr. Steele and Mr. Skripal: https://thedeepstate.com/steele-skripal/ ..."
"You don't say; British Collusion to influence the 2016 US Presidential elections."
MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of
John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given. They later put Michael
Steele onto the project; he was a guy with credible Russian contacts. Basically, the scam
worked like this:
They funneled an MI6 intelligence file to Michael Steele (governments routinely keep such
files on influential foreigners and what they are up to) so he could use his contacts to
launder the information and make it appear that it came from sources within Russia; they then
funneled the report back to elements of the FBI so they could use it to justify to the FISA
court a spying campaign on Trump (the FBI illegally withheld the source of the document);
they found nothing proving any Russian connection but they kept the spy program going; they
tried justifying the spy program with a fake story involving a reliable asset that once
passed information from Jimmy Carter's campaign to George H.W. Bush in an effort to help
Reagan win the 1980 election; they later paid the asset nearly a quarter million dollars for
his efforts using a fake "India-China" grant despite the grant running to 2018, the asset
attempted to get a job in the Trump administration so he could act as a mole ; the Obama
regime purposely mishandled information in regards to the spying program (ex: Michael Steele
leaked his document to various news sources before the election and later lied to congress
about it), ensuring it would leak to the press; the Obama regime illegally unmasked elements
of Trump's personal contacts so they could clandestinely leak suggested targets off the
record to the right people
They lost the election anyway, so they then planted dirt and negative press to make the
document look legit – lies about Manafort meeting Assange (Guardian is funded by the
British government to police the left), WaPo lies claiming a vast Russian conspiracy just as
Trump came into office (it was an effort to delegitimize him and create calls for Hillary to
take his place), leaking bank records, the special counsel .and leaking information on Trump
policies to the media using a secret security clearance credentials program enacted by Obama.
They also ran interference through CIA guys like Mark Warner in an effort to cover up the
mole they planted; they falsely asserted this was a national security issue when the man's
identity was well-known to the press and he was never an undercover spy like Jarret was, at
least not in recent history.
To put this all into perspective, imagine the following scenario:
The government takes CCTV footage of you at a grocery store; in the background there is an
attractive woman. The woman then goes missing. The government illegally reads your emails and
finds that you like sexual jokes. The government then interviews a friend of yours who claims
that you once made a risque rape joke back in college. They also plant a mole in your
workplace who befriends you and reports back all of your politically incorrect humor. Then
the cops find the woman's body and the government claims that you killed her because you were
in the area at the time and you make bad jokes, which has been confirmed by multiple credible
people. You look guilty, don't you? The government 1) took information out of context 2)
laundered circumstantial evidence through a credible witness when they originally obtained it
elsewhere using nefarious sources. That's what they did to Trump, but much much much
worse.
"... Because once we go from "corruption is getting more and more common; something must be done" to "meh," we are crossing from a flawed democratic republic to outright tyranny and oligarchy with little way back. ..."
"... Why would anyone expect anything different from the Times, or any major U.S. Newspaper or media outlet? They are organs of the intelligence community and have been for many years. ..."
"... I think the ridiculous and pathetic explanations by NYT in this case are, in part, due to the fact that they simply don't care enough to produce better answers. In their view, these CIA connections and those with other Govt. agencies are paramount, and must be maintained at all costs. ..."
"... It is likely that the relationship is a little more formal than mere collusion ..."
"... "Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few" [George Bernard Shaw" ..."
"... Has been since Judith Miller told us there were WMD in Iraq in 2003. They don't plan anticipations of crises, but the actual crises themselves. In a moral world, the NYT is as guilty of genocide as Bush and Blair. ..."
The more important objection is that the fact that a certain behavior is common does not negate its being corrupt. Indeed,
as is true for government abuses generally, those in power rely on the willingness of citizens to be trained to view corrupt
acts as so common that they become inured, numb, to its wrongfulness. Once a corrupt practice is sufficiently perceived as
commonplace, then it is transformed in people's minds from something objectionable into something acceptable.
Because once we go from "corruption is getting more and more common; something must be done" to "meh," we are crossing
from a flawed democratic republic to outright tyranny and oligarchy with little way back.
Besides, they don't all do it ... there are honorable reporters out there, some few of whom work for the Times and the Post.
Another great article Glenn. The Guardian will spread your words further and wider. Salon's loss is the world's gain.
Why would anyone expect anything different from the Times, or any major U.S. Newspaper or media outlet? They are organs
of the intelligence community and have been for many years. That these email were allowed to get out under FOIA is indicative
of the fact that there are some people on the inside who would like to get the truth out. Either that, or the head of some ES-2's
Assistant Deputy for Secret Shenanigans and Heinous Drone Murders will roll.
Scott Horton quote on closely related Mazzetti reporting (in this case regarding misleading reporting on how important CIA/Bush
torture was in tracking down and getting bin Laden, the focus of this movie):
"I'm quite sure that this is precisely the way the folks who provided this info from the agency [to Mazzetti] wanted them to
be understood, but there is certainly more than a measure of ambiguity in them, planted with care by the NYT writers or their
editors. This episode shows again how easily the Times can be spun by unnamed government sources, the factual premises of whose
statements invariably escape any examination."
I think the ridiculous and pathetic explanations by NYT in this case are, in part, due to the fact that they simply don't
care enough to produce better answers. In their view, these CIA connections and those with other Govt. agencies are paramount,
and must be maintained at all costs.
If you don't like their paper-thin answers, tough. In their view (imo) this will blow over and business will resume, with the
all-important friends and connections intact. Thus leaving the machinery intact for future uncritical, biased and manipulative
"spin" of NYT by any number of unnamed govt. sources/agencies...
In what conceivable way is Mazzetti's collusion with the CIA an "intelligence matter" that prevents the NYT's managing
editor from explaining what happened here?
That one is easy, as we learned in the Valerie Plame affair. It is likely that the relationship is a little more formal
than mere collusion.
Just another step down the ladder towards despotism. "Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment
by the corrupt few" [George Bernard Shaw"
The relationship between the New York Times and the US government is, as usual, anything but adversarial. Indeed, these
emails read like the interactions between a PR representative and his client as they plan in anticipation of a possible crisis.
Has been since Judith Miller told us there were WMD in Iraq in 2003. They don't plan anticipations of crises, but the actual
crises themselves. In a moral world, the NYT is as guilty of genocide as Bush and Blair.
The humor seems to go completely out of the issue when 100,000 people are dead and their families and futures changed forever.
"We pledge subservience to the Owners of the United Corporations of America, and to the Oligarchy for which it stands, one Greed
under God, indivisible, with power and wealth for few."
Notable quotes:
"... bin laden gave terror a face. how conveeeenient for warmongers everywhere! ..."
"... CIA in collusion with mainstream newspaper NYT. And you call this news ? ..."
"... collusion between the us media and the us government goes back much, much further. Chomsky has plenty of stuff about this... ..."
"... The NYTimes has its own agenda and bends the news that's fit to print. Journalistic integrity? LOL. No one beat the war drums louder for Bush's Neocons before the Iraq war. Draining our nation's resources, getting young Americans killed (they didn't come from the 1%, you see). The cradle of civilization that's the Iraqi landscape wiped out. Worst, 655,000 Iraqis lost their lives, said British medical journal Lancet, creating 2.5mn each internal & external refugees. ..."
"... The NYT never dwelled on the numbers of Iraqis killed. Up to a few weeks ago, its emphasis on the current Syrian tragedy is to inform us on the hundreds or thousands who've lost their lives. ..."
"... World financial meltdown? When Sanford Weill of Citi pushed for the repeal of Glass-Steagall late 1990's, the FDR era 17-page law separating commercial from investment banks, a measure that's preserved the nation's banking integrity for over half a century, the Nyt added its megaphone to the task, urging Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin to comply, editorializing In 1988: "Few economic historians now find the logic behind Glass-Steagall persuasive" . In 1990, that "banks and stocks were a dangerous mixture" "makes little sense now." ..."
"... just off the top of my head I recall the editor of one of a British major was an MI5 agent; this is in the public domain. ..."
"... We pledge subservience to the Owners of the United Corporations of America, and to the Oligarchy for which it stands, one Greed under God, indivisible, with power and wealth for few. ..."
"... The NYT has been infiltrated for decades by CIA agents. Just notice their dogged reporting on the completely debunked "lone-gunman" JFK theory---they will always report that Oswald acted alone---this is the standard CIA story, pushed and maintained by the NYT despite overwhelming evidence that there was a conspiracy (likely involving the CIA). ..."
I've often wondered what you think of the journalism of someone like Seymour Hirsch. (sic) He broke some very important
stories by cozying up to moles in the MIC.
You'e confusing apples with oranges. Hersh seeks information on issues that outrage him. These do not usually include propaganda
for the intelligence agencies, but information they would like to suppress. He's given secret information because he appears to
his informers as someone who has a long record of integrity.
It's straight outta that old joke about the husband being caught by his wife in flagrante delicto with the pretty young lady neighbour,
who then tells his wife that he and his bit on the side weren't doing anything: "And who do you believe-- me, or your lying eyes?"
The NYTimes has its own agenda and bends the news that's fit to print. Journalistic integrity? LOL. No one beat the
war drums louder for Bush's Neocons before the Iraq war. Draining our nation's resources, getting young Americans killed (they
didn't come from the 1%, you see). The cradle of civilization that's the Iraqi landscape wiped out. Worst, 655,000 Iraqis lost
their lives, said British medical journal Lancet, creating 2.5mn each internal & external refugees.
Following the pre-Iraq
embellishment, NYT covered up its deeds by sacrificing Journalist Judith Miller. As Miller answered a post-war court case, none
other than Chairman & CEO Arthur Sulzberger jr. locked arms with her as they entered the courtroom.
The NYT never dwelled on the numbers of Iraqis killed. Up to a few weeks ago, its emphasis on the current Syrian tragedy is
to inform us on the hundreds or thousands who've lost their lives.
World financial meltdown? When Sanford Weill of Citi pushed for the repeal of Glass-Steagall late 1990's, the FDR era 17-page
law separating commercial from investment banks, a measure that's preserved the nation's banking integrity for over half a century,
the Nyt added its megaphone to the task, urging Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin to comply, editorializing In 1988: "Few economic
historians now find the logic behind Glass-Steagall persuasive" . In 1990, that "banks and stocks were a dangerous mixture" "makes
little sense now."
NYT, a liberal icon? In year 2000, when I lived in NYC, New York Daily News columnist A.M. Rosenthal used to regularly demonize
China in language surpassing even Rush Limbaugh. I told myself nah, that's not the Rosenthal-former-editor of the NYT. Only when
I read his obituary a few years later did I learn that it was indeed the same one.
We pledge subservience to the Owners of the United Corporations of America, and to the Oligarchy for which it stands, one Greed
under God, indivisible, with power and wealth for few.
NOAM CHOMSKY _MANUFACTURING CONSENT haven't read it? read it. read it? read it again.
thought totalitarianism and the ruling class died in 1945? think again. thought you wouldn't have to fight like grandpa's generation
to live in a democratic and just society? think again.
Would that we could hold these discussions without reference to personal defamations -- "darkened ignorance" and "educate yourself"
which sounds like "f___ yourself". Why can't we just say "I respectfully disagree"? Alas, when discussing political issues with
leftists, that seems impossible. Why the vitriol?
Greenwald's more lengthy posts make it clear that he believes that people who differ with him are "lying" and basing their
viewpoint upon "a single right wing blogger". He chooses this explanation over the obvious and accurate one -- legal rationales
developed by the Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration. The date of Greenwald's archive is February 19, 2006.
Oddly, he bases all of his contentions upon whatever he could glean up to that date. But the legal rationale for warrantless wiretaps
was based upon memos written by John Yoo at the OLC that Greenwald did not have access to in 2006. The memos were not released
until after Obama took office in 2009.
Obama released them in a highly publicized press conference staged for maximum political impact. Greenwald could not possibly
have understood the legal rationale for the program since he had not been privy to them until March 2009 if, indeed, he has bothered
to acquaint himself with them since then. Either way, nobody was "lying" except those who could have understood the full dimension
and willfully chose to hide or ignore the truth. It's not exactly like I am new to this subject as you seem to imply. I wrote
a 700 page book about Obama administration duplicity in this same vein. An entire chapter is devoted to this very topic.
Warrantless wiretaps were undertaken after a legal ruling from OLC. And after Obama took office, warrantless wiretaps were
continued. Obviously since they were based upon OLC rulings, since no prosecutions have ever been suggested and since they have
continued uninterrupted after Obama took office, the Justice Department under both administrations agrees with me and disagrees
with Greenwald. We arrive at this disagreement respectfully. Despite Obama's voluminous denunciations of the Bush anti-terror
approach on the campaign trail, he resurrected nearly every plank of it once he took office.
But this is a subsidiary point to a far larger point that some observers on this discussion to their credit were able to understand.
Despite all of these pointless considerations, the larger point of my original post was that Greenwald missed the "real" story
here, which was that the collusion between NYT and CIA was not due to institutional considerations as Greenwald seems to allege,
but due to purely partisan considerations. That, to me, is the story he missed.
I find that people who are losing debates try to shift the focus to subsidiary points hoping that, like a courtroom lawyer,
if they can refute a small and inconsequential detail raised in testimony, they will undercut the larger truth offered by the
witness. It won't work. Too much is on the record. And neither point, the ankle-biting non-issue about legality of warrantless
wiretaps or the larger, salient point about the overt partisan political dimension of NYT's collusion with a political appointee
at CIA who serves on the Obama reelection committee, has been refuted.
Joseph Toomey
Author, "Change You Can REALLY Believe In: The Obama Legacy of Broken Promises and Failed Policies"
Conspiracy theorists, have been, of course, telling you this for years (given media's motive is profit and not honesty). I suppose
the exact same conspiracy theorists other guardian authors have been too eager to denounce previously?
The NSA wiretap program revealed by Risen was not illegal as Greenwald wrongly asserts. As long as one end of the intercepted
conservation originated on foreign soil as it did, it was perfectly legal and required no FISA court authorization.
Mr. Toomey, in 2006 Greenwald
published a compendium of legal arguments defending the Bush Admin's warrantless wiretapping and the (sound) rebuttals of
them. It is exhaustive, and covers your easily dispensed with argument. By way of introduction to his many links to his
aggregated, rigorous analyses of the legal issues, he wrote this:
I didn't just wake up one day and leap to the conclusion that the Administration broke the law deliberately and that there
are no reasonable arguments to defend that law-breaking (as many Bush followers leaped to the conclusion that he did nothing
wrong and then began their hunt to find rationale or advocates to support this conclusion). I arrived at the conclusion that
Bush clearly broke the law only by spending enormous amounts of time researching these issues and reading and responding to
the defenses from the Administration's apologists.
He did spend enormous time dealing with people such as yourself, and all of his work remains available for you to educate
yourself with, at the link provided above.
Maybe you'd like to explain that to Samuel Loring Morison who was convicted and spent years in the federal system for passing
classified information to Janes Defence Weekly. I'm sure he'd be entertained. Larry Franklin would also like to hear it. He's
in prison today for violating the Espionage Act.
Courts have recognized no press privilege exists when publishing classified data. In 1971, the Supreme Court vacated a prior
restraint against NYT and The Washington Post allowing them to publish the Pentagon Papers. But the court also observed that prosecutions
after-the-fact would be permissible and not involve an abridgement of the free speech clause. It was only the prior restraint
that gave the justices heartburn. They had no issue with throwing them in the slammer after the deed was done.
Thomas Drake, a former NSA official, was indicted and convicted after revealing information to reporters in 2010. The statute
covers mere possession which even NYT recognized could cover reporters as well. There have been numerous other instances of arrests,
indictments and prosecutions for disclosure to reporters. It's only been due to political calculations and not constitutional
limitations that have kept Risen and others out of prison.
The NYT has been infiltrated for decades by CIA agents. Just notice their dogged reporting on the completely debunked "lone-gunman"
JFK theory---they will always report that Oswald acted alone---this is the standard CIA story, pushed and maintained by the NYT
despite overwhelming evidence that there was a conspiracy (likely involving the CIA).
What outrages me the most is the NYT's condescending attitude towards its readers when caught in this obvious breach of journalistic
ethics.
Both Baquet and Abramson, rather than showing some humility or contrition, are acting as if nothing bad has happened, and that
we are stupid to even talk about this.
This article misses the elephant in the room. Namely, that the NYT only plays footsies with Democrats in positions of power.
With the 'Pubs, it's open season.
Not true. There are many examples of the NYT colluding with the Bush administration, some of which Glenn has mentioned in this
article. Take, for example, the fact that the NYT concealed Bush's wire-tapping program for almost a year, at the request of the
White House, and didn't release details until after Bush's re-election.
"... The Government leaks classified material at will for propaganda advantage, but hunts Assange and tortures Private Manning for the same. ..."
"... these emails reflect the standard full-scale cooperation – a virtual merger – between our the government and the establishment media outlets that claim to act as "watchdogs" over them. ..."
"... The issue under discussion here, however, is the extent to which the media is an eager partner in the message-sending, rather than an unwitiing tool. ..."
The New York Crimes. The seamless web of media, government, business: a totalitarian system.
Darkly amusing, perhaps, unless one begins to tally the damage.
USA Inc. Viva Death,
Did you hear the one about the investment banker whose very expensive hooker bite off his
crank?
I'm not sure what's scarier--that the CIA is spending taxpayer dollars spending even a split
second worrying about what a two bit hack like Maureen Dowd writes, or that the NY Times
principals are so institutionally "captured" that they parrot "CIA speak".
Or maybe that our purported public servants in the legislature are bipartisanly
and openly attempting to repeal portions of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign
Relations Authorization Act in 1987 banning domestic propaganda.
America is becoming a real sick joke. And the last to know will be about 65% of the
populace I like to call Sheeple.
Very depressing. I thought we would get a smart bunch over here. The major trend I've noticed
instead? Blind support for the empire and the apparatus that keeps it thriving. Unable to be
good little authoritarians and cheer for the now collapsing British Empire, they have to
cheer for it's natural predecessor, the American Empire. This includes attacking all those
who might question the absolute infallible of The Empire. Folks like.. Glenn. It is
fascinating to watch, if not disheartening.
So all cozying up to spooks is not always a bad thing, huh?
Just my point.
I see. I thought your point was that there was some sort of equivalence between Hersh's
development of sources to reveal truths that their agencies fervently wished to keep secret
and Mazzetti's active assistance in protecting an agency's image from sullying by fellow
journalists.
And that ended his career in government service, as it should have...or not:
From Wikipedia: John O. Brennan is chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President
Barack Obama; officially his title is Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security
and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President.
Unfortunately this is nothing new for Mazetti or the New York Times, nor is it the first time
Glenn Greenwald has called Mazetti out on his cozy relationship with the CIA:
The CIA and its reporter friends: Anatomy of a backlash
The coordinated, successful effort to implant false story lines about John Brennan
illustrates the power the intelligence community wields over political debates.
Glenn Greenwald Dec. 08, 2008 |
...Just marvel at how coordinated (and patently inaccurate) their messaging is, and --
more significantly -- how easily they can implant their message into establishment media
outlets far and wide, which uncritically publish what they're told from their cherished
"intelligence sources" and without even the pretense of verifying whether any of it is true
and/or hearing any divergent views:
Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, New York Times, 12/2/2008:
Last week, John O. Brennan, a C.I.A. veteran who was widely seen as Mr. Obama's likeliest
choice to head the intelligence agency, withdrew his name from consideration after liberal
critics attacked his alleged role in the agency's detention and interrogation program. Mr.
Brennan protested that he had been a "strong opponent" within the agency of harsh
interrogation tactics, yet Mr. Obama evidently decided that nominating Mr. Brennan was not
worth a battle with some of his most ardent supporters on the left.
Mr. Obama's search for someone else and his future relationship with the agency are
complicated by the tension between his apparent desire to make a clean break with Bush
administration policies he has condemned and concern about alienating an agency with a
central role in the campaign against Al Qaeda.
Mark M. Lowenthal, an intelligence veteran who left a senior post at the C.I.A. in 2005, said
Mr. Obama's decision to exclude Mr. Brennan from contention for the top job had sent a
message that "if you worked in the C.I.A. during the war on terror, you are now tainted," and
had created anxiety in the ranks of the agency's clandestine service.
...The story, by Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, noted that John O. Brennan had withdrawn
his name from consideration for CIA director after liberal critics attacked his role in the
agency's interrogation program, even though Brennan characterized himself as a "strong
opponent" within the agency of harsh interrogation techniques. Brennan's characterization was
not disputed by anyone else in the story, even though most experts on this subject agree that
Brennan acquiesced in everything that the CIA did in this area while he served there.
"these emails reflect the standard full-scale cooperation – a virtual merger –
between our the government and the establishment media outlets that claim to act as
"watchdogs" over them."
Glenn - the only objection I have to your column and all your previous columns on this
matter is that I am not sure the establishment media actually claim to be watchdogs, at least
not any more, and certainly not since Sept 11. They really are more like PR reps.
The media is another tool in the [government, in this case] arsenal to help send a
message, as are speeches before think tanks and etc.
Yes. The issue under discussion here, however, is the extent to which the media is an
eager partner in the message-sending, rather than an unwitiing tool.
Did everyone forget the Judith Miller article? The usage of Twitter and other social media
during the Iranian election of 2009? The leaks about the Iranian nuclear program in the
Telegraph? ARDA?
The U.S. government, along with every other government in the world, uses the media to
influence public opinion and send geopolitical messages to others that understand the message
(normally not the masses). The media is another tool in the arsenal to help send a message,
as are speeches before think tanks and etc.
We use social media to create social unrest if it aligns with our interests. We use the
media to send political messages and influence public opinion. The vast majority of reporting
in the N.Y. Times, WSJ, Guardian, Telegraph, and etc. do not reflect this, but every now and
then "unnamed sources" help further a geopolitical message.
In this country, it has been that way since before the founding fathers and the Republic.
Remember the Federalist, Anti-Federalist, Sam Adams as Vtndex, and etc.? Newspapers used for
"propaganda" purposes.
Upthread I asked him for his comments on the reporting of Seymour Hirsh. He is someone
who cozied up to all kinds of people - and wound up busting some extremely important
stories in the process.
I think a modest amount of review of Sy Hersh's work will demonstrate that his "cozying
up" hasn't included running interference for the spooks' official PR flacks.
"... Bob Marley got it right.... the human race is becoming a rat race, and it's a disgrace. ..."
"... The biggest problem is the financialisation of the economy... what is the actual value of things? The market is so manipulated that real price discovery is not possible. ..."
"... We have an over-cooked service-sector economy unsustainably reliant on cheap debt, cheap energy, and cheap manufactured goods to fuel our 'high-end levels of consumption, and mobility or living standards, and an over-heated housing market that is unsustainably run according to the needs of investors and landlords rather than residents or tenants. ..."
"... What we need is a coordinated approach between our nations. Undercutting each other on corporate taxes, writing tax avoidance into law, and continuing to allow multinationals to influence our politicians and play our governments against each other is exactly the game we must end. ..."
"... Instead, it places the financially powerful beyond any state, in an international elite that makes its own rules, and holds governments to ransom. That's what the financial crisis was all about. The ransom was paid, and as a result, governments have been obliged to limit their activities yet further.... ..."
"... "Ransom". There is no better word to describe it. This (the ransom mentality) is exactly the reactionary, vindictive, doctrinaire psychology that must be extracted like a cancer from our institutional lives and the human species. A monolithic task. But identifying the cause is the first step to cure. ..."
"... these are the new medieval transnational barons ..."
@Crackerpot - The whole austerity crisis thing appears to have been engineered so that a few blinkered and unpatriotic, vulture
mafia privateers can make a killing, selling off vital state assets, such as infrastructure and ports, to the Chinese. This is
a very suspicious and widespread trend.
Bob Marley got it right.... the human race is becoming a rat race, and it's a disgrace.
I see it every day from the window of my flat, on a main road, in Bethnal Green. There's a 'mentally unstable' Rastafarian
who stands by the overground station, and shouts things out to people like "You're living in babylon".
The biggest problem is the financialisation of the economy... what is the actual value of things? The market is so manipulated
that real price discovery is not possible.
We have an over-cooked service-sector economy unsustainably reliant on cheap debt, cheap energy, and cheap manufactured
goods to fuel our 'high-end levels of consumption, and mobility or living standards, and an over-heated housing market that is
unsustainably run according to the needs of investors and landlords rather than residents or tenants.
The whole thing is going to blow apart. Our 'aspirations' are slowly killing us - they're destroying the social fabric.
What we need is a coordinated approach between our nations. Undercutting each other on corporate taxes, writing tax avoidance
into law, and continuing to allow multinationals to influence our politicians and play our governments against each other is exactly
the game we must end.
Deborah Orr:Instead, it places the financially powerful beyond any state, in an international elite that makes
its own rules, and holds governments to ransom. That's what the financial crisis was all about. The ransom was paid, and as
a result, governments have been obliged to limit their activities yet further....
I never thought I would live long enough to see this level of honesty ATL. It should have been published long ago, but at least
the discussion now begins.
"Ransom". There is no better word to describe it. This (the ransom mentality) is exactly the reactionary, vindictive, doctrinaire
psychology that must be extracted like a cancer from our institutional lives and the human species. A monolithic task. But identifying
the cause is the first step to cure.
"... Neoliberalism? This is not just a financial agenda. This a highly organized multi armed counterculture operation to force us, including Ms Orr [unless she has...connections] into what Terence McKenna [who was in on it] termed the `Archaic Revival'. That is - you and me [and Ms Orr] - our - return to the medieval dark ages, if we indeed survive that far. ..."
"... The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. ..."
"... the UK government did intervene in the economy when it bailed out the banks to the tune of many billions of pounds underwritten by the taxpayer. The markets should always be regulated sufficiently (light touch is absolutely useless) to prevent the problems currently being experienced from ever happening again. ..."
"... Traditional liberalism had died decades before WWII and was replaced by finance capitalism. What happened after WW II was that capitalism had to make various concessions to avoid a socialist revolution: social and political freedoms indeed darted ahead. ..."
"... No chance mate, at least not all the time greasy spiv and shyster outfits like hedge funds are funding Puffin face and the Vermin Party. They are never going to bite the hand that feeds them ..."
"... And in case we get uppity and endeavour to challenge the economic paradigm and the rule of these neoliberal elites, there's the surveillance state panopticon to track our movements and keep us in check. ..."
"... There is not a shred of logical sense in neoliberalism. You're doing what the fundamentalists do... they talk about what neoliberalism is in theory whilst completely ignoring what it is in practice. In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but the consequences where deemed too high (as they inevitable are). The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality of neoliberalism. ..."
"... She, knowingly, let neo-liberal economic philosophy come trumpeting through the door of No10 and it's been there ever since; it has guided our politicians for the past 30 odd years. Hence, it is Thatcher's fault. She did this and another bad thing: the woman who glorified household economics pissed away billions of pounds of North Sea Oil. ..."
"... Bailouts have been a constant feature of neoliberalism. In fact the role of the state is simply reduced to a merely commissioning agent to private parasitical corporations. History has shown the state playing this role since neoliberalism became embedded in policy since the 1970s - Long Term Capital Management, Savings and Loans, The Brady Plan, numerous PFI bailouts and those of the Western banking system during the 1982 South American, 1997 Asian and 2010 European debt crises. ..."
@EllisWyatt - Here's the funny thing about those who cheer the broken neoliberal model. They
promise we will get to those "sunny uplands" with exactly the same fervor as old Marxists.
Neoliberalism has spawned a financial elite who hold governments to ransom
Neoliberalism? This is not just a financial agenda. This a highly organized multi armed counterculture operation to
force us, including Ms Orr [unless she has...connections] into what Terence McKenna [who was in on it] termed the `Archaic
Revival'. That is - you and me [and Ms Orr] - our - return to the medieval dark ages, if we indeed survive that far.
The same names come up time and time again. One of them being, father of propaganda, Edward Bernays.
Bernays wrote what can be seen as a virtual Mission Statement for anyone wishing to bring about a "counterculture." In the
opening paragraph of his book Propaganda he wrote:
"..The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important
element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government
which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas
suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.
This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organised. Vast numbers of human beings must
cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our daily
lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by
the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses.
It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind..."[28]
Bernays' family background made him well suited to "control the public mind." He was the double nephew of psychoanalysis
pioneer Sigmund Freud. His mother was Freud's sister Anna, and his father was Ely Bernays, brother of Freud's wife Martha
Bernays.
@OneCommentator - the UK government did intervene in the economy when it bailed out the banks
to the tune of many billions of pounds underwritten by the taxpayer. The markets should
always be regulated sufficiently (light touch is absolutely useless) to prevent the problems
currently being experienced from ever happening again.
Those at the bottom of society and
those in the public sector are the ones paying the price for this intervention in the UK. If
you truly believe in the 'free' market then all of these failing organisations (banks, etc)
should have been allowed to fail. The problem is that the wealth created under the current
system is virtually all going to those at the top of the income scale and this needs to
change and is one of the main reasons that neo liberalism should be binned!
Traditional liberalism had died decades before WWII and was replaced by finance
capitalism. What happened after WW II was that capitalism had to make various concessions to
avoid a socialist revolution: social and political freedoms indeed darted ahead.
@brighton2 - No chance mate, at least not all the time greasy spiv and shyster outfits like hedge funds are funding Puffin
face and the Vermin Party. They are never going to bite the hand that feeds them.
And in case we get uppity and endeavour to challenge the economic paradigm and the rule of
these neoliberal elites, there's the surveillance state panopticon to track our movements and
keep us in check.
I know what you are saying it's just sooner or later as those at the bottom continue to be
squeezed the wealthy will sow their own seeds of destruction. I think we are witnessing the
end game which is reflected in the desperation of the coalition to flog everything regardless
of the efficacy of such behavior, they feel time is running out and they would be right.
Call it what you will - "neoliberalism", "neoconservatism", "socialism" or whatever it is...
This debate is not even really solely about money: this is about liberty , about
free choice, about being permitted to engage in voluntary exchange of goods and services with
others, unmolested. About the users of services becoming the ones paying for those
services.
Ultimately the real effect will be to remove power from governments and hand it back to
where it belongs - the free market.
voluntary transactions among free agents. That's called a free market and it is by far
the most efficient way to produce wealth humanity has ever known.
Could you explain how someone bound by a contract of employment, with the alternative,
destitution, is a 'free agent'?
@SpinningHugo - Nothing comes out of nothing and i well remember black Monday in the City.
That was the start of the spivs running the economy as if it were a casino. If you think its only on CiF that Thatcher gets the blame, think on this, Scotland, a
whole nation blames her too.
Unless you are completely confused by what neoliberalism is there is not a shred of
logical sense in this.
There is not a shred of logical sense in neoliberalism. You're doing what the
fundamentalists do... they talk about what neoliberalism is in theory whilst completely
ignoring what it is in practice. In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but
the consequences where deemed too high (as they inevitable are). The result is socialism for
the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality of neoliberalism.
Savers in a neoliberal society are lambs to the slaughter. Thatcher "revitalised" banking, while everything else withered and died.
Neoliberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom, communism is definitely not.
Neoliberalist policies have lifted millions of people out of poverty in Asia and South
America.
Neoliberalism is based on the thought that you get as much freedom as you can
pay for, otherwise you can just pay... like everyone else. In Asia and South America it has
been the economic preference of dictators that pushes profit upwards and responsibility down,
just like it does here.
I find it ironic that it now has 5 year plans that absolutely must not be deviated from,
massive state intervention in markets (QE, housing policy, tax credits... insert where
applicable), and advocates large scale central planning even as it denies reality, and makes
the announcement from a tractor factory.
Neoliberalism is a blight... a cancer on humanity... a massive lie told by rich people and
believed only by peasants happy to be thrown a turnip. In theory it's one thing, the reality
is entirely different. Until we're rid of it, we're all it's slaves. It's an abhorrent cult
that comes up with purest bilge like expansionary fiscal contraction to keep all the money in
the hands of the rich.
@MickGJ - You are wrong about the first 2 of course.
Banksters get others to do their shit.
But unfortunately the poor sods who went down on D Day were in their way fighting for Wall
Street as much as anything else. It's just that they weren't told about it by the Allies massive propaganda machine. So partly right
The response should be a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created
and distributed around the globe
Which would be what? State planning? Communism? Totally free market capitalism? Oh wait, we already have the best of a bad bunch, a mixed capitalist economy with
democracy. That really is the crux of it, our system isn't perfect, never will be, but nobody has come
up with a better solution.
Barclays bank "only" paid out £660m in dividends to the bearers of risk capital,
while its bonus pot for a very select number of its staff was £1.5bn.
Fascinating! Now, one could infer that Barclays represent "beneficial capitalism",
rewarding its hard-working employees, but maybe we won't.
This is not the traditional capitalist style
The Traditional capitalist is not an extinct species but under threat. For the time
being the population is stagnant in some countries and even increasing in some others.
However, due to the foraging capacity of Neoliberal creature , competing in the same
economical niche, the size and life expectation of it are diminishing.
She, knowingly, let neo-liberal economic philosophy come trumpeting through the door of
No10 and it's been there ever since; it has guided our politicians for the past 30 odd years.
Hence, it is Thatcher's fault. She did this and another bad thing: the woman who
glorified household economics pissed away billions of pounds of North Sea Oil.
@MickGJ - No, you're right. Why let yesterdays experience feed into what you expect of the
future? Lets go forwards goldfish like, every minute a brand new one, with no baggage!
And by the way, who saved the hide of the very much private sector banks and financial
institutions? The hated STATE, us tax payers!
I think I agree with everything that you say here? The people at the top these days aren't
really of much use for anything, including capitalism. The only thing that they do excel at
is lining their own pockets and securing their privileged position in society.
They have become quite up front about it. There was a bit of a fuss last year when
Barclays bank "only" paid out £660m in dividends to the bearers of risk capital, while
its bonus pot for a very select number of its staff was £1.5bn. Barclays released a
statement before their AGM explaining:
"Barclays is fully committed to ensuring that a greater proportion of income and profits
flow to shareholders notwithstanding that it operates within the constraints of a
competitive market."
This is not the traditional capitalist style competition that they are talking about where
companies competed as to who can return the biggest profit for their shareholders this now
comes secondary to the real competition which is for which company can return the biggest
bonuses for a small group of employees.
Bailouts have been a constant feature of neoliberalism. In fact the role of the state is
simply reduced to a merely commissioning agent to private parasitical corporations. History
has shown the state playing this role since neoliberalism became embedded in policy since the
1970s - Long Term Capital Management, Savings and Loans, The Brady Plan, numerous PFI
bailouts and those of the Western banking system during the 1982 South American, 1997 Asian
and 2010 European debt crises.
No wonder you're so ignorant of the basics of economic policy if you won't flick through a
book - fear of accepting that you're simply wrong is a sure sign of either pig ignorance or
denial, and is as I said embarrassing so its not really much point in wasting anymore time
engaging with you.
The neoliberal idea is that the cultivation itself should be conducted privately as
well. They see "austerity" as a way of forcing that agenda.
..."neoliberal", concept behind the word, has nothing to do with liberal or liberty or
freedom...it is a PR spin concept that names slavery with a a word that sounds like the
opposite...if "they" called it neoslavery it just wouldn't sell in the market for political
concepts.
..."austerity" is the financial sectors' solution to its survival after it sucked most the
value out of the economy and broke it. To mend it was a case of preservation of the elite and
the devil take the hindmost, that's most of us.
...and even Labour, the party of trade unionism, has adopted austerity to drive its
policy.
...we need a Peoples' Party to stand for the revaluation of labour so we get paid for our
effort rather than the distortion, the rich xxx poor divide, of neoslavery austerity.
Of course it has. And it will continue to "fail", while provide us with all
sorts of goodies, for the foreseeable future. Capitalism's endless "failure" is of no more
concern than human mortality. Ever tried, ever failed, try again, fail better.
"... Now we see moneyed entities with vested interests, carpet bagging and flogging off the NHS and an unelected fossil fuel mandarin, at the heart of government decision making, appointing corporate yea-sayers, to the key government departments, with environmental responsibilities. Corporations capturing the state apparatus for their own ends, is 'corporatism.' ..."
"... "Neoliberalism in practice is every bit as bad as Communism in practice, with none of the benefits." ..."
"... The bailout is simply actual neoliberalism as opposed to the theory inside tiny right wing minds. The system depends on the wealthy not being allowed to suffer the consequences of their own greed, or it would represent revolution and still not work. ..."
"... Neoliberalism in practice is every bit as bad as Communism in practice, with none of the benefits. It always amusing to see neoliberal morons shout about the red menace when they're two sides of the same coin. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is nothing if not the opposite extreme of the communist planned economy. Like the communist planned economy, neoliberalism is doomed to failure. I think we've all been sold a lie. ..."
@NotAgainAgain - this is very true, it reminds me of an engineering company I worked for in
Nottingham (since gone under). The production manger was a corrupt thief. He gradually
sub-contracted the production work out to other companies in the area, taking backhanders for
his troubles.
Once all the production was farmed out, he somehow got himself promoted to
director level, where he and a sycophant subbed all the design work out. So all the
production and design was done out of house, standards dropped and the company closed,
leaving him with a nice payoff, just prior to retirement.
Some would say he played a blinder, my interpretation is he ruined a perfectly viable
company, making a very good product, and over the course of about 5 years put over 30 people
out of work.
In a just world he would be spending his retirement in prison.
Income distribution and a happy workforce is actually very good for business as well as
society!
Of course it is, but the capitalists do not know it. In many countries, including Finland,
the "condition of the working classes", ie. working conditions, have been in rapid decline
for the last 20 years.
Permanent salaried jobs have been replaced with temps from agencies, unpaid overtime is
becoming the norm, burnouts are commonplace and so on.
If in your country things are different, no mass lay-outs and outsourcing to China, count
yourself lucky!
But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they avoid their
taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments
Noam Chomsky pointed this out aeons ago though-that the American model is to use tax money
to benefit private interests through technological infrastructure.
It was ever thus, if in slightly different forms. Still it is surprising that they have gone
so quickly from their stated position at the start of the republic of a rejection of kings
and emperors to their position now of corruption so ingrained it is impossible to make
distinctions. Proxy emperors are emperors all the same, no matter the rhetoric that promotes
them.
One senses that there is very little 'going back' possible. Besides, the great Neoliberal
scam is predicated upon the qualities of the 'governments' we have and the capacity of those
'rhetoricians' with the capacity to say anything or play any role, to lick any arse, to get
elected. Such apparent strength is weakness. In this world that now exists here, we have now
entered the same world as the USSR in the eighties, where the announcement of bumper harvests
of wheat, made everyone with a brain cell groan and think
'Oh fuck! no bread this winter-quick, run to the shops now, and buy up all the flour
there'.
But there is now no way to declare that without being seen as beyond the pale-a bug eyed
conspiracist.
Still, I am a believer in the connectedness of this world. The economic system and its
mythologies are just weird and distorted canaries in the coalmine of the wider environment.
It is indicating that there is a misalignment between the way we think and what is possible
in this world. Austerity promoters and 'Keynsian' Ballsites are one and the same thing-both
pretenders that the key to the problems is within their narrow gifts
Hubris is followed by nemesis. In a wider sense what we seen now is a complete failure of
the capacity to educate and to learn,and moderate behaviour, and find some way of caring for
our 'others', beyond the core of 'self'. nationalism is essentially an extension of 'self'.
We now shall see the failure of a retraction of thought into nationalism and
scapegoating.
I predict that the population of the world will decline over the next century-quite
markedly.
The only solace is that at the end of the process, the pain will be forgotten. It always
is.
@MickGJ - Cameron said 'We will cut the deficit, not the NHS,' and promised to be the
'greenest government ever,' saying that you could 'go green,' if you voted 'blue.'
Now we see
moneyed entities with vested interests, carpet bagging and flogging off the NHS and an
unelected fossil fuel mandarin, at the heart of government decision making, appointing
corporate yea-sayers, to the key government departments, with environmental responsibilities.
Corporations capturing the state apparatus for their own ends, is 'corporatism.'
Much of the healthy economic growth – as opposed to the smoke and mirrors of many
aspects of financial services – that Britain enjoyed during the second half of the
20th century was due to women swelling the educated workforce.
There was very little 'healthy economic growth' in Britain in the second half of the 20th
century.
Britain was bankrupt after WW2 with its people dependent on Marshall Aid and food
contributions from its former 'colonies'.
Whatever 'growth' occured after Marshall Aid arrived was scuppered by a class system where
company managers were more concerned with walking on the workers than with keeping their
businesses afloat while such discrimination provoked hard left trade union policies which
left british industry uncompetitive and ultimately non-existent.
If that wasn't enough, Thatcherism arrived to re-inforce class discrimination, sell off
national services and assets and replace social policy with neo-liberal consumerism.
Whether the workforce was swollen by women or anyone else is immaterial.
The anti-democratic incestuous class conflict latent in British society continues to ensure
that the UK will remain a mere vassal state of foot-soldiers and consumers for international
neo-liberal capitalism.
@DasInternaut - Completely agree. The performance has been poor to absymal. But this is a
failure of democratic governance because the collective interests of citizens as consumers
and service users are not being represented and enforced by the elected politicians since
they have been suborned by the capitalists elites and their fellow-travellers.
The people, indeed, have been sold a lie, but, unfortunately, it is only UKIP which is
making the political waves by revealing selected aspects of this lie. The three established
parties have been 'bought' to varying extents. But more and more citizens are beginning to
realise the extent to which they have been bought.
There is an upside to all of this, maybe I wont get modded so much from now on for being so
angry at the ideological criminals . Hopefully the middle classes will cotton on to the fact
that all this is not a mad hatters tinfoil hobby, we need more of them to be grumpy.
@MickGJ - We've already seen it. Not great so far. GS4, Winterbourne view, southern cross,
trains...............Welfare to work companies, delivering no better results than people left
to their own devices. Energy companies.
We'll see if the new wave of free schools, academy schools, and all the service outsourced by
the council perform any better.
Doubtful, as to make a profit, they have to employ poorer paid people, less well qualified,
and once they've got a contract, they've got very little competition, as when the second
round of bidding comes around, as the firms having got the first contract are the only one
with relevant experience, they are assured of renewal, the money machine will keep going!
Neoliberalism are policies that are
influenced by neo classical economics. If you are suggesting that the neoliberal school of
thought would advocate any kind of a bailout then you are mistaken. Where else have I
"apparently" embarrassed myself?
@TedSmithAndSon - This is just an inaccurate rant not a reply.
"The system depends on the wealthy not being allowed to suffer the consequences.."
Unless you are completely confused by what neolibralism is there is not a shred of logical
sense in this.
"The debt industry are the lenders who take advantage of a financial system..."
Which is what savers are. They come in the form of individuals businesses and governments.
This encompasses everyone.
"whilst paying the lowest possible rate. Wonga, for instance."
If you are a lender you do not pay anything, you receive.
"Thatchers revolution was to take our citizenship and give it a value, whilst making
everyone else a consumer, all for a handful of magic beans in the shape of British Gas
shares."
...not forgetting that she revitalised the economy and got everyone back to work
again.
"Neoliberalism in practice is every bit as bad as Communism in practice, with none of the
benefits."
Neoliberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom, communism is definitely not.
Neoliberalist policies have lifted millions of people out of poverty in Asia and South
America. Communism has no benefits for society open your eyes!
@ATrueFinn - After they are finished, what do Singaporeans eat?
Next year's harvest (possibly of GM food which makes better use of scarce
resources). I imagine the sun will eventually stop bombarding us with the energy that powers
photosynthesis but I'm not losing any sleep over it.
@MurchuantEacnamai - I think the point is this, Amazon make money by selling books, they
avoid paying taxes, yet expect an educated, literate population to be provided for them, on
the grounds that illiterate people don't buy books, and expect roads to move the books around
on.
@theguardianisrubbish - No! The bailout is simply actual neoliberalism as opposed to
the theory inside tiny right wing minds. The system depends on the wealthy not being
allowed to suffer the consequences of their own greed, or it would represent revolution and
still not work.
The debt industry are the lenders who take advantage of a financial system designed to
push profits upwards (neoliberalism in practice), whilst paying the lowest possible rate.
Wonga, for instance.
Thatchers revolution was to take our citizenship and give it a value, whilst making
everyone else a consumer, all for a handful of magic beans in the shape of British Gas
shares.
Neoliberalism in practice is every bit as bad as Communism in practice, with none of the
benefits. It always amusing to see neoliberal morons shout about the red menace when they're
two sides of the same coin.
.and provides them at a massively inflated cost accompanied by unforgivable waste and
inefficiency, appalling service and life-threatening incompetence.
as opposed to the private sector, who always does what it says it will do, at reasonable
cost, for the benefit of their customers, and with due regards to ethics?
Like the Banks, the financial sector, who will never sell you a product that isn't the best
for you, regardless of their interest? the private companies like Southern Cross, GS4?
The private insurance who refuse to take you on the minute you've got some illness or
disability? Get off it! The state isn't perfect, the services it provides are not perfect,
but replacing them with private provision isn't the answer!
@MurchuantEacnamai - How would you rate how well British government has done in ensuring
markets are genuinely competitive. How well has British government done in ensuring our
energy market is competitive, for example. Does the competitiveness we observe in the energy
market give customers better or worse value than they had before deregulation? How do you
rate the British government's performance in rail and public transport, with respect to
competitiveness?
Personally, and notwithstanding the notable exception of telecoms, I rate the British (and
US) government's performance in deregulating state entities, creating new markets and
ensuring competition, as poor.
Neoliberalism is nothing if not the opposite extreme of the communist planned economy.
Like the communist planned economy, neoliberalism is doomed to failure. I think we've all
been sold a lie.
"... Neoliberalism has spawned a financial elite who hold governments to ransom ..."
"... Neoliberal ideology acted as a smokescreen that enabled the financially powerful to rewrite the rules and place themselves beyond the law. ..."
"... So it seems that your suggestion is for a return to western capitalism post-war style - would that be right? (b.t.w. if I bring up the whole Soviet Union thing, it is partly because quite a few commentators in this debate come across as if they wish for something much more leftist than that). ..."
"... What you have missed, is that the lions share of the proceeds of that growth are not going to ordinary people but to a tiny minority of super rich. It is not working for the majority. ..."
"... The taxpayers are left to pick up the tab, nations are divided against immigrants and scroungers and then unfettered evangelists like you can spout as pompously as you like about how much big business would like to remove the state from corporate affairs. ..."
"... Without the state there wouldn't be neo-Liberalism, it took state regulated capitalism to build what unfettered purists insist on tearing apart for short term greed. ..."
"... The trouble is Neo-Liberals do not want to remove the state at all, they want to BE the state and in the process rendering democracy pretty much meaningless. And they've succeeded. ..."
"... The biggest swindle ever pulled was turning the most glaring and crushing failure of unfettered corporatism into the biggest and most crushing power grab implemented in order to suppress the will of the people ..."
"... Nobody hates a market more than a monopoly and capitalism must inevitably end in monopoly as it has. For the profiteering monopolies investment especially via taxation is insane as it can only undermine their monopoly. ..."
"... The bankers have always known that the austerity caused by having to pay off un-payable loans, that increase every year, will eventually produce countries very similar to the "Weimar Days" in pre-Hitler Germany. ..."
"... They also know that drastic conditions such as these often lead to a collapse of democracy and a resurgence of Fascism. ..."
"... Neoliberalism could not exist without massive state support. So the term is meaningless. There is nothing "liberal" about having a huge state funded military industrial complex that acts a Trojan horse for global corporations, invading other countries for resources. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is a branch of economic ideology which espouses the value of the free-market, and removing all protective legislation, so that large companies are free to do what they want, where-ever they want, with no impediments from social or environmental considerations, or a nation's democratic preferences. ..."
"... Business-friendly to who exactly: the nation or hostile overseas speculators? ..."
"... The golden age of 1945 - 1975 or so witnessed huge rises in standards of living so your point linking neo-liberalism to rising standards of living is literally meaningless. There was an explosive growth in economic activity during the three or four post war decades ..."
"... The assumption shared by many round here that the young are some untapped resource of revolutionary energy is deeply mistaken ..."
A wonderful article that names the central issue. Neoliberal ideology acted as a smokescreen
that enabled the financially powerful to rewrite the rules and place themselves beyond the
law. The resultant rise of financial capitalism, which now eclipses the productive
manufacturing-based capitalism that was the engine of world growth since the industrial
revolution, has propelled a dangerous self-serving elite to the centre of world power. It's
not just inequality that matters, but the character of the global elite.
The neo-liberal order commenced only in the late 1970s - there was a very different
order prior to this which was not "soviet socialism" as you term it.
So it seems that your suggestion is for a return to western capitalism post-war style -
would that be right? (b.t.w. if I bring up the whole Soviet Union thing, it is partly because
quite a few commentators in this debate come across as if they wish for something much more
leftist than that).
Anyway, my worry with this idea is that I am just not convinced that life in "The West
1945-80" was better on the whole than in "The West 1980-present". It's true that
unemployment is higher these days, but a lot of work in the post-war years was boring and
physically exhausting; in factories and mines where conditions were degrading and bad for
health; and where industrial relations were simply terrible. I think as well that the higher
unemployment is a localized phenomenon that many developing countries are not experiencing
(this is relevant because Deborah Orr proposes change for the whole world, not merely the
West).
There were also frequent recessions and booms - in fact, more frequent (albeit shorter)
than now. What seems to have changed in this respect is that, whereas we used to alternate
regularly between 2-3 years of boom and 1-2 years of bust, we now have 15 years of continuous
boom followed by a (maybe?) 10 year bust (this pattern began around 1980). If you asked me
which of these two patterns I preferred, then I think I'd go for the pre-1980 pattern, but
its not clear to me that the post-1980 pattern is so much worse as to underwrite a savage
indictment of the whole system.
As for Casino banking: they should reform that. Britain's Coalition Government has done
something in that respect, although its not very radical - I am hoping Labour can do more.
There is certainly a lot to be said for banks going back to a pre-"Big Bang" sense of
tradition and prudence.
Buts let's not also forget the plus sides in the ledger for post-1980 capitalism: hundreds
of millions in the former third world lifted out of poverty; unprecedented technological
innovation (e.g. the internet, which makes access to knowledge more equal even as income
inequality grows); and the accomodation (at least in the West) of progressive social change,
such as the empowerment of ethnic minorities, LGBT people and women.
Change, yes - but lets be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
OK, but both the claim and the link cited in support talk only about a problem in the US.
This can't really answer my point, which was that the rest of the world should not be
expected to support a change to the economic system of the whole world just because of
problems that are mostly localised to North America and Europe. People in developing
countries might like the fact that they are, at last, catching "the West" up, and might well
not care much about widening inequality of incomes in Western societies.
If you are going to propose changes that you want the whole world to adopt, as Deborah Orr
does, then you should be careful to avoid casually assuming that Africa, India, China, et al,
feel the same way about the world's recent history as we do. It seems to me that not enough
care has been demonstrated in this regard.
@MickGJ - Left to their own devices the most extreme neo-liberals would remove the state
almost completely from corporate life.
Except when the State has to step in to prop up an unsustainable ideology. Then it's all
meek murmurings and pleas for forgiveness and a timid "we'll be better from now" concessions
and the Government obliges the public with the farce that they actually intend to do anything
at all but make the public pay for the financial sector's state subsidized profligacy.
Once the begging bowl is re-filled of course then the pretense of "business as usual"
profligacy rises to the fore.
The taxpayers are left to pick up the tab, nations are divided against immigrants and
scroungers and then unfettered evangelists like you can spout as pompously as you like about
how much big business would like to remove the state from corporate affairs.
When you well know that is the last thing big business would like to do. More of the state
owned pie is always the most urgent of priorities. Poorer services at inflated costs equates
as 'efficiency' until the taxpayer is again left to step in and pick up the bill.
Without the state there wouldn't be neo-Liberalism, it took state regulated capitalism to
build what unfettered purists insist on tearing apart for short term greed.
The trouble is Neo-Liberals do not want to remove the state at all, they want to BE the
state and in the process rendering democracy pretty much meaningless. And they've
succeeded.
The biggest swindle ever pulled was turning the most glaring and crushing failure of
unfettered corporatism into the biggest and most crushing power grab implemented in order to
suppress the will of the people.
Just as IMF loans come with 'obligations' the principle of democracy itself was sold as
part of 'the solution'.
The unsustainable, sustained. By slavery to debt, removal of society's safety net and an
economy barely maintained by industries that serve the rich, vultures that prey on the weak
and rising living costs and the drudgery of a life compounded by a relentless bombardment of
everything in life that is unattainable.
Nobody hates a market more than a monopoly and capitalism must inevitably end in monopoly as
it has. For the profiteering monopolies investment especially via taxation is insane as it
can only undermine their monopoly. With the economy now globalised not even a world war could
sweep away the current ossified political economy and give capitalism a new lease on life.
It's socialism or monopoly capitalist barbarism. Make your choice.
Money that the governments don't actually need as they can print their own money and spend it
to use their countries own resources and then raise taxes to offset the extra spending and
thus maintaining monetary value. The reality is that a government should never, ever borrow
money.
The beginning period between the two world wars (1919-33) in Germany called the Weimar
Republic shows us exactly what severe austerity imposed by the Treaty of Versailles caused.
Because the German economy contracted severely due to reparations payments, steady inflation
and severe unemployment ensued. Of course the FED having started the Great Depression in
America had not helped matters much anywhere in the world. The bankers have always known that
the austerity caused by having to pay off un-payable loans, that increase every year, will
eventually produce countries very similar to the "Weimar Days" in pre-Hitler Germany.
They
also know that drastic conditions such as these often lead to a collapse of democracy and a
resurgence of Fascism.
What causes inflation is uncontrolled speculation of the kind we have seen fed by private
banking at various crucial points in history, such as the Weimar Republic. When speculation
is coupled with debt (owed to private banking cartels) such as we are seeing in America and
Europe now, the result is disaster. On the other hand, when a government issues its own "good
faith" commerce-related currency in carefully measured ways as we saw in Roman times or
Colonial America, it causes supply and demand to increase together, leaving prices
unaffected. Hence there is no inflation, no debt, no unemployment, and no need for income
taxes.
In reality, the Weimar financial crisis began with the impossible reparations payments
imposed at the Treaty of Versailles. It is very similar to the austerity being imposed on
European Nations and America as we speak – regardless of the fact that the IMF is
trying to pose as "the Good Cop" at the moment! The damage has been done to nations like
Greece, and others are soon to follow. The uncontrollable greed of banks and corporations is
leading to an implosion of severe magnitude! It's time to open their books and put a stop to
these private banks right now!
@MysticFish - So the US who has a greater spend on the military than communist China is
neoliberal?
Neoliberalism could not exist without massive state support. So the term is
meaningless. There is nothing "liberal" about having a huge state funded military industrial complex
that acts a Trojan horse for global corporations, invading other countries for resources.
The term neoliberal is not only meaningless but misleading as it implies a connection with
true liberalism, of which it has no meaningful connection.
Do away with deceptive terms like neoliberalism, capitalism, socialism, left wing and right
wing and things become clearer.
At root a lot of the people who get involved in all of the above have very similar
character traits - love of power, greed, deceitful, ruthlessness. Most start out with these
character traits, and others gain them as a result of power.
Anyone high up in politics or business is unhinged. You have to be. The organizational
structures in these things are so synthetic, the beliefs so artificial, rigid, dogmatic and
inhuman that only a unhinged person could prosper in this climate.
Most reasonable people admit doubt, are willing to accept compromise, are willing to make
the occasional sacrifice for the greater good. All these things are what make us human,
however all these things are seen as weaknesses in the inverted world of business and
politics.
Business and politics creates an environment where the must inhuman traits prosper.
"no but the highly placed banking and financial class are along with their venal
political mates"
For sure but are they capitalists? Although they may well own capital does their power
derive from the ownership of capital? You may, or may not be interested in this
lecture on the future of capitalism by John Kay.
@AssistantCook - Neoliberalism is a branch of economic ideology which espouses the value of
the free-market, and removing all protective legislation, so that large companies are free to
do what they want, where-ever they want, with no impediments from social or environmental
considerations, or a nation's democratic preferences. Von Hayek was a major influence and
Thatcher was a loyal disciple, as was the notorious dictator, Pinochet. It is economic
theory, designed for vulture capitalists, and unpopular industries like fossil fuel or
tobacco, and usually the 'freedom' is all one-sided.
@DavidPavett - If states are too big, then what about multinational banks and corporations? I
wonder why Neoliberal ideology does not try to limit the size of these. They are cumbersome
and destructive, predatory dinosaurs and yet our politicians seem mesmerised to the point of
allowing them special favours, tax incentives and the ability to determine our nation's
policies in matters such as energy and health. Why not 'Small is Beautiful,' when it comes to
companies? It doesn't make sense to shrink the state but then let non-transparent and
unaccountable, multinational companies become too powerful. One gets the feeling the country
is being invaded by the interests of hostile nations, using all-too-convenient Neoliberal
ideology and hidden behind a corporate mask.
Is the IMF ever stop evading its responsibility and blaming others for the worldwide
financial tragedy it has provoked? Is it ever stop hurting the working class?
"Neo-liberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom for the rich and powerful
elites is all."
No it is not that is what you want to believe. There is nothing in this statement other
than an opinion based on nothing.
"Many people across the globe were lifted out of poverty between 1945-1980 so what does
your statement about neo-liberalism prove"
Which countries during this period saw massive sustainable reductions in poverty without
some free market model in place?
"It is you who should open your eyes and stop expecting people on here to accept your
ideological beliefs and statements as facts."
I don't expect people to accept my beliefs I am just pointing out why I think their
beliefs are wrong. This is a comment section the whole idea of it is to comment on different
views and articles. How can you ever benefit or make an accurate decision or belief if you do
not try to understand what the opposite belief is? I think nearly everything I have said has
been somewhat backed up by logic or a fact, I have not said wishy washy statements like:
"Neo-liberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom for the rich and powerful
elites is all."
Unless you can expand on this and give evidence or some form of an example why you think
its true then it makes no sense. You are not the only commentor on this article to make a
similar statement and the way people have attempted to justify it is due to bailouts but as I
have said a bailout is not part of the neoliberal school of thought so if you have a problem
with bailouts you don't have a problem with neoliberalism.
@murielbelcher - I don't want to go to far into Thatcherism because it is slightly off topic.
The early 80s recession was a global recession and yes during the first few years
unemployment soared. Why was that because the trade unions were running amok the UK was
losing millions of days of work per month.
Inflation was getting out of control and the only
way to solve it was a self induced recession. You cannot seriously believe that without the
reforms that she implemented we would not have recovered as quick as we did nor can you argue
that it was possible for her or anyone else to turn around such an inefficient industry.
Don't forget the problems of the manufacturing industry go back way before Thatcher's time.
"Here's your problem. You believe that banks lend savings. They don't. Loans create
deposits create reserves."
I am not claiming to be an expert on this if you are then let me know and please do
correct me. I agree banks do not lend deposits but they do lend savings. There is a
difference putting money on deposit is different to say putting money into an ISA. I don't
agree though that deposits create reserves I believe that they come from the central bank
otherwise banks would be constrained by the amount of deposits in the system which is not
true and something you have said is not true.
Nevertheless, the majority of liquidity in the bond markets (like most other markets)
comes from institutional investors, i.e pension funds, unit trusts, insurance companies, etc.
They get their money from savings by consumers as well as sometimes companies. Ok we don't
always give our money to insurance companies when we save but via premiums is another way the
ordinary consumer contributes to this so called "debt industry". I also said that foreign and
local governments buy debt and companies invest directly into the debt market.
"In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but the consequences where deemed
too high (as they inevitable are). "
Iceland would disagree.
"The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality
of neoliberalism."
Why have only the rich benefited from the bailout? You are not making any sense.
"The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality
of neoliberalism."
Why? You cannot just say a statement like that and not expand, it makes no sense.
"Thatcher "revitalised" banking, while everything else withered and died."
...but also revitalised the economy and got everyone back to work.
"Neoliberalism is based on the thought that you get as much freedom as you can pay for,
otherwise you can just pay... like everyone else."
Again you have to expand on this because it makes no sense.
"In Asia and South America it has been the economic preference of dictators that pushes
profit upwards and responsibility down, just like it does here."
Don't think that is true in most cases nor would it make sense. Why would a dictator who
wants as much power as possible operate a laissez-faire economy? You cannot have personal
freedom without having economic freedom, it is a necessary not sufficient condition. Tell me
a case where these is a large degree of political freedom but little to no economic freedom.
Moreover look at the countries in Asia and South America that have adopted a neoliberal
agenda and notice their how poverty as reduced significantly.
"I find it ironic that it now has 5 year plans that absolutely must not be deviated from,
massive state intervention in markets (QE, housing policy, tax credits... insert where
applicable), and advocates large scale central planning even as it denies reality, and makes
the announcement from a tractor factory."
Who has 5 year plans?
"In theory it's one thing, the reality is entirely different."
If the reality is different to the theory then it is not neoliberalism that is being
implemented therefore it makes no sense to dispute the theory. Look at where it has been
implemented, the best case in the world at the moment is Hong Kong look at how well that
country has performed.
"a massive lie told by rich people "
I can assure you I am not rich.
"Until we're rid of it, we're all it's slaves."
Neoliberalism is based on personal freedom. If you believe this about neoliberalism in your
opinion give me one economic school of thought where this does not apply.
"Bailouts have been a constant feature of neoliberalism."
What you are saying does not make sense. Whatever you say about that there was no where else
to turn the government had to bailout out the banks a neolibralist would disagree.
"In fact the role of the state is simply reduced to a merely commissioning agent to
private parasitical corporations. "
That's corporatism which so far you have described pretty well.
"History has shown the state playing this role since neoliberalism became embedded in
policy since the 1970s - Long Term Capital Management, Savings and Loans, The Brady Plan,
numerous PFI bailouts and those of the Western banking system during the 1982 South American,
1997 Asian and 2010 European debt crises."
What?! Bailouts have been occurring before the industrial revolution. Deregulation in the
UK occurred mainly during the 80s not 70's. Furthermore financial deregulation occurred in
the UK in 1986. In the USA the major piece of financial deregulation was the Gramm Leach
Bliley Act which was passed in 1999. So you have just undercut your own point with the
examples you gave above. You could argue Argentina and we could argue all day about the
causes of that, but I would say that any government that pursues an expansionary monetary
policy under a fixed ER is never going to end well.
"...policy if you won't flick through a book."
My point was that when people quote a source they tend to either quote the page that the
point comes from. To be honest if this book is telling you that neoliberalism and
neoclassical are significantly different (which you seemed to suggest in you earlier post)
then I would suggest put the book down.
"Google, Amazon and Apple... avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more
powerful than governments."
Yes to the first, no to the second. Corporations with revenues exceeding the GDP of a small nation have quite a lot of power:
Exxon's revenue is between the GDP of Norway and Austria. In Finland Nokia generated 3 4 % of the GDP for a decade and the government bent backwards
to accommodate its polite requests, including a specific law reducing the privacy of
employees' emails.
We percieve a problem in (most of) Europe and North America because our economies are
growing more slowly than this, and in some cases not at all. The global growth figure comes
out healthy because of strong growth in the emerging countries, like China, Brazil and
India, who are narrowing the gap between their living standards and ours. So, the world as
a whole isn't broken, even if our bit of it is going through a rough patch.
@Fachan - Except that it isn't capitalism that was being criticized here, but neoliberalism:
a distinction that's often lost on neoliberals themselves, ironically.
I'm sure that Denis Healy and any number of African economists would confirm that the IMF is
quite simply a refuge of absolutely last resort, when investor confidence in your economy is
so shattered that the only way ahead is to open the shark gates and allow big money to
plunder whatever value remains there, without the benefit of any noticeable return for your
people. Greece is but one more victim of a syndrome that encompasses all the science and
forensic analysis of ritual sacrifice.
@OneCommentator - don't confuse economic deregulation which acted as handmaiden to global
finance and multinationals as economic freedoms for population
China's govt was doing what china's govt had decided to do from 1978 BEFORE the election
of Thatcher in 1979 or Reagan in 1980 (office from Jan 1981), so very little correlation
there I think
The GATT rounds whether you agree with their aims or not were the products of the post war
decades, again before Thatcher and Reagan came to power
The golden age of 1945 - 1975 or so witnessed huge rises in standards of living so your
point linking neo-liberalism to rising standards of living is literally meaningless. There
was an explosive growth in economic activity during the three or four post war decades
@theguardianisrubbish - you can't get away with this
She DID not get everyone back to work again. There were two recessions at either end of the 1980s. She TRIPLED unemployment during the first half of the 1980s and introduced the phenomenon
of high structural unemployment and placing people on invalidity benefits to massage the
headline unemployment count. Give us the figures to back up your assertion that she "got
everyone back to work again." I suspect that you cannot and your statement stands for the
utter nonsense that it is in any kind of reality.
A few months after she was forced out Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont in 1991 during yet
another recession declared that "unemployment was a price worth paying"!!!
Neo-liberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom for the rich and powerful
elites is all. Many people across the globe were lifted out of poverty between 1945-1980 so
what does your statement about neo-liberalism prove
It is you who should open your eyes and stop expecting people on here to accept your
ideological beliefs and statements as facts.
"The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at
governments that run up debt. And, of course, its loans famously come with strings attached:
adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye to the Big
State."
That's glib and inaccurate. A better read about the IMF from an insider:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/307364/ Digest: the biggest problem the IMF have to deal with in bailouts is always the politics
of cronyism; free-market oligarchs and government in cahoots.
"Many IMF programs "go off track" (a euphemism) precisely because the government can't
stay tough on erstwhile cronies, and the consequences are massive inflation or other
disasters. A program "goes back on track" once the government prevails or powerful oligarchs
sort out among themselves who will govern -- and thus win or lose -- under the IMF-supported
plan. The real fight in Thailand and Indonesia in 1997 was about which powerful families
would lose their banks. In Thailand, it was handled relatively smoothly. In Indonesia, it led
to the fall of President Suharto and economic chaos."
Generally whoever happens to be in opposition at the time. This made the LibDems
the ideal (sorry) choice for a long time but then they broke a long-standing if unspoken
promise that they would never actually be in government.
Last weekś Economist has some very interesting stuff from the British Social
Attitudes survey which shows the increasing drift away from collectivist ideals towards
liberalism over each succeeding generation.
The assumption shared by many round here that the young are some untapped resource of
revolutionary energy is deeply mistaken
"... The crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response should be a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created and distributed around the globe ..."
"... The IMF also admits that it "underestimated" the effect austerity would have on Greece. Obviously, the rest of the Troika takes no issue with that. Even those who substitute "kick up the arse to all the lazy scroungers" whenever they encounter the word "austerity", have cottoned on to the fact that the word can only be intoned with facial features locked into a suitably tragic mask. ..."
"... Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign that financial institutions may slowly be coming round to the idea that they are the problem. ..."
"... Markets cannot be free. Markets have to be nurtured. They have to be invested in. Markets have to be grown. Google, Amazon and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments. ..."
"... The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists that the provision of work alone is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market. Yet even Adam Smith, the economist who came up with that theory , did not agree that economic activity alone was enough to keep humans decent and civilised. ..."
"... Governments are left with the bill when neoliberals demand access to markets that they refuse to invest in making. Their refusal allows them to rail against the Big State while producing the conditions that make it necessary. ..."
The crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response should be a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is
created and distributed around the globe
Sat 8 Jun 2013 02.59 EDT First published on Sat 8 Jun 2013 02.59 EDT
The IMF's limited admission of guilt over the Greek bailout is a start, but they still can't see the global financial system's
fundamental flaws, writes Deborah Orr. Photograph: Boris Roessler/DPA FILE T he International Monetary Fund has admitted that some
of the decisions it made in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis were wrong, and that the €130bn first bailout of Greece was
"bungled". Well, yes. If it hadn't been a mistake, then it would have been the only bailout and everyone in Greece would have lived
happily ever after.
Actually, the IMF hasn't quite admitted that it messed things up. It has said instead that it went along with its partners in
"the Troika" – the European Commission and the European Central Bank – when it shouldn't have. The EC and the ECB, says the IMF,
put the interests of the eurozone before the interests of Greece. The EC and the ECB, in turn, clutch their pearls and splutter with
horror that they could be accused of something so petty as self-preservation.
The IMF also admits that it "underestimated" the effect austerity would have on Greece. Obviously, the rest of the Troika takes
no issue with that. Even those who substitute "kick up the arse to all the lazy scroungers" whenever they encounter the word "austerity",
have cottoned on to the fact that the word can only be intoned with facial features locked into a suitably tragic mask.
Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign that financial institutions may slowly be
coming round to the idea that they are the problem. They know the crash was a debt-bubble that burst. What they don't seem to acknowledge
is that the merry days of reckless lending are never going to return; even if they do, the same thing will happen again, but more
quickly and more savagely. The thing is this: the crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response from the start should have
been a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment",
as the philosopher
John Gray has said all along.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at governments that run up debt. And, of course,
its loans famously come with strings attached: adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye to the
Big State. Yet, the irony is painful. Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome, too centralised and faceless,
to be efficient and responsive. I agree. The problem is that the ruthless sentimentalists of neoliberalism like to tell themselves
– and anyone else who will listen – that removing the dead hand of state control frees the individual citizen to be entrepreneurial
and productive. Instead, it places the financially powerful beyond any state, in an international elite that makes its own rules,
and holds governments to ransom. That's what the financial crisis was all about. The ransom was paid, and as a result, governments
have been obliged to limit their activities yet further – some setting about the task with greater relish than others. Now the task,
supposedly, is to get the free market up and running again.
But the basic problem is this: it costs a lot of money to cultivate a market – a group of consumers – and the more sophisticated
the market is, the more expensive it is to cultivate them. A developed market needs to be populated with educated, healthy, cultured,
law-abiding and financially secure people – people who expect to be well paid themselves, having been brought up believing in material
aspiration, as consumers need to be.
So why, exactly, given the huge amount of investment needed to create such a market, should access to it then be "free"? The neoliberal
idea is that the cultivation itself should be conducted privately as well. They see "austerity" as a way of forcing that agenda.
But how can the privatisation of societal welfare possibly happen when unemployment is already high, working people are turning to
food banks to survive and the debt industry, far from being sorry that it brought the global economy to its knees, is snapping up
bargains in the form of busted high-street businesses to establish shops with nothing to sell but high-interest debt? Why, you have
to ask yourself, is this vast implausibility, this sheer unsustainability, not blindingly obvious to all?
Markets cannot be free. Markets have to be nurtured. They have to be invested in. Markets have to be grown. Google, Amazon
and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they
avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments.
And further, those who invest in these companies, and insist that taxes should be low to encourage private profit and shareholder
value, then lend governments the money they need to create these populations of sophisticated producers and consumers, berating them
for their profligacy as they do so. It's all utterly, completely, crazy.
The other day a health minister,
Anna Soubry
, suggested that female GPs who worked part-time so that they could bring up families were putting the NHS under strain. The
compartmentalised thinking is quite breathtaking. What on earth does she imagine? That it would be better for the economy if they
all left school at 16? On the contrary, the more people who are earning good money while working part-time – thus having the leisure
to consume – the better. No doubt these female GPs are sustaining both the pharmaceutical industry and the arts and media, both sectors
that Britain does well in.
As for their prioritising of family life over career – that's just another of the myriad ways in which Conservative neoliberalism
is entirely without logic. Its prophets and its disciples will happily – ecstatically – tell you that there's nothing more important
than family, unless you're a family doctor spending some of your time caring for your own. You couldn't make these characters up.
It is certainly true that women with children find it more easy to find part-time employment in the public sector. But that's a prima
facie example of how unresponsive the private sector is to human and societal need, not – as it is so often presented – evidence
that the public sector is congenitally disabled.
Much of the healthy economic growth – as opposed to the smoke and mirrors of many aspects of financial services – that Britain
enjoyed during the second half of the 20th century was due to women swelling the educated workforce. Soubry and her ilk, above all
else, forget that people have multiple roles, as consumers, as producers, as citizens and as family members. All of those things
have to be nurtured and invested in to make a market.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists that the provision of work alone
is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market. Yet even Adam Smith, the economist who
came up with that theory , did not agree
that economic activity alone was enough to keep humans decent and civilised.
Governments are left with the bill when neoliberals demand access to markets that they refuse to invest in making. Their refusal
allows them to rail against the Big State while producing the conditions that make it necessary. And even as the results of their
folly become ever more plain to see, they are grudging in their admittance of the slightest blame, bickering with their allies instead
of waking up, smelling the coffee and realizing that far too much of it is sold through Starbucks.
"... The era of neoliberalism has seen a massive increase in government, not a shrinkage. The biggest change is the role of governments - to protect markets rather than to protect the rights and dignities of its citizens. When viewed by outcome rather than ideological rhetoric, it becomes increasingly clear that neoliberalism has nothing to do with shrinking the state, freeing markets, or freeing the individual, and everything to do with a massive power grab by a global elite. ..."
"... What was the billions of pounds in bank bailout welfare and recession on costs all about? You tell me. All the result of the application of your extremist free market ideology? Let the banks run wild, they mess up and the taxpayer has to step in with bailout welfare and pay to clear up the recession debris ..."
"... Market participants and their venal political friends have during the past 30 years of extremist neo-liberal ideology rigged, abused, distorted and subverted their market and elite power to tilt the economic and social balance massively in their favour ..."
"... Neo liberalism = the favoured ideology of the very rich and powerful elite ..."
"... at last somebody is looking at globalisation and asking whose interests is it designed to serve? It certainly ain't for the people. ..."
"... the highly placed banking and financial class are along with their venal political mates ..."
"... We've had three decades of asset stripping in favor of the rich elites and look at the mess we're in now. ..."
"... I strongly believe that people are not being told the full story. Like the NSA surveillance revelation, the effects will not be pretty when the facts are known. No country needs the IMF. ..."
"... The mythology surrounding deficits and national debt is a religion that the world is in desperate need of debunking. Like religion, the mythology is used as a means of power and entrenchment of privilege for the Ruling Caste, not the plebs (lesser mortals). ..."
This article is a testament to our ignorance. Orr is no intellectual slouch, but somehow,
like many in the mainstream, she still fails to address some fundamental assumptions and thus
ends up with a muddled argument.
"What they don't seem to acknowledge is that the merry days of reckless lending are never
going to return;"
Lending has not stopped - it's just moved out of one market into another. Banks are making
profits, and banks profit are made by expanding credit.
Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome, too centralised and
faceless, to be efficient and responsive.
Yes and no. There is a difference between what is preached and what happens in practice. The
era of neoliberalism has seen a massive increase in government, not a shrinkage. The biggest
change is the role of governments - to protect markets rather than to protect the rights and
dignities of its citizens. When viewed by outcome rather than ideological rhetoric, it
becomes increasingly clear that neoliberalism has nothing to do with shrinking the state,
freeing markets, or freeing the individual, and everything to do with a massive power grab by
a global elite.
@MurchuantEacnamai - well righty ideologues such as yourself and your venal political
acolytes have utterly failed to support the case or institute measures that: "apply effective
democratic governance to ensure market
What was the billions of pounds in bank bailout welfare and recession on costs all about?
You tell me. All the result of the application of your extremist free market ideology? Let
the banks run wild, they mess up and the taxpayer has to step in with bailout welfare and pay
to clear up the recession debris
Market participants and their venal political friends have during the past 30 years of
extremist neo-liberal ideology rigged, abused, distorted and subverted their market and elite
power to tilt the economic and social balance massively in their favour
You the taxpayer are good enough to bail us out when we mess up but then we demand that
your services are cut in return and that your employment is ever more precarious and wages
depressed (at the lower end of the scale - never ever the higher of course!! That's the
neo-liberal deal isn't it
Neo liberalism = the favoured ideology of the very rich and powerful elite and boy don't
they know how to work its levers
Very insightful commentary and at last somebody is looking at globalisation and asking whose
interests is it designed to serve? It certainly ain't for the people. Amazing it's been
approved on a UK liberal newspaper as well!
@Fachan - There was nothing in the article about envy. It was an exposition of the failure of
our present system which allows the rich to get ever richer. That would be fine if it weren't
for the fact that the increasing disparity in wealth is bringing down the economy and making
it less productive while leaving a large part of the population in, or on the verge of,
poverty.
@CaptainGrey - but we're not talking about that form of capitalism are we?
Surely you must realise that there are very very different forms of capitalism. The capitalism that reigns now would not have permitted the creation of the NHS had it not
been devised in the1940s when a very different type of capitalism reigned. Its political acolytes and its cheerleader press would have denounced the NHS as an
extremist commie idea!!
The Chicago boys swarmed into eastern Europe after 1989 to introduce a form of gangster
unbridled capitalism. The very Chicago boys led by Milton Friedman who used the dictator Pinochet's Chile as
test bed for their ideology from September 1973 after the coup that overthrew Allende
The neo-liberal order commenced only in the late 1970s - there was a very different order
prior to this which was not "Soviet Socialism" as you term it.
As such this extremist rich man's ideological experiment has had a long innings and has
failed as the events of 2008 laid bare for all to see - it has been tried out disastrously on
live human beings for 34 years and has now been thoroughly discredited with the huge bank
bailouts and financial crash and ensuing and enduring recession It was scarcely succeeding
prior to this with high entrenched rates of unemployment, frequent recessions/booms and busts
and unsustainable property bubbles and deregulated unstable speculative aka casino banking
activity
1. Neoliberalism cannot be pinned on one party alone. It was accepted by the Thatcher
government, but no Prime Minister since has seriously challenged it.
2. Neoliberalism is logically contrary to conservative values. Either there are certain
moral imperatives so important that it is worth wasting money over them, or there are not. No
wonder that Tories are torn in two, not to mention Labour politicians who also try to combine
neoliberalism and moral principle.
3. Saying "even Adam Smith" is understandable but unfair. His work was rather enlightened
in the context of mercantilism, and of course the Wealth of Nations was not his only book.
Others will know his work better than me, but I think he dwells rather strongly on problems
of persistent poverty.
4. The political and redistributive functions of nations are indeed damaged by neolib, but
I don't think there is any realistic way of getting that power back without applying capital
controls. If we apply capital controls, all hell breaks loose.
5. Ergo, we are stuck with a situation where neolib is killing democracy, distributive
justice and conservative moral values, but there is nothing we can do about it without
pulling the plug altogether and unleashing a sharp drop in wealth and 1930s nationalistic
havoc. A bit of a tragedy, indeed.
Deborah Orr: The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it
wags its finger at governments that run up debt.
I strongly believe that people are not being told the full story. Like the NSA
surveillance revelation, the effects will not be pretty when the facts are known. No country needs the IMF. Any national government with its own national currency
sovereignty can pay its own debts within its own country with its own currency. International
borrowing in foreign markets is the biggest myth since religion. But since neoliberalism and
its inherent myths have been swallowed whole for so long, we are still at the stage where the
child points and laughs at the nude emperor. The fallout from the revelation and remedy is to
follow.
The problem with the Eurozone is not that the Euro is the "national" currency. Control of
the Euro resides with the European Central Bank, not the Troika (European Commission,
European Central Bank, IMF). The European Central Bank, as sole controller of the Euro (the
"national" currency), can issue funds to constituent Eurozone states to the extent necessary.
I challenge anyone to demonstrate how any central bank does not have power over its own
currency!
The mythology surrounding deficits and national debt is a religion that the world is in
desperate need of debunking. Like religion, the mythology is used as a means of power and
entrenchment of privilege for the Ruling Caste, not the plebs (lesser mortals).
@DavidPavett - Does anyone have any idea what this is supposed to mean? There are
certainly no leads on this in the link given to "the philosopher" John Gray
Gray wrote this in the Guardian in 2007:
Whether in Africa, Asia, Latin America or post-communist Europe, policies of wholesale
privatisation and structural adjustment have led to declining economic activity and social
dislocation on a massive scale
This doesn't seem to support Orrś assertion that he is calling for a
structural adjustment, rather the opposite. I'ḿ not really familiar with Grayś work
but he seems to be rather against the universal imposition of any system, new or old.
@CaptainGrey - Capitalism is not an undifferentiated mass. Late-stage neoliberal
hypercapitalism as practiced in the US and increasingly in the UK is a very different beast
than the traditional European capitalist social democracy or the Nordic model, which have
been shown to work relatively well over time. In fact, neoliberal capitalism - the sort Orr
is talking about here - is marked by increasing decline both in the state and in the economy,
as inequality in wealth distribution creates a society of beggars and kings instead of
spenders and savers. The gains achieved through carefully regulated capitalism won't stick
around in the free-for-all conditions preferred by those whose ideology demands the sell-off
of the state.
@PeterWoking - For some parts of the world , yes they are more affluent now , but a huge part of the globe is still without
food and water .
I think de regulation of the financial sector has caused a huge amount of damage to the world all round and
to be honest, i expect more of the same as the Bankers are still in control.
"... This is the context in which to see the blatant, dangerous gambits to wreck the Buenos Aires gathering of leaders, and any other such future opportunity, coming from the British Empire crowd, in the form of staged confrontations, lies and subversion. ..."
"... Look at recent destabilizing events: the Nov. 24 chemical weapons attack on Syrians in Aleppo; the stoking of suffering and strife at the Mexico-U.S. border; and on Nov. 25, Ukraine's naval provocation against Russia in the Black Sea. The British government asset, the "Integrity Initiative" is fully deployed to goad the U.S. and Western Europe to launch an offensive against Russia over the Ukraine incident, blaming Russia for "aggression" against Ukraine. The British imperialists are making a habit of exposing their own role in demanding world war! ..."
"... These provocations are not a sign of power, but of desperation, desperation to stop the spreading success of the New Paradigm of collaborative development expressed in the Belt and Road Initiative, and what lies ahead if the U.S. joins up. Schiller Institute Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche today emphasized that each time the British Imperialist apparatus steps forward in its own name to sabotage world peace, it works to the detriment of their dying system. The Empire is dangerous, but all the easier to crush. ..."
"... Zepp-LaRouche nailed the Integrity Initiative in a Sputnik interview published yesterday, now being run in media internationally. She said that the group's activity displays the " modus operandi of British intelligence operations, and it very well may turn out, that it is this network, which is deeply involved in 'Russiagate' and the entire coup against President Trump." ..."
We are in a showdown moment. At this week's Group of 20 Summit -- only three days away, in
Buenos Aires, there is the potential for Great Power diplomacy in the direction of a New
Paradigm of foreign relations, as an outcome of the sideline meetings of heads of state and
government of the United States, China, Russia, India and others.
The growing momentum for New Paradigm economic development is seen in high-level events this
month in six Western European nations: in Germany, the "Hamburg Summit: China Meets Europe"
(Nov. 26-27); in France, the Lyon "Franco-Chinese Forum" (Nov. 26-28); in Spain, President Xi
Jinping's state visit (Nov. 27-29); in Portugal, Xi's visit (Dec. 4-5); in Italy, a new
Xinhua-associated Italian financial media service will be set up (Nov. 6 agreement); in Norway,
the first Polar Route icebreaker delivery of Yamal LNG, for transshipment from the northern
port of Honnigsvag.
This is the context in which to see the blatant, dangerous gambits to wreck the Buenos Aires
gathering of leaders, and any other such future opportunity, coming from the British Empire
crowd, in the form of staged confrontations, lies and subversion.
Look at recent destabilizing events: the Nov. 24 chemical weapons attack on Syrians in
Aleppo; the stoking of suffering and strife at the Mexico-U.S. border; and on Nov. 25,
Ukraine's naval provocation against Russia in the Black Sea. The British government asset, the
"Integrity Initiative" is fully deployed to goad the U.S. and Western Europe to launch an
offensive against Russia over the Ukraine incident, blaming Russia for "aggression" against
Ukraine. The British imperialists are making a habit of exposing their own role in demanding
world war!
These provocations are not a sign of power, but of desperation, desperation to stop the
spreading success of the New Paradigm of collaborative development expressed in the Belt and
Road Initiative, and what lies ahead if the U.S. joins up. Schiller Institute Chairwoman Helga
Zepp-LaRouche today emphasized that each time the British Imperialist apparatus steps forward
in its own name to sabotage world peace, it works to the detriment of their dying system. The
Empire is dangerous, but all the easier to crush.
The Nov. 25 Ukrainian naval breach of Russian territorial waters was long pre-planned. As
the Italian military journal Difesa Online wrote on Nov. 25, "it was evident to all
those who follow local events that for some days already, the Poroshenko government in Ukraine
was trying to provoke an armed confrontation with Moscow in the Crimean waters." Russian
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, said the same yesterday, adding a warning. "We
are talking about a pre-planned, deliberate, and now realized large-scale provocation.... I
think everybody should be careful next time. I think there will be a next time, considering
what is happening now."
President Donald Trump's first response to the Ukraine incident, Nov. 26, was to express
concern, and hopes for settlement. "We do not like what's happening, either way; ... hopefully,
it will get straightened out." President Vladimir Putin will issue his statement on this
incident in a few days.
From London, however, comes a raving "script" of what Trump and the West must do against
Russia. It is the featured item on the website of the Integrity Initiative, which is a British
intelligence black war propaganda operation. Its funding is from the U.K. Foreign and
Commonwealth Office. Its Nov. 26 posting is titled, "West Is Once Again Failing Test Set by
Russian Aggression," by Edward Lucas, formerly of The Economist , and a longtime
Russia-hater, who wrote such books as Deception: Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the
West (2012) and The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West (2nd
ed., 2014). Lucas calls for "kinetic, symbolic, and financial measures" against Russia. This is
to include, the West sending military aid to Ukraine, running a NATO flotilla to the Ukrainian
port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, putting sanctions on Russian officials and businessmen
present in the West, and cutting Russia off from Western finance. Lucas says that the West
didn't act against Nazi Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland, but they must act now against
Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
Lucas is part of the British "cluster" of Integrity Initiative's operatives, which also
includes former British Ambassador to Russia Sir Andrew Wood of Orbis Business Intelligence,
the firm of "former" MI6 agent Christopher Steele, who fabricated the infamous anti-Trump
dossier. These figures are at the heart of the coup operations against Trump, and before that,
the Obama Administration election subversion.
Zepp-LaRouche nailed the Integrity Initiative in a Sputnik interview published yesterday,
now being run in media internationally. She said that the group's activity displays the "
modus operandi of British intelligence operations, and it very well may turn out, that
it is this network, which is deeply involved in 'Russiagate' and the entire coup against
President Trump."
We have obtained a large number of documents relating to the activities of the
'Integrity Initiative' project that was launched back in the fall of 2015 and
funded by the British government. The declared goal of the project is to counteract
Russian propaganda and the hybrid warfare of Moscow. Hiding behind benevolent
intentions, Britain has in fact created a large-scale information secret service in
Europe, the United States and Canada, which consists of representatives of
political, military, academic and journalistic communities with the think tank in
London at the head of it.
As part of the project Britain has time and again intervened into domestic
affairs of independent European states. A most demonstrative example is operation
'Moncloa' in Spain. Britain set to prevent Pedro Baños from appointment to the
post of Director of Spain's Department of Homeland Security. It took the Spanish
cluster of the Integrity Initiative only a few hours to accomplish the task.
London's near-term plans to create similar clusters include Latvia, Estonia,
Portugal, Sweden, Belgium, Canada, Armenia, Ukraine, Moldova, Malta, Czechia,
countries of the Middle East and North Africa, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria,
Georgia, Hungary, Cyprus, Austria, Switzerland, Turkey, Finland, Iceland, Denmark,
and the USA.
All the work is done under absolute secrecy via concealed contacts in British
embassies, which gives rise to more suspicion that Britain uses plausible excuse to
create a global system of information influence and political interference into
affairs of other countries.
Covert structures for political and financial manipulative activities under control
of British secret services are created not only in the EU countries but also on
other continents. In point of fact, quiet colonization of both former British
neighbors in the EU and NATO allies is taking place.
The government of Great Britain has to come out of the dark and declare straight
its intentions and unveil the results of the Integrity Initiative activities!
Otherwise, we will do it!
Today, we make public a part of the documents we have available. In case London
gives no response to our demands during the following week, we will reveal the rest
of the documents that contain many more secrets of the United Kingdom.
Isn't this interesting? A UK program to propagandize US and European audiences is set up to demonize Russia around the same time
GCHQ and MI6 are busy spying on US presidential candidates and then ultimately doing their best to throw an election over
here... while trying to frame Russia... for trying to throw an election over here. Cute right?
The head of MI6, the UK's intelligence service, hopes to recruit a new generation of
tech-savvy spies, with a passionate speech urging graduates to protect the homeland against the
arch nemesis who subverts the UK way of life.
"The era of the fourth industrial revolution calls for a fourth generation of espionage," Alex
Younger will say at St. Andrews University on 3rd December.
To lure young Brits into the spy agency who otherwise might not have seen themselves in MI6,
Younger paints an image of a clever arch nemesis –Russia– which can only be stopped
with the help of brilliant young minds from all sorts of backgrounds, not just by the snobbish
Oxbridge graduates typically associated with the service.
Fresh blood is needed to defend UK web domains against cyber-attacks, the spread of fake
news and interference in domestic politics, Alex Younger will say, at the same time praising
the old guard for "exposing" Russia in the highly-controversial Salisbury attack.
Russia, or any other UK adversary, better "not underestimate our determination and our
capabilities, or those of our allies," Younger's speech warns.
Hardly historic friends and bitter Cold War rivals, the UK and Russia have seen their
relations slip to new lows in March, following the poisoning of ex-Russian double agent Sergei
Skripal and his daughter Yulia. London immediately pinned the blame for the Salisbury incident
directly on the Kremlin, and rejected any idea of an open joint investigation with Russia,
insisting its own probe would suffice to make the case and then punishing Moscow with
sanctions.
Moscow is also perpetually facing accusations of cyberwarfare against other states and
attempts to undermine democracy and to influence the political process within those countries.
And despite multiple reassurances that Moscow could not care less about the internal political
struggles in foreign states, London and British mass media continue to vilify Russia with
bizarre reports, like half of London's Russian community are spies for the Kremlin.
Claims of 'Russian meddling' look particularly hypocritical in the wake of a leak that
exposed the Integrity Initiative – a group that claims to be fighting back against
'Russian misinformation' – being a clandestine network of influencers that manipulate
European politics with the British government's backing.
The anti-Russia paranoia in the UK arguably reached its peak over the weekend, when military
bases across the nation issued security alerts after a Russian TV crew was accused of spying
outside the army's secret cyber warfare headquarters.
International hacker group Anonymous went ahead with its efforts to counter what it calls
Britain's interference with the domestic affairs of sovereign states. In a second dump of
secret documents within two weeks, the hacktivists disclose more details on the ongoing
UK-funded, anti-Russia information campaign spreading across Europe. The second batch of
documents leaked by Anonymous unravels more information on the activities of the Integrity
Initiative (II), a UK-based NGO ostensibly founded to counter disinformation and defend
democratic processes from malign influence. According to
the first documents leaked by the hacktivist organization last month, the project was in
fact a "large-scale information secret service" sponsored and created by London to tackle
'Russian propaganda.'
However, the latest leak suggests that "the British government goes far beyond and exploits
the Integrity Initiative to solve its domestic problems inside the United Kingdom by defaming
the opposition."
Discrediting UK Opposition
Anonymous refers to a "scorching" article that surfaced in
The Times on November 25 and was dedicated to Seumas Milne, director of strategy and
communications under Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. The Times' official Twitter account promoted
the piece three times within 24 hours on social media -- the only case for all of its articles,
Anonymous says. The hacktivists add that the Integrity Initiative retweeted the "defamatory"
article right after its publication (the post is now unavailable, but Anonymous provided a
screengrab of the retweet).
The group announced in November that the II constituted a network of clusters across Europe,
which sought to tamper with domestic affairs of several European countries such as France,
Germany, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Norway, Serbia, Spain, and Montenegro.
Countering Russia on German Soil
Another part of the leak is an interim report on the
establishment of a German cluster, which was purportedly written by Hannes Adomeit, a German
political expert specialising in Russian foreign policy. According to the uncovered documents,
the German cluster is coordinated by suspected MI6 agent Harold Elletson.
The report focuses mainly on research of Germans' attitudes toward Russia. Adomeit says that
the so-called "Russian narrative" on the origins of the crisis in Moscow's relations with the
West is "widely accepted by German public opinion." He adds that further research would be
carried out to examine "the reasons for the great receptivity of the Russia narrative" in
Germany.
He also addresses the case of Andrei Kovalchuk, a Russian arrested in Germany on suspicion
of smuggling cocaine to Moscow from Argentina. Kovalchuk was extradited to Russia in late July
-- much to the dissatisfaction of Adomeit, who suggests that German prosecutors could have
"made an effort" to question him and dig up some dirt on Russia.
Watching Russia's Reaction to Catalan Events
The activities of the Integrity Initiative's Spanish cluster were partly revealed by
Anonymous in the first leak on the project. However, a newly unveiled document titled
"Cluster
Breakdown" identifies people associated with the Spanish chapter.
The list includes territorial minister Jose Ignacio Sanchez Amor, MEP Fernando Maura, head
of Spain's peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic Dionisio Urteaga Todo, European
Commission Speaker Dimitri Barua, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Fernando Valenzuela
Marzo, head of Spanish delegation to NATO PA Ricardo Blanco Torno, former defence minister
Eduardo Serra Rexach. Other affiliates include foreign affairs reporters and pundits from
Spanish think tanks: the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, the European Council on
Foreign Relations, and the Elcano Royal Institute.
The Spanish cluster was apparently closely watching Russia's reaction to the movement in
support of Catalan independence in 2016. According to another leaked
interim report , the project's members were disappointed with Russia's moderate position on
the situation in Spain. However, they claimed, while Vladimir Putin insisted that the issue of
Catalan sovereignty was Spain's internal affair, he was happy to watch Europe "take its own
medicine" (a reference to the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence).
This is why, they said, the Russian media took advantage of the 2016 developments in
Catalonia to portray the European Union as "declining, undemocratic and troubled". They went on
to link the media coverage of the Catalan events in Russia to Russia's alleged disinformation
campaign against the West.
The authors contend that given that Catalonia has become part of Russia's "big narrative
about the West," Russian meddling has also become part of the debates in Spain. "This
represents a clear window of opportunity" for promoting anti-Russia sentiment, they
conclude.
Skripal Case Coverage in Greece
The Integrity Initiative's Greek cluster was keeping a close eye on the
media coverage of the Salisbury poisoning in local newspapers. They went to considerable
lengths, studying 193 articles across six major media outlets. It seems, however, that the
result of all the hard work was rather unsatisfactory: the authors confess that the majority of
Greek newspapers adopted a neutral stance towards the Skripal case.
They claim that the Greek media were influenced into not taking sides and remaining
unbiased. "The strong pro-Russian sentiment in the Greek public opinion seems to have
influenced the Greek newspapers not to emphasize Russia's involvement."
The Integrity Initiative has yet to comment on this information dump. Anonymous claimed that
it released the second batch of documents after the EU leaders and international organisations
had ignored its first disclosure. The group accused the II and its sponsors of failing to "give
assurances that the network of clusters will only be used to counter Russia's disinformation
policy."
The "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom is often assumed
to be one where the once-great, sophisticated Brits are subordinate to the upstart, uncouth
Yanks.
Iconic of this assumption is the mocking of former prime minister Tony Blair as George W.
Bush's "poodle" for his riding shotgun on the ill-advised American stagecoach blundering into
Iraq in 2003. Blair was in good practice, having served as Bill Clinton's dogsbody in the no
less criminal NATO aggression against Serbia over Kosovo in 1999.
On the surface, the UK may seem just one more vassal state on par with Germany, Japan, South
Korea, and
so many other useless so-called allies . We control their intelligence services, their
military commands, their think tanks, and much of their media. We can sink their financial
systems and economies at will. Emblematic is German Chancellor Angela Merkel's impotent ire at
discovering the Obama administration had listened in on her cell phone, about which she –
did precisely nothing. Global hegemony means never having to say you're sorry.
These countries know on which end of the leash they are: the one attached to the collar
around their necks. The hand unmistakably is in Washington. These semi-sovereign countries
answer to the US with the same servility as member states of the Warsaw Pact once heeded the
USSR's Politburo. (Sometimes more. Communist Romania, though then a member of the Warsaw Pact
refused to participate in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia or even allow Soviet or other
Pact forces to cross its territory.
By contrast, during NATO's 1999 assault on Serbia, Bucharest allowed NATO military aircraft
access to its airspace, even though not yet a member of that alliance and despite most
Romanians' opposition to the campaign.)
But the widespread perception of Britain as just another satellite may be misleading.
To start with, there are some relationships where it seems the US is the vassal dancing to
the tune of the foreign capital, not the other way around. Israel is the unchallenged champion
in this weight class, with Saudi Arabia a runner up. The alliance between Prime Minister Bibi
Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) – the ultimate Washington
"power couple" – to get the Trump administration to destroy Iran for them has American
politicos listening for instructions with all the rapt attention of the terrier Nipper on the RCA
Victor logo . (Or did, until the recent disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Whether this portends a real shift in
American attitudes toward Riyadh remains questionable .
Saudi cash still speaks loudly and will continue to do so whether or not MbS stays in
charge.)
Specifics of the peculiar US-UK relationship stem from the period of flux at the end of
World War II. The United States emerged from the war in a commanding position economically and
financially, eclipsing Britannia's declining empire that simply no longer had the resources to
play the leading role. That didn't mean, however, that London trusted the Americans' ability to
manage things without their astute guidance. As Tony Judt describes in Postwar , the
British attitude of "
superiority towards the country that had displaced them at the imperial apex " was "nicely
captured" in a scribble during negotiations regarding the UK's postwar loan:
In Washington Lord Halifax
Once whispered to Lord Keynes:
"It's true they have the moneybags
But we have all the brains."
Even in its diminished condition London found it could punch well above its weight by
exerting its influence on its stronger but (it was confident) dumber cousins across the Pond.
It helped that as the Cold War unfolded following former Prime Minister Winston
Churchill's 1946 Iron Curtain speech there were very close ties between sister agencies
like MI6 (founded 1909) and the newer wartime OSS (1942), then the CIA (1947); likewise the
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ, 1919) and the National Security Administration
(NSA, 1952). Comparable sister agencies – perhaps more properly termed daughters of their
UK mothers – were set up in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This became the so-called
"Five Eyes" of the tight Anglosphere spook community, infamous
for spying on each others' citizens to avoid pesky legal prohibitions on domestic
surveillance .
Despite not having two farthings to rub together,
impoverished Britain – where wartime rationing wasn't fully ended until 1954 – had
a prime seat at the table fashioning the world's postwar financial structure. The 1944 Bretton Woods
conference was largely an Anglo-American affair , of which the
aforementioned Lord John Maynard Keynes was a prominent architect along with Harry Dexter
White, Special Assistant to the US Secretary of the Treasury and Soviet agent.
American and British agendas also dovetailed in the Middle East. While the US didn't have
much of a presence in the region before the 1945 meeting between US President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt and Saudi King ibn Saud, founder of the third and current ( and hopefully last ) Saudi state – and didn't
assume a dominant role until the humiliation inflicted on Britain, France, and Israel by
President Dwight Eisenhower during the 1956 Suez Crisis – London has long considered much
of the region within its sphere of influence. After World War I under the Sykes-Picot agreement with
France , the UK had expanded her holdings on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, including
taking a decisive
role in consolidating Saudi Arabia under ibn Saud. While in the 1950s the US largely
stepped into Britain's role managing the "East of Suez," the former suzerain was by no means
dealt out. The UK was a founding member with the US of the now-defunct Central Treaty
Organization (CENTO) in 1955.
CENTO – like NATO and their one-time eastern counterpart, the Southeast Asia Treaty
Organization (SEATO) – was designed as a counter to the USSR. But in the case of Britain,
the history of hostility to Russia under tsar or commissar alike has much deeper and longer
roots, going back at least to the
Crimean War in the 1850s . The reasons for the longstanding British vendetta against Russia
are not entirely clear and seem to have disparate roots: the desire to ensure that no one power
is dominant on the European mainland (directed first against France, then Russia, then Germany,
then the USSR and again Russia); maintaining supremacy on the seas by denying Russia
warm-waters ports, above all the Dardanelles; and making sure territories of a dissolving
Ottoman empire would be taken under the wing of London, not Saint Petersburg. As described by
Andrew
Lambert , professor of naval history at King's College London, the Crimean War still echoes
today :
"In the 1840s, 1850s, Britain and America are not the chief rivals; it's Britain and
Russia. Britain and Russia are rivals for world power, and Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, which
is much larger than modern Turkey -- it includes modern Romania, Bulgaria, parts of Serbia,
and also Egypt and Arabia -- is a declining empire. But it's the bulwark between Russia,
which is advancing south and west, and Britain, which is advancing east and is looking to
open its connections up through the Mediterranean into its empire in India and the Pacific.
And it's really about who is running Turkey. Is it going to be a Russian satellite, a bit
like the Eastern Bloc was in the Cold War, or is it going to be a British satellite, really
run by British capital, a market for British goods? And the Crimean War is going to be the
fulcrum for this cold war to actually go hot for a couple of years, and Sevastopol is going
to be the fulcrum for that fighting."
Control of the Middle East – and opposing the Russians – became a British
obsession, first to sustain the lifeline to India, the Jewel in the Crown of the empire, then for
control of petroleum, the life's blood of modern economies. In the context of the 19th and
early 20th century Great Game of empire, that was understandable. Much later, similar
considerations might even support Jimmy Carter's taking up much the same position, declaring in
1980 that "outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an
assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be
repelled by any means necessary, including military force." The USSR was then a superpower and
we were dependent on energy from the Gulf region.
But what's our reason for maintaining that posture almost four decades later when the Soviet
Union is gone and the US doesn't need Middle Eastern oil? There are no reasonable national
interests, only corporate interests and those of the Arab monarchies we laughably claim as
allies. Add to that the bureaucracies and habits of mind that link the US and UK
establishments, including their intelligence and financial components.
In view of all the foregoing, what then would policymakers in the United Kingdom think about
an aspirant to the American presidency who not only disparages the value of existing alliances
– without which Britain is a bit player – but
openly pledges to improve relations with Moscow ? To what lengths would they go to stop
him?
Say 'hello' to Russiagate!
One can argue whether or not the phony claim of the Trump campaign's "collusion" with Moscow
was hatched in London or whether the British just lent some "
hands across the water " to an effort concocted by the Democratic National Committee, the
Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, the Clinton Foundation, and their collaborators at
Fusion GPS and inside the Obama administration. Either way, it's clear that while evidence of
Russian connection is nonexistent that of British agencies is unmistakable, as is the UK's hand
in a sustained campaign of demonization and isolation to sink any possible
rapprochement between the US and Russia .
As for Russiagate itself, just try to find anyone involved who's actually Russian. The only
basis for the widespread assumption that any material in the Dirty Dossier that underlies the
whole operation
originated with Russia is the claim of Christopher Steele , the British "ex" spy who wrote
it, evidently in collaboration with people at the US State Department and Fusion GPS. (The
notion that Steele, who hadn't been in Russia for years, would have Kremlin personal contacts
is absurd. How chummy are the heads of the American section of Chinese or Russian intelligence
with White House staff?)
Andrew Wood , a
former British ambassador to Russia Stefan Halper , a dual US-UK citizen. Ex-MI6 Director
Richard Dearlove . Robert Hannigan , former director of GCHQ; there is
reason to think surveillance of Trump was conducted by GCHQ as well as by US agencies under
FISA warrants. Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ soon after the British government denied
the agency had engaged in such spying. Alexander Downer , Australian diplomat (well, not
British but remember the Five Eyes!). Joseph Mifsud , Maltese academic and suspected British
agent.
At present, the full role played by those listed above is not known. Release of unredacted
FISA warrant requests by the Justice Department, which President Trump ordered weeks ago, would
shed light on a number of details. Implementation of that order was derailed after a request by
– no surprise – British Prime Minister Theresa May . Was she seeking
to conceal Russian perfidy, or her own underlings'?
It would be bad enough if Russiagate were the sum of British meddling in American affairs
with the aim of torpedoing relations with Moscow. (And to be fair, it wasn't just the UK and
Australia. Also implicated are Estonia,
Israel, and Ukraine .) But there is also reason to suspect the same motive in
false accusations against Russia with respect to the supposed Novichok
poisonings in England has a connection to Russiagate via a business associate of Steele's,
one Pablo Miller , Sergei
Skripal's MI6 recruiter . (So if it turns out there is any Russian connection to the
dossier, it could be from Skripal or another dubious expat source, not from the Russian
government.) Skripal and his daughter Yulia have disappeared in British custody. Moscow
flatly accuses MI6 of poisoning them as a false flag to blame it on Russia.
A similar pattern
can be seen with claims of chemical weapons use in Syria : "We have irrefutable evidence
that the special services of a state which is in the forefront of the Russophobic campaign had
a hand in the staging" of a faked chemical weapons attack in Douma in April 2018. Ambassador
Aleksandr Yakovenko pointed to the so-called White Helmets, which is closely associated with
al-Qaeda elements and considered by some their PR arm: "I am naming them because they have done
things like this before. They are famous for staging attacks in Syria and they receive UK
money." Moscow warned for weeks before the now-postponed Syrian government offensive in Idlib
that the same ruse was being prepared
again with direct British intelligence involvement, even having prepared in advance a video
showing victims of an attack that had not yet occurred.
The campaign to demonize Russia shifted into high gear recently with the UK, together with
the US and the Netherlands,
accusing Russian military intelligence of a smorgasbord of cyberattacks against the World
Anti Doping Agency (WADA) and other sports organizations, the Organization for the Prohibition
of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the Dutch investigation into the downing of MH-17 over Ukraine, and
a Swiss lab involved with the Skripal case, plus assorted election interference. In case anyone
didn't get the point,
British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson declared : "This is not the actions of a great
power. This is the actions of a pariah state, and we will continue working with allies to
isolate them."
In sum, we are seeing a massive, coordinated hybrid campaign of psy-ops and political warfare
conducted not by Russia but against Russia, concocted by the UK and its Deep
State collaborators in the United States. But it's not only aimed at Russia, it's an attack
on the United States by the government of a foreign country that's supposed to be one of
our closest allies, a country with which we share many venerable traditions of language, law,
and culture.
But for far too long, largely for reasons of historical inertia and elite corruption, we've
allowed that government to exercise undue influence on our global policies in a manner not
conducive to our own national interests. Now that government, employing every foul deception
that earned it the moniker Perfidious Albion , seeks to embroil us
in a quarrel with the only country on the planet that can destroy us if things get out of
control.
This must stop. A thorough reappraisal of our "special relationship" with the United Kingdom
and exposure of its activities to the detriment of the US is imperative.
James George Jatras is an analyst, former U.S. diplomat and foreign policy adviser to
the Senate GOP leadership.
British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns
In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia
propaganda into the western media stream.
We have already seen
many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who does
not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The 'Russian collusion' smear campaign against
Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but seems to be
part of a different project.
The ' Integrity
Initiative ' builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military personal,
academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via social media to
take action when the British center perceives a need.
On June 7 it took the the Spanish cluster only a few hours to derail the appointment of
Perto Banos as the Director of the National Security Department in Spain. The cluster
determined that he had a too positive view of Russia and launched a coordinated social media
smear
campaign (pdf) against him.
The Initiative and its operations were unveiled when someone liberated some of its
documents, including its budget applications to the British Foreign Office, and
posted them under the 'Anonymous' label at cyberguerrilla.org .
---
Update - The Integrity Initiative
confirms the release of its documents. - End Update
---
The Integrity Initiative was set up in autumn 2015 by The Institute for Statecraft in
cooperation with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to bring to the attention of
politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties the threat posed by
Russia to democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, across Europe and North America.
It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as "partner organisations" and promises
that:
Country list of agents of influence according to the leak:
Germany
Harold Elletson ,Klaus NaumannWolf-Ruediger Bengs, Ex Amb Killian, Gebhardt v Moltke, Roland
Freudenstein, Hubertus Hoffmann, Bertil Wenger, Beate Wedekind, Klaus Wittmann, Florian
Schmidt, Norris v Schirach
Sweden, Norway, Finland
Martin Kragh , Jardar Ostbo, Chris Prebensen, Kate Hansen Bundt, Tor Bukkvoll, Henning-Andre
Sogaard, Kristen Ven Bruusgard, Henrik O Breitenbauch, Niels Poulsen, Jeppe Plenge, Claus
Mathiesen, Katri Pynnoniemi, Ian Robertson, Pauli Jarvenpaa, Andras Racz
Netherlands
Dr Sijbren de Jong, Ida Eklund-Lindwall, Yevhen Fedchenko, Rianne Siebenga, Jerry Sullivan,
Hunter B Treseder, Chris Quick
Nico de Pedro, Ricardo Blanco Tarno, Eduardo Serra Rexach, Dionisio Urteaga Todo, Dimitri
Barua, Fernando Valenzuela Marzo, Marta Garcia, Abraham Sanz, Fernando Maura, Jose Ignacio
Sanchez Amor, Jesus Ramon-Laca Clausen, Frances Ghiles, Carmen Claudin, Nika Prislan, Luis
Simon, Charles Powell, Mira Milosevich, Daniel Iriarte, Anna Bosch, Mira Milosevich-Juaristi,
Tito, Frances Ghiles, Borja Lasheras, Jordi Bacaria, Alvaro Imbernon-Sainz, Nacho Samor
US, Canada
Mary Ellen Connell, Anders Aslund, Elizabeth Braw, Paul Goble, David Ziegler,
Evelyn Farkas, Glen Howard, Stephen Blank, Ian Brzezinski, Thomas Mahnken, John Nevado,
Robert Nurick, Jeff McCausland,
Todd Leventhal
UK
Chris Donnelly,
Amalyah Hart, William Browder, John Ardis,
Roderick Collins, Patrick Mileham, Deborah Haynes,
Dan Lafayeedney Chris Hernon, Mungo Melvin,
Rob Dover Julian Moore, Agnes Josa, David Aaronovitch, Stephen Dalziel, Raheem Shapi, Ben
Nimmo,
Robert Hall Alexander Hoare Steve Jermy Dominic Kennedy
Victor Madeira Ed Lucas Dr David Ryall
Graham Geale Steve Tatham Natalie Nougayrede
Alan Riley [email protected] Anne Applebaum Neil Logan Brown James Wilson
Primavera Quantrill
Bruce Jones David Clark Charles Dick
Ahmed Dassu Sir Adam Thompson Lorna Fitzsimons Neil Buckley Richard Titley Euan Grant
Alastair Aitken Yusuf Desai Bobo Lo Duncan Allen Chris Bell
Peter Mason John Lough Catherine Crozier
Robin Ashcroft Johanna Moehring Vadim Kleiner David Fields Alistair Wood Ben Robinson Drew
Foxall Alex Finnen
Orsyia Lutsevych Charlie Hatton Vladimir Ashurkov
Giles Harris Ben Bradshaw
Chris Scheurweghs James Nixey
Charlie Hornick Baiba Braze J Lindley-French
Craig Oliphant Paul Kitching Nick Childs Celia Szusterman
James Sherr Alan Parfitt Alzbeta Chmelarova Keir Giles
Andy Pryce Zach Harkenrider
Kadri Liik Arron Rahaman David Nicholas Igor Sutyagin Rob Sandford Maya Parmar Andrew Wood
Richard Slack Ellie Scarnell
Nick Smith Asta Skaigiryte Ian Bond Joanna Szostek Gintaras Stonys Nina Jancowicz
Nick Washer Ian Williams Joe Green Carl Miller Adrian Bradshaw
Clement Daudy Jeremy Blackham Gabriel Daudy Andrew Lucy Stafford Diane Allen Alexandros
Papaioannou
Paddy Nicoll
I see that the cluster of UK journalists to receive propaganda from the Integrity Initiative
includes Guardian writer and former Le Monde chief editor (run out by her senior editors for
her "Putinesque" leadership style) Natalie Nougayrede. As if The Guardian needs any more
persuasion or encouragement to recede deeper into its labyrinthine network of rabbit-holes.
Jonathan Freedland must be jumping up and down in an infantile tantrum that Nugget-head got
such privileged access.
@ #2 pretzelattack Thanks for the Robert Mueller Guardian article link.
Am I the only one not to know that "As acting deputy attorney general, he [Robert Mueller]
was in charge of the investigation and indictment of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan
convicted of the terrorist attack that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in
Scotland just before Christmas 1988.
Seems every new article I read on Robert Mueller, he was carrying out another CIA covert
plan.
Britain has been a US dog for years, most overtly in Blair's time over Iraq and Afghanistan,
but things haven't really changed. Britain's military has become more and more dependent on
the US. There is no longer an independent nuclear deterrent - the weapons are rented from the
US, and I'm certain that they couldn't be used without US approval (sure to be a backdoor
somewhere in the electronics which would enable the US to turn them off, if the US
disagreed). The F35s they've insisted on buying are probably in the same situation.
They're not slaves, or rather 'vassals' - the current word of sensitivity about the EU.
More active collaborators, which implies initiatives also stemming from Britain.
One should also recall Britain's function as US agent in the European Union. They were
opposed to many EU proposals, obviously to fit in with US desires. The most recent example is
the Galileo GPS system - they were opposed to it for years, but as Ivan Rogers told us
(former Brit ambassador to the EU), the opposition he was instructed to make failed.
It's all gone off a bit recently though. Trump is not interested in Britain in the way
Obama was. Brexit is a nativist movement, not what America wants. If Brexit goes through
finally, the interest of the US will be even less, as we can no longer intervene on the US's
behalf in Europe.
French agents of inluence according to leak: France
Francoise Thom Jusin Vaisse Thomas Bertin Caroline Gondaud Guillaume Schlumberger Raphael de
Lagarde Roland Galharague
Martin Briens Jean-Christophe Noel Laurent Rucker Alexandre Escorcia Nikola Guljevatej David
Behar Claire le Flecher Remy Bouallegue Paul Zajac Nicolas Roche Manuel Lafont Rapnouil
Laurent Rucker Patrick Hardouin Etienne de Durand
Janaina Herrera
I just knew if I scrolled down far enough the name Anne Applebaum would appear - Queen of the
Dual-Loyalists; but Wm. Browder!?
From her Wikipedia page: "She is a visiting Professor of Practice at the London School of
Economics, where she runs Arena, a project on propaganda and disinformation." I reckon she
"Practices" at the Post.
@7 "...things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of russia after the fall of the
soviet union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit russia
fully, as they'd intended..."
Crimea is the one that really hurts. NATO was all set to build a shiny new base.
@18 russ... yes - that pretty well sums it up... as for putin falling into the neoliberal
order - at this point it does look that way.. i am curious how russia could move forward at
this moment in some alternative way? what would the alternative way look like?
@zanon... thanks, but the list given for usa/canada has only one person on it that appears
to be a canuck - glen howard.. and unless it is a different glen howard, the guy is some
curling wiz, but no mention of his anti-russian credentials... his e mail address is given as
jamestown.org which is connected to the jamestown foundation.. turns out, he is not a canuck
either - "Glen Howard President
Mr. Howard is fluent in Russian and proficient in Azerbaijani and Arabic, and is a
regional expert on the Caucasus and Central Asia. He was formerly an Analyst at the Science
Applications International Corporation (SAIC) Strategic Assessment Center. His articles have
appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, and Jane's Defense
Weekly. Mr. Howard has served as a consultant to private sector and governmental agencies,
including the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Intelligence Council and major oil
companies operating in Central Asia and the Middle East."
one of the people on the usa-can list - john nevado appears to be an equadorian...
bottom line - as a sensitive canuck, i think someone needs to change the list to say usa
and remove canada, as no canucks are on the list from the small research i did...
that is the sad thing about canada - it gets lumped in with the usa for good and bad on a
regular basis... maybe they could put crystia freelands name on this list... i think she
would qualify as a rabid anti-russia canuck...
reply to Plantman 13
re:
"Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by
internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have
been resolved and funding should now flow."
I don't think it was the Republican party that was the source of the deadlock.
I think it may have been Tillerson. He had close ties to Russia and in March 2018, he was
forced out of State and Pompeo came in.
"President Donald Trump nominated Pompeo as Secretary of State in March 2018, with Pompeo
succeeding Rex Tillerson after his dismissal."
"The organisation is led by one Chris N. Donnelly who receives (pdf) £8,100 per month
..."
That's a decent salary. He probably can work from home too - like Bellingcat. A fake NGO
operating with fake "integrity" to identify "fake news". Everything is rather upside-down
these days. Good to have all those names attached. Where's C Summers on the list? - maybe he
never realized till now the monthly salaries available.
Central Europe
Anne Bader Eduard Abrahayman Mitar Kuyundzic Plamen Pantev Solomon Passy Jaroslav Hajecek
Jakub Janda Frantisek Vrabel Peter Kreko Jan Strzelecki Mario Nicolini Austria
Harold Elletson Susan Stewart
Baltic section according to the leak:
Tomas Tauginas Asta Skaisgiryte Saulius Guzevicius Eitvydas BAJARŪNAS Renatas Norkus
Vytautas Bakas Laurynas Kasciunas Dr Povilas Malakauskas Ainis Razma Mantas Martisius Linas
Kojala
Major Jane Witt Claire Lawrence James Rogers Andriy Tyushka Viktorija Urbonaviciute
reply to dh 31
"Crimea is the one that really hurts. NATO was all set to build a shiny new base."
True that!
I was blown away by their arrogance when I saw the US had bids out to remodel the existing
Russian buildings in the Crimean port to for a school, housing.
It clearly never occurred to them that they could/would lose, nor did they even bother to
think that Russia may keep an eye out for such mind blowing acts of stupidity such as these
bids?
Craig Oliphant is Senior Advisor, Peaceful Change Initiative (PCI), based in London, and
Senior Research Associate at the Foreign Policy Centre. Until the end of 2010, he worked in
the diplomatic service and was Head of the Eastern Research Group in the Foreign Office,
dealing with Russia and Eastern Europe.
In the first half of the 1990s, Craig held posts in Brussels at NATO as an advisor on
Russia/Eastern Europe and was then at the OSCE in The Hague, as a regional advisor to the
OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. Before that he was at the UK Ministry of
Defence (MOD), as a senior lecturer at the Conflict Studies Research Centre at RMA
Sandhurst; he also worked for several years in the 1980s at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
in Munich, Germany. Craig has published widely on Russia/FSU affairs. He is a member of
IISS; RUSI; a Fellow of Royal Society of Arts; and is a Vice Chairman of the British
Georgian Society.
Independent Conflict Research & Analysis (ICRA) was founded in May 2010 as a
not-for-profit organisation providing objective conflict analysis and training. It is led by
Christopher Langton OBE, who spent 32 years in the British Army. During this time he served
in Northern Ireland, Russia, the South Caucasus where he was Deputy Chief of UNOMIG and held
defence attaché appointments in Russia, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia.
Subsequently he worked at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) for 9
years where he was the focus on Afghanistan. At IISS he held appointments as the Head of
Defence Analysis, Editor of "The Military Balance" and Research Fellow for Russia before
being appointed Senior Fellow for Conflict & Defence Diplomacy.
He has worked as an independent expert on the international investigation into the
Russia-Georgia conflict of August 2008 and on the Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission investigating
the violence that occurred in Southern Kyrgyzstan in 2010. Christopher was Advisor to the
UK-China Conflict Prevention Working Group 2014-2015 under the aegis of Saferworld and
supported by DFID.
reply to:
This cureemt state of affairs cannot last longer. Right?
Posted by: PacoRepublicano | Nov 24, 2018 3:02:15 PM | 37
That may be why the globalists seem to be a bit off the rails.
I read in an article on the present French fuel tax protests/riots that a recent poll of
world millennials found that 50 percent would go along with a change of govt, it was 75
percent in France. Concurrent with these riots the French govt is trying to bring back
mandatory military service for those in the 3rd year of high school.
Indoctrination camps ala China is my guess.
i do think it is better to ignore the local shill... they say the same stupid shit on a
regular basis.. out of the kindness of b, it is unlikely to stop... quoting jamestown.org is
more of the same stupidity that i have come to expect from our resident shill..
https://www.cyberguerrilla.org/blog/operation-integrity-initiative-british-informational-war-against-all/
New I hope, from Murray's blog.
Note that Ben Bradshaw a Labour MP, famous forbeing the first MP who married a man, a fellow
BBC reporter, and a Blairite is one of the scum on the UK list. So is 'Prof' Alan Riley, a
lawyer with extensive interests in oil.
These people are constantly being wheeled out in the media as independent experts.
Talking of Murray's blog the latest piece laments the death of the Al Nusra spokesman who was
killed yesterday, by fellow salafists, as a democrat, secular etc etc.
Check the propaganda organization's twitter account: https://twitter.com/initintegrity
They have been in a retweeting spam mode since they got exposed. Quite hilarious.
"The Initiatives Guide to Countering Russian Information (pdf) is a rather funny read. It
lists the downing of flight MH 17 by a Ukranian BUK missile, the fake chemical incident in
Khan Sheikhoun and the Skripal Affair as examples for "Russian disinformation"."
This following document explicitly states that the Skripal incident is a Dirty Trick
operation against Russia. It also mentions the use of aspects of Russian culture to be used
as a weapon against it (eg the church)
It lists tream members, funding for specificic tasks and this statement:
"Code of Conduct (Greg to commence with internet etiquette)
Anonymity of the team remains paramount. As our activity increases we will, no doubt, attract
unwanted attention."
That directly contradicts the official UK government statement to the Russians that the
Integrity Initiative is a public domain program.
the secret to all good propaganda: accuse the other side of doing what you're guilty of
so people believe that anonymous collective managed to gain access, via 'hacking'to the
FCO computer system? really? seriously? you think that the second, or third most
critical/secure UK govt. system can be either 'spearfished' or accessed by some other
means?
I will say this. I had always assumed Ed Lucas was ex -UK intel. He worked at the Moscow
embassy for the FCO and has stuck to the "save the baltics from the evil empire" line ever
since. There is a surprisingly tight network of folk (Yes Ann Applebaum) who have been
together hating the commies and now the non-commie Russians since the 90s. Some of them are
very prominent now (Yes Chrystia) despite having backgrounds which might suggest an
irrational agenda driven outlook (Nazis?). They meet up at conferences discussing the
Soviet/Russian menace and never mention that on raw spend, Nato outspends their hated Russia
by 10x or 20x.
Still, for some reason these people are considered angels of light and the rest of us need
to follow their barely literate lead (actually Ed Lucas is very literate, as is Peter
Pomerantsev). Anders Aslund a lot less so.
"A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of
the London Times and Neil Buckley from the FT." Subcluster. Love it. Just how crap do you
have to be to fail to make it to membership of a full cluster of smear merchants?
Luke "The Plagiarist" Harding and the other Guardian hacks must be really pissed off that
they weren't considered to be worthy of even a sub-cluster.
For M16 to expose this level of stupidity is stunning.
No, not really. MI6 have demonstrated even greater levels of stupidity in the past. For
example, supporting the salafist Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and then being surprised at
the blowback that was the Manchester Arena suicide bombing by one of its followers
Greek group according to leak: Despina afentouli ELIAMEP Thanos Dokos Ioannis Armakolas
George Tzogopoulos Dimitris Xenakis Katerina Oikonomakou Ioannis Goranitis Tasos Telloglou
Katerina Chryssanthopoulou Sissy Alonistiotou
i remain agnostic for now on the authenticity of the 'integrity initiative, but is has a
definite Gladio/NATO feel to it, so it's entirely plausible.
but as i was pasting together a new diary on the ever-increasing increased jeopardy to
julian assange by way the Wikileaks account on twitter, they had these tweets up:
'Ecuador's president has signed a decree terminating the ambassador to the United Kingdom,
Carlos Abad. All diplomats known to Assange have now been terminated to transferred away from
the embassy.'
@ Willie Wobblestick with the righteous poem....very nice, may it go viral with b's piece
@ wendy davis with the status of julian assange...thanks
I think these actions reek of desperation and lack of understanding of what exposure may
ensue from julian going down in some way. Julian may be holding old news but I expect that
there are depths of it that will be new to many.
The circus tent is starting to burn and the animals are freaking out, ready to
stampede.
Can we evolve away from the private finance motivated world soon, please and thank
you?
the first wikitweet was to the anon 'operation integrity initiative'; the second one says:
"We have analyzed these documents and assess that a portion of them show hallmarks of being
fabrications."
assange attorney hannah jonnason (@AssangeLegal) had been looking carefully at them,
parsing them in belief, but finally had re-tweeted wikileaks take. the 'portion' as i took it
by way of the subtweets was 'fabricated emails'. she's gret, plus brilliant, but on one
thread i'd posted she'd called marcy wheeler 'fbi informant MW', lol.
Golly gee-whiz! Why am I not surprised? Gotta have complementary sources of disinformation
operating in tandem with BigLie Media! Indeed, the synchronicity of so much fairly well
proves BigLie Media is part of this system. The Tower of Immorality being built primarily by
the Outlaw US Empire and its UK sidekick is like a Ponzi Scheme in that for it not to fall it
must have ever more lies continually added where eventually everything said by them will be
100% false.
It is getting tedious to have to type my personal information in every time I want to
comment. B has written that he is working on issues but I may forgo the web site link if this
continues....lazy as I am
@ wendy davis with the marcy wheeler as fbi informant claim....marcy seems well
intentioned but seems to have some way weird bias blinders in her thinking. I have stopped
following her because her signal to noise ratio got too bad. There are lots of folks like her
I am sorry to write. Well intentioned but drinking some koolaid that has them mixed up in
strategic ways.....almost like it was planned.....maybe more lists will come out now of other
organizations that are paying folk to build and/or maintain certain narratives like GWOT,
etc.
And yes, we can take the truth. It will set many free.
The chemical attack on Aleppo earlier today wasn't accompanied by immediate synchronized
media and NATO political leader accusations against the terrorists like we've seen associated
with the FFs. I've yet to see any, nor have any been reported on Twitter.
@ 68 pscychohistorian.. ditto your comments on marcy wheeler... all the folks at emptywheel
have gone off the rails, led by lead bozo - bmaz... i used to enjoy reading her, but the hate
russia memo they all swallowed is tedious slogging and i am not up for it..
James @70 i'm right there with ya. Watching how the Russian Derangement Syndrome has
afflicted otherwise sane and smart people has been disillusioning to say the least.
Blessings, b and comment support on this - it takes me back to the days when Five Eyes was
unravelling, and I can't but think that dastardly plot to surveil and snoop by means of
developing technology was going to be a worldwide instrument of torture and oneupmanship that
many thought would make that consortium top dog for all time.
So, they smashed the Guardian's computers, and they co-opted or blackmailed where they
could, but the genie was out. And out for good. It would make a good spy novel if it weren't
for the very real deaths and destruction that have happened in the wake of the revelations.
And that will happen before this sorry historical episode is over. I simply believe, however,
that thanks to nearly everyone contributing to this forum, such possibilities are
diminishing. Thank you,b and everyone.
I'm not well versed enough myself but I am baffled by this whole mess. All sides of this
are entities I don't trust at all: Intelligence agencies, Facebook, Trump and his crooked
playmates... seems there are no sides to trust or root for in this whole game of
espionage.
Ghost Ship @ 58: There is a Guardian writer in that UK journalist sub-cluster list and that
is Natalie Nougayrede. No surprise there ... over at Off-Guardian.org, commenters have their
own unprintable names for her. And you thought the bar at Integrity Initiative wasn't low
enough for Fraudian hacks.
It is important to note that Wikileaks questioned the authenticity of these documents. We
should be cautious before drawing any conclusions and wait for more information.
"We have analyzed these documents and assess that a portion of them show hallmarks of
being fabrications."
iv> Jelena Milić is actually doing very good job of making people sick
of NATO and the UKUS governments. She's a laughing stock in Serbia. Idk why are they paying her
in the first place. She could easily be Kremlin lobbyist the way how she's doing her job :) If
they are all incapable like her I wouldn't be worried too much about this
Jelena Milić is actually doing very good job of making people sick of NATO and the UKUS
governments. She's a laughing stock in Serbia. Idk why are they paying her in the first
place. She could easily be Kremlin lobbyist the way how she's doing her job :) If they are
all incapable like her I wouldn't be worried too much about this
So Facebook is s co sponsor ? Social media not just about bringing people together but
manipulator and subversion .
If they were targeting Jews this would be called antisemitism , as iybisvtheytecyargetumg
russians ,
What role did they play In the novichok hoax ?
'Clusters established in each country' reads an awful lot like subversion and treachery
Should this be a matter for country police and national security ?
@Zanon 28
Même pour les Français, l'information est aujourd'hui en anglais... Ceci dit,
l'hystérie et l'"activité" anti-russe n'est pas très effective en
France... Trop d'Histoire et d'histoires partagées pour adhérer à cette
soupe servie pour les peuples anglo-saxons... Mais enfin, pas besoin d'avoir lu Hegel pour
comprendre que toute cette agitation-propagande sert in fine l'ennemi désigné,
la Russie; et précipite encore un peu plus, si c'est possible, la fin de l'empire.
Purported internal documents, from a UK government "counter-Russia" influence network
targeting mostly Europe and US, appear on site often alleged to be used by Russian state
hackers. cyberguerrilla.org/blog/operation
We have analyzed these documents and assess that a portion of them show hallmarks of
being fabrications.
I have no idea what the Wikileaks folks mean. I did not notice any signs of fakery in the
stash. There are some small but explainable inconsistencies (i.e. between budget plan and
approved budget?) and the whole stash is likely bigger than the published one. But all the
details I could check seem to fit.
"I have no idea what the Wikileaks folks mean. I did not notice any signs of fakery in the
stash."
Who's running the show at Wikileaks by now? (I assume Assange can't do so from his
hideout.) My memory's hazy, but I recall there being some kind of internal struggle there,
and that a pro-Wall Street faction opposed the release of the Bank of America files and
destroyed them.
Are they now trying to turn and appease their system enemies? Wouldn't be the first such
sell-out. Maybe they're jealous of the prestige, lucre, and system respectability of the
Snowden/Greenwald/Intercept industrial complex.
Emmanuel Goldstein , Nov 25, 2018 4:01:51 AM |
link
This has everything...right down to FCO email addresses. For FCO read MI6. Either this is
colossal disinfo from Anonymous or a significant operation is truly blown. To resort to
something like this, on this scale, showa that they are worried about something. Perhaps RT
is getting wore viewing and hits in the UK and Europe than their outlets are. Once the
internet was invented this was bound to happen. In some societies this would be regarded as
espionage and subversion and these shills would be rounded up for a little chat. Great
journalism b, stay safe......at least we now know who the provocateurs for the next false
flag are....
Zero Hedge also striking similar skeptical notes. They retweet Assange from 2016 stating
anonymous to be an FBI cutout organisation. These anti-Russian organisations are real and
their aim is to fight Russian propaganda, they will say by publishing truth while Russia says
with lies. Of course they are funded. So is Russian propaganda. What the Russians are doing
is classic "Spy vs Spy" and Barflies of course lap up the kool-aid just as easily as every
kool-aid drinker we deride. The constant state of confirmation bias and psychological
projection on the internets isn't even newsworthy but it's interesting sociology. Wash.
Rinse. Repeat. Same as it ever was. Whatever gets us through the night. It's alright. But is
Assange only speaking truth when he confirms our biases? I have more respect for him.
Thanks b for posting Wikileak's skeptical take even as you wish to believe otherwise. That's
integrity. And to those who say Assange is only doing so to suck up belatedly to the US as a
possible defense strategy I can only SMH. More projection. This is what you might do maybe if
you were in his shoes.
This is so big of a news but the western media do not say a word about it!
This screams subversion, Gladio from the very top/deep state of western society.
Posted by: donkeytale | Nov 25, 2018 4:12:41 AM | 92
"And to those who say Assange is only doing so to suck up belatedly to the US as a
possible defense strategy I can only SMH. More projection. This is what you might do maybe if
you were in his shoes."
Who said that, donkeydumbass? Learn to read. I asked if the post-Assange Wikileaks might
be trying to do that. Of course I don't know what Assange himself might or might not do, any
more than you do.
The head of the French government's cyber security agency, which investigated leaks from
President Emmanuel Macron's election campaign, says they found no trace of a notorious
Russian hacking group behind the attack.
In an interview in his office Thursday with The Associated Press, Guillaume Poupard said
the Macron campaign hack "was so generic and simple that it could have been practically
anyone."
He said they found no trace that the Russian hacking group known as APT28, blamed for
other attacks including on the U.S. presidential campaign, was responsible.
Poupard is director general of the government cyber-defense agency known in France by its
acronym, ANSSI. Its experts were immediately dispatched when documents stolen from the Macron
campaign leaked online on May 5 in the closing hours of the presidential race.
Poupard says the attack's simplicity "means that we can imagine that it was a person who
did this alone. They could be in any country."
Some commentators claim that 'Anonymous' is an FBI operations and that lets them doubt
this issue.
Actually 'Anonymous' has been used as a cover by various shady agencies and individuals.
Everybody can publish whatever they want under the 'Anonymous' moniker. The moniker has no
credibility or meaning.
As always one has to distinguish between the source of information and the actual content
of the information.
Here the source is obviously shady. But the content, as far as I can tell, seems to be
real.
---
Also - don't feed the house troll. Craigsummers is allowed to comment here solely for our
amusement. There is no need to discuss whatever he posts.
It's crystal clear to me that the so-called "British" anti-Russia project is really
sponsored by the CIA. Most everything is. I think. How else are they keep their VERY
lucrative racket going?
In countries that may be hostile to this programme (Serbia, Spain, Italy for example), the
exposed cluster members should be immediately arrested as foreign spies and tried for
treason, and the exposed British Embassy contacts should be immediately expelled.
Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by
internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to
have been resolved and funding should now flow.
Interesting isn't it, that from March 2018 the Trump Administration is no longer blocking
this programme! When was Trump's first meeting with President Putin, wasn't that in March?
Immediately afterwards of course he was lambasted. Was he turned at that point?
"Edward Snowden accused an Israeli cybersecurity firm of developing and selling surveillance
software to Saudi Arabia, enabling the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi":
It's crystal clear to me that the so-called "British" anti-Russia project is really
sponsored by the CIA. Most everything is. I think. How else are they keep their VERY
lucrative racket going?
Nah. like Skripal this is a home grown effort. After backing that loser Clinton with the
Steele file, the British Conservative government which likes to have its head even further up
Washington's arse than Tony Blair's is scared shitless that Trump will shit on them from a
great height for backing his rival. I suspect he will wait for Brexit to go through and then
take a dump on them when they turn up with their begging bowl in Washington looking for a
"free trade deal". They're hoping that with these attacks on Russia they will ingratiate
themselves with the Washington foreign policy establishment (Pat Lang's Borg) enough to
reduce the incredible volumes of shit Trump would dump on them. It looks like it's working at
the moment, but then Trump is known to be capricious so its anybody's guess what happens
later. Bear in mind that if the Conservative government make enough mistakes, it's that
socialist Corbyn who replaces it which is its Worst. Nightmare. Evah.
The bottom line as Al Gore said is there is no overriding authority. Sites like Above Top
Secrect are obviously run by people who want things kept top secrect. Snopes revealed itself
with its take on the White Helmets in Syria. Remember when the Greenpeace guy turned out to
be a shill for Nuclear Energy.
Thank you. Very good covering of the 'event', written in clear accessible language.
I am afraid that what was discovered is only a small part of the ocean of lies in which they
are trying to force us to swim.
I am amazed how these people can sleep well. Rotten and lying through and through...
In fact, nothing "surprising" or "unbelievable" was found. Specialists, experts, as well
as ordinary people, who have been interested in the topic, have long understood that it is
about a targeted propaganda, which operates according to its laws. This propaganda calls
truth a lie, and a lie truth, it calls white black and black it calls white. The work of this
propaganda is also clearly visible, for example, when, on the eve of some important event,
the "world community" suddenly (mean, "suddenly") finds out something "sensational", while
MSM all start writing the same thing with a certain bias (often anti-Russian). The Russian
Foreign Ministry has repeatedly pointed out the obvious coordination of the work of the
Western media when it comes to 'anti-Russian news'. All these info are in briefings and
statements of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which are publicly available on the
Ministry's website.
Especially clearly a targeted coordinated work of propaganda was visible during the events
in Syria, in particular, during the liberation of Aleppo. Remember all these "the last
hospitals". Even high-ranking representatives of the UN, many of whom are essentially Western
protégés, were also participating in this propaganda. For those who are
interested in how this worked during the liberation of Aleppo, I recommend reading this in full. A
lot of interesting details.
One thing is good - that such info become publicly known. Maybe more people will wake up
and think about what is going on.
We have analyzed these documents and assess that a portion of them show hallmarks of being
fabrications.
This particular story might originate within MI6. If MI6 knew that the Russians had
gathered compromising information on this operation, MI6 would put out a story favourable to
them to capture the narrative before the Russians could. Like all black propaganda, they
would have to include some of the real truth to make the fake "truth" appear reliable. It
also allows the supposedly devious twats at MI6 to demonstrate their steadfastness in
"fighting" the Russians.
BTW, it's entirely possible that the Skripal incident was by the Russians but only
designed to incapacitate Skripal pere as a warning to him or MI6 to behave themselves and not
do stupid things in future but the Conservative government rather stupidly decided to put out
a bullshit narrative about what happened. Furthermore, don't forget that Churchill, the hero
of the Conservative Party used chemical weapons against the Russians/Soviets. Most Brit's
probably never knew or have forgotten but I doubt the Russians have or ever will.
We have analyzed these documents and assess that a portion of them show hallmarks of being
fabrications.
I have no idea what the Wikileaks folks mean. I did not notice any signs of fakery in
the stash.
Posted by: b | Nov 25, 2018 2:25:31 AM | 87
The best way the elite can undermine wikileaks is to infiltrate it and undermine it from
within, as they did to Amnesty International, and later Human Rights Watch, both of which are
completely controlled by US and UK intelligence services. I think it is a given that they
will have successfully infiltrated wikileaks - because I think it is impossible that
wikileaks could have avoided it completely, but lets hope that wikileaks keep up sufficient
defences to isolate the infiltration and limit its damage. With the current threats to
Assange that will be a big challenge!
If, as I suspect, this claim that the documents were fake was being pushed by an
infiltrator, then that infiltrator is raising flags to himself, so it is a high risk action
and emphasises the desperation the elite are in, that they are willing to burn a key
asset.
The docs are fakes? I don't think so, there's just too much detail and the names it exposes,
Aaronovich, Marcus (BBC), the financing. It's an awful lot of exposing in order to mislead us
don't you think? And if it was, it was one, gigantic failure!
The best way is to see how the MSM deal with it, if at all, so today for example, there's
been no mention on the BBC's RSS feed and there was none yesterday. I'd say that judging by
the nature and structure of the 'Institute of Statecraft', it's straight out of
Whitehall.
my apologies for my truncated response. what i'd meant to say is that we're talking past
one another. my fault entirely, as i never should have brought wheeler into the discussion,
and derailed my larger point. but i got in a hurry, and that was that.
but to those wondering why 'assange' would have noted that 'some portions have been
fabricated', asange notably has been incommunicado for the past seven months, and any
'visitors' (really just his legal team) are forced to surrender all their communication
device before entering the embassy. so who on the Wikileaks team had decided that is
unknowable, of course. but on one of the subtweets where b had noted jakub janda's pride in
being part of the organization (nice catch, by the way, b) one idiot linked to his home
website noting that assange is a Mossad operative.
when i'd been contemplating writing some of up, i will say that my favorite part was the
handbook, most especially this great psyop:
"What funding do they have/have access to/need? Caution! This is always a very sensitive
issue. NB 1 If asked about money for funding activities of a cluster, always be firmly vague
and helpfully uninformative and at all costs avoid making any funding commitments until we
have discussed it! NB 2 When talking about the Institute, be sure you can explain clearly
what we are and what we do. NB 3 if asked about our funding, be very clear: the Integrity
Initiative is funded by the Institute for Statecraft. The IfS gets its funding from multiple
sources to ensure its independence. These include: private individuals; charitable
foundations; international organisations (EU, NATO); UK Govt (FCO, MOD"
one commenter on the cyber guerilla doc dump page had noted: 'Propagandist Stephen Dalziel
is a given a regular platform by Monocle 24 in the UK and rebroadcast around the world.
Dalziel shills for the fraud "Bellingcat".'
And what is the difference between the MbS treatment of "unpleasant" Khashoggi and the US/UK
treatment of "unpleasant" Assange?
The absolute majority of the "progressives" and "liberals" in both the US and the UK are
sheepishly quiet when the most important journalist of our times, Julian Assange, has been
smeared and his life endangered by the kangaroo courts of the western corrupt judiciary.
mike k: "The US Mafia Government kangaroo court gathers it's phony "legal" forces,
salivating in anticipation of Assange as a choice morsel for it's evil appetite. Their
"logic" goes like this, "if we say you are guilty, then you are guilty".
And where is the zionized MSM? -- With the kangaroo courts, of course, working in a accord
with the mega war profiteers and other big-time criminals.
In France, last Pres. election, the favored candidate from the right (Républicains)
was Alain Juppé. As the F establishment likes to mimic the US in all ways, they
instored 'primaires' - primaries, to 'elect' 'the most popular candidate' from the two main
parties. As the French don't glom the depth of corruption of the US system and how to do
that, and just love - for all kinds of reasons - such gadgets, the vote at the
Républicain table (even the name is a tribute) turned out surprise to be for Francois
Fillon - who was (is) Catholic, pro-Russia, while your standard right-wing F-flavored stooge.
He was brought down speedily in a corruption scandal, for hiring his wife and children
amongst others to do no work or symbolic stuff. One third of F Parliament members do this
(off the cuff nos., but attested to ..), it is completely accepted. An allowed 'perk' - a way
to spend the budgets > 'favored' 'loyal' ppl.
The effiency and speed of this attack surprised me. Fillon - no fool - 'withdrew' so to
speak and made no waves beyond the acceptable i.e. stalwart opposition / defense at first,
then went to work for a Financial Co. All the hype about suing the wife, about getting money
back, whatever, died pronto.
I have no idea how this was organised. (The left was conveniently split.. between the
entrenched "Socialists" and "Mélenchon," France Insoumise ) and so the end-run
was between the vilified National Front (renamed now) Marine Le Pen, party which survives
only as they play their puppet role to guarantee they collect low-class opposition to then
always lose facing either the Socialists or the Républicains.
Syria Urges U.N. to Condemn Rebels After Apparent Chemical Attack
Syria accused rebel forces of launching an attack in Aleppo that sent scores of choking
victims to hospitals. Medical officials suspected chlorine had been used.
Characteristically, the attack is "apparent", but almost strangely, NYT reported Reuters
news providing an inconvenient story rather fast.
If some at least of the documents are fabrications, the plan of the Western intelligence
agencies may be to expose some false details in the documents to discredit the whole story.
So, what several posters here are now stating or at least implying is the @wikileaks account
is basically the same as "Anonymous"? That is, it is merely a cover used by shadowy
individuals and therefore no longer possesses any credibility unless it posts something with
which we can all agree?
And the thoughts it expressed do not necessarily bear any relationship to Julian
Assange?
Unless, of course, we agree with those thoughts?
Blooming Barricade , Nov 25, 2018 10:50:38 AM |
link
The Integrity Initiative is now trying to smear and attack Seumas Milne, Jeremy Corbyn's
communications director and a key voice on the anti-war, anti-capitalist left, tweeting a
Times article that appears to have been contributed to by them. They also retweeted Michael
Weiss on Milne, who they appear to want to remove from a future Corbyn government in the vein
of that Spanish minister This should be a HUGE scandal given that this is funded by the UK
government and thus the Tory administration and is thus GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA against the
leader of the opposition, paid for by the taxpayer and in line with big business/military
Euro-Atlanticist lobby. Thanks to the digital urban guerrilla site for exposing this assault
on socialism and the public. https://twitter.com/InitIntegrity/status/1066691553350086656
Best MoA blockbuster yet!!! Somewhere down there Joseph Goebbels is gazing upward at all this
exposed chicanery, eyes shining with delight, and also green with envy.
Goebbels was a rank amateur and grossly overrated - he could do white propaganda when
things were going well for the Nazis which wasn't difficult, otherwise he was useless. When
things started to go bad for the Nazis, the British, particularly Sefton Delmer, started
running rings around him. The Americans really never understood black propaganda but why
should they, and the British are still trying to fight World War 11 with their black
propaganda and are still losing.
These kind of propaganda campaigns end up as own goals for the establishment. Peons and serfs
don't need to know what is going on, but the Dear Leaders' functionaries do need accurate
info in order to make correct decisions that further establishment goals. With all the smoke
and chaos of conflicting stories, can bureaucrats keep their lies straight? I think not.
As I understand it, glowing but inaccurate fabricated reports submitted to the former
German Democratic Republic (East Germany) Dear Leaders left them unable to comprehend just
how unhappy the GDR citizens actually were, so the collapse came as a surprise. [1] We can
see this happening in Afghanistan today. The Pentagon insists they are "winning" while the
Taliban-controlled territory continues to increase. When Uncle Sam is finally driven out, it
will come as a complete surprise to the DC Dunces who believe their own phony reports.
[1] Fulbrook, Mary; Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR 1949-1989; Oxford University
Books; 1995
Just imagine the response and publicity if this was a Russian government funded organization,
having a network of agents of influence groups of people in western europe...
reply to Russ 89
"Who's running the show at Wikileaks by now?"
Good question. Do you recall when Assange's attorney was killed when pushed in front of a
train at the time the Wikileaks founder Gavin Macfadyen died?
The staff roster at Wikileaks then went through an almost total turnover and there were
reports that someone was escorted from the building with a bag over their head and there were
reports that Assange's deadman switch was activated but stopped. All this occurred back in
2016.
The reason no one who knows Assange is being allowed physical contact may be because someone
else is in his place.I have a sad feeling that he is in a Langley basement.
on sept. 26, 2018 julian assange had named Kristinn Hrafnsson of iceland as the new
editor-in-chief of wikileaks. at that time julian had been cut off from communicating for six
months.
an hour ago wikileaks had tweeted:
@wikileaks: WikiLeaks Retweeted Integrity Initiative 'UK government backed anti-Russian
influence network account for "Integrity Initiative" confirms release of documents.'
@InitIntegrity 'Here is our statement on the recent publication by Russian media of hacked
Integrity Initiative documents.'
they offered some caveats, among them:
"We have not yet had the chance to analyse all of the documents, so cannot say with
confidence whether they are all genuine or whether they include doctored or false material.
Although it is clear that much of the material was indeed on the Integrity Initiative or
Institute systems, much of it is dated and was never used. In particular, many of the names
published were on an internal list of experts in this field who had been considered as
potential invitees to future cooperation. In the event, many were never contacted by the
Integrity Initiative and did not contribute to it. Nor were these documents therefore
included in any funding proposals. Not only did these individuals have nothing to do with the
programme – they may not even have heard of us. We are of course trying to contact all
named individuals for whom we have contact details to ensure that they are aware of what has
happened."
now my guess, fwiw, is that the WL knows chapter and verse how the CIA vault 7 revelations
can be used to create false email addresses, etc., so perhaps they'd spotted some.
but assange's attorney jennifer robinson did get to see him on nov. 16.
Thus is an extraordinary article. It describes distilled hypocrisy on the part of the U.S.
and U.K. who have conniptions over Russian "meddling," that has proved to be thin gruel
indeed, but who organize a vast, expensive enterprise of their own to implement
disinformation and smear campaigns to influence the internal affairs of other countries and
friendly ones at that. Russia purchases a modest message on Twitter (?) and that is an attack
on "our democracy."The attack on the now oddly-sequestered Skripals is an epic East Asian
fire drill with Theresa May written all over it and it sure as hell has nothing "made in
Moscow" about it.
Anne Appelebaum and the other "journalists" have some 'splainin' to do about what
independent, unbiased journalists are doing as players in government propaganda
organizations.
Look y'all, @craigsummers is a paid troll. So all your responses are earning him or her
income. Trolling is an art form. b, you could regularly remined new readers to ignore mwn.
Anton from Russia , Nov 27, 2018 5:14:22 AM |
link
I am Russian, live in Russia.
This is the most interesting journalistic investigation I've read in the last six months.
Thanks.
Most of all I am surprised, the whole world is in economic crisis, people in developed
countries are becoming poorer. Britain has an external debt of 7.5 trillion-314% of GDP. But
all useless garbage the money is. And most importantly, Why?
We all (USA, Russia, Britain, EU) are just village losers who fight in a roadside ditch,
proving that "I am good, they are bad".
And at this time past us at full speed is a huge Chinese train.
Anton from Russia , Nov 27, 2018 5:42:03 AM |
link
And the destruction of the MH-17 Boeing by the Russians is also disinformation.
Do you know what the official version of the investigation is?
"Once upon a time. One air defense "Buk" secretly arrived from Russia, shot once, one rocket,
in one civil plane, and left back to Russia" (facepalm). Seriously, I'm not kidding, this
nonsense is the official version.
The involvement of several dozen Ukrainian air defense " Buk " located in the area of the
disaster, not even considered.
No one knows what they were doing.
All photos of "wandering, mad Russian "Buk" were false.
But sanctions imposed by the EU after the disaster, no one is going to cancel. And to
assume aloud "that" new authorities" of Ukraine at which hands on an elbow in blood " can be
guilty of accident, it is impossible, taboo.
Emmanuel Goldstein , Nov 27, 2018 5:45:32 AM |
link
Gateside Mills in rural Fife is the official headquarters of the controversial
Institute for Statecraft (IFS) – a "think tank" set up to combat Russian
disinformation.
For the tiny number of people aware of its existence, Gateside Mills is a derelict building
in rural Fife without any obvious signs of life.
Anyone curious enough to carry out further investigation might find a seemingly small
Scottish charity is registered there.
But the Sunday Mail can reveal the crumbling Victorian mill is actually the official
headquarters of the controversial Institute for Statecraft (IFS) – a shadowy "think
tank" whose Integrity Initiative programme has been set up to combat Russian
propaganda.
Leaked documents prove the organisation received hundreds of thousands of pounds of
funding from the British Government via the Foreign Office.
...
The manager of the Integrity Initiative appears to be Christopher Donnelly.
A website biography states he is a graduate of Manchester University and reserve officer
in the British Army Intelligence Corps who previously headed the British Army's Soviet
Studies Research Centre at Sandhurst.
Between 1989 and 2003, he was a special adviser to Nato Secretaries General and was
involved in dealing with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and reform of newly
emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe.
He left NATO in 2003 to set up and run the UK Defence Academy's Advanced Research and
Assessment Group. In 2010, he became a director of IFS.
Russia are the problem along with China, because they both oppose their NWO agenda! This
agenda has been getting pushed from UK for decades now. It first started back in 1800's, but
now is world wide. The Corporate & Bankers want complete control of all economies &
jobs.
This way they control everything, where and who manufactures what and how much, all
controlled by Corporations. Governments become non existent, as do the Electorate. This would
have been obvious IF all TPP-TTIP-CETA Treaties had been signed. We'd have had one huge
Single Market that excluded BRICS, who'd have been forced in by war!
To their end, 'deep state; then attacked Rouseff in Brazil, had her 'impeached' and placed
their puppet Temer in charge, as an 'anchor' to BRICS, as well as creating problems in ME,
where China's One Belt One Road [New Silk Road] crosses continents.
The more people become aware of their intentions, the harder it becomes for them to win, as
they are now losing ground all round the world. The last two, Israel & UK are about to
fall. Netinyahoo has been charged with Corruption and May in UK, is on the verge of being
brought down, after being the first PM to be charged and found guilty of Contempt for
Parliament! Next to fall, the corrupt EU.
"... This is the context in which to see the blatant, dangerous gambits to wreck the Buenos Aires gathering of leaders, and any other such future opportunity, coming from the British Empire crowd, in the form of staged confrontations, lies and subversion. ..."
"... Look at recent destabilizing events: the Nov. 24 chemical weapons attack on Syrians in Aleppo; the stoking of suffering and strife at the Mexico-U.S. border; and on Nov. 25, Ukraine's naval provocation against Russia in the Black Sea. The British government asset, the "Integrity Initiative" is fully deployed to goad the U.S. and Western Europe to launch an offensive against Russia over the Ukraine incident, blaming Russia for "aggression" against Ukraine. The British imperialists are making a habit of exposing their own role in demanding world war! ..."
"... These provocations are not a sign of power, but of desperation, desperation to stop the spreading success of the New Paradigm of collaborative development expressed in the Belt and Road Initiative, and what lies ahead if the U.S. joins up. Schiller Institute Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche today emphasized that each time the British Imperialist apparatus steps forward in its own name to sabotage world peace, it works to the detriment of their dying system. The Empire is dangerous, but all the easier to crush. ..."
We are in a showdown moment. At this week's Group of 20 Summit -- only three days away, in
Buenos Aires, there is the potential for Great Power diplomacy in the direction of a New
Paradigm of foreign relations, as an outcome of the sideline meetings of heads of state and
government of the United States, China, Russia, India and others.
The growing momentum for New Paradigm economic development is seen in high-level events this
month in six Western European nations: in Germany, the "Hamburg Summit: China Meets Europe"
(Nov. 26-27); in France, the Lyon "Franco-Chinese Forum" (Nov. 26-28); in Spain, President Xi
Jinping's state visit (Nov. 27-29); in Portugal, Xi's visit (Dec. 4-5); in Italy, a new
Xinhua-associated Italian financial media service will be set up (Nov. 6 agreement); in Norway,
the first Polar Route icebreaker delivery of Yamal LNG, for transshipment from the northern
port of Honnigsvag.
This is the context in which to see the blatant, dangerous gambits to wreck the Buenos Aires
gathering of leaders, and any other such future opportunity, coming from the British Empire
crowd, in the form of staged confrontations, lies and subversion.
Look at recent destabilizing events: the Nov. 24 chemical weapons attack on Syrians in
Aleppo; the stoking of suffering and strife at the Mexico-U.S. border; and on Nov. 25,
Ukraine's naval provocation against Russia in the Black Sea. The British government asset, the
"Integrity Initiative" is fully deployed to goad the U.S. and Western Europe to launch an
offensive against Russia over the Ukraine incident, blaming Russia for "aggression" against
Ukraine. The British imperialists are making a habit of exposing their own role in demanding
world war!
These provocations are not a sign of power, but of desperation, desperation to stop the
spreading success of the New Paradigm of collaborative development expressed in the Belt and
Road Initiative, and what lies ahead if the U.S. joins up. Schiller Institute Chairwoman Helga
Zepp-LaRouche today emphasized that each time the British Imperialist apparatus steps forward
in its own name to sabotage world peace, it works to the detriment of their dying system. The
Empire is dangerous, but all the easier to crush.
The Nov. 25 Ukrainian naval breach of Russian territorial waters was long pre-planned. As
the Italian military journal Difesa Online wrote on Nov. 25, "it was evident to all
those who follow local events that for some days already, the Poroshenko government in Ukraine
was trying to provoke an armed confrontation with Moscow in the Crimean waters." Russian
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, said the same yesterday, adding a warning. "We
are talking about a pre-planned, deliberate, and now realized large-scale provocation.... I
think everybody should be careful next time. I think there will be a next time, considering
what is happening now."
President Donald Trump's first response to the Ukraine incident, Nov. 26, was to express
concern, and hopes for settlement. "We do not like what's happening, either way; ... hopefully,
it will get straightened out." President Vladimir Putin will issue his statement on this
incident in a few days.
From London, however, comes a raving "script" of what Trump and the West must do against
Russia. It is the featured item on the website of the Integrity Initiative, which is a British
intelligence black war propaganda operation. Its funding is from the U.K. Foreign and
Commonwealth Office. Its Nov. 26 posting is titled, "West Is Once Again Failing Test Set by
Russian Aggression," by Edward Lucas, formerly of The Economist , and a longtime
Russia-hater, who wrote such books as Deception: Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the
West (2012) and The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West (2nd
ed., 2014). Lucas calls for "kinetic, symbolic, and financial measures" against Russia. This is
to include, the West sending military aid to Ukraine, running a NATO flotilla to the Ukrainian
port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, putting sanctions on Russian officials and businessmen
present in the West, and cutting Russia off from Western finance. Lucas says that the West
didn't act against Nazi Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland, but they must act now against
Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
Lucas is part of the British "cluster" of Integrity Initiative's operatives, which also
includes former British Ambassador to Russia Sir Andrew Wood of Orbis Business Intelligence,
the firm of "former" MI6 agent Christopher Steele, who fabricated the infamous anti-Trump
dossier. These figures are at the heart of the coup operations against Trump, and before that,
the Obama Administration election subversion.
Zepp-LaRouche nailed the Integrity Initiative in a Sputnik interview published yesterday,
now being run in media internationally. She said that the group's activity displays the "
modus operandi of British intelligence operations, and it very well may turn out, that
it is this network, which is deeply involved in 'Russiagate' and the entire coup against
President Trump."
"... Non-elite members of the Party -- functionaries -- mistake their "secret" knowledge as professional courtesy rather than as perquisite and status marker. (I don't suppose it's a secret to anyone that the US CIA regularly plants stories in the NYTimes and elsewhere... unless you weren't paying attention in the strident disinfo campaign prior to the Iraq invasion.) ..."
Howard Zinn said, in a speech given shortly after the 2008 Presidential election, "If you don't know history, it's like you were
born yesterday. The government can tell you anything." (Speech was played on DemocracyNow www.democracynow.org about Jan. 4, 2009
and is archived, free on the website.)
Being older (18 on my last Leap Year birthday - 72), I recall the NYTimes and CIA have had relationship with, and was caught
having "planted CIA workers" as NYTimes writers. Within my adult lifetime, in fact.
This is what the CIA reflexively does: insists that [...] it is an "intelligence matter".
In a sense the CIA is always going to be right on this one - "Central Intelligence Agency" - but only as a matter of nomenclature,
rather than of any other dictionary definition of the word "intelligence".
Actually the collusion between the CIA and big business is far more damaging. The first US company I worked for in Brussels (it
was my first job) was constantly being targeted by the US media for having connections to corrupt South American and Third World
regimes. On what seemed like an almost monthly basis our personnel department would send round memos saying that we were strictly
forbidden to talk to journalists about the latest exposé.
It was great fun - even the telex operators knew who the spies were.
The line "'The optics aren't what they look like,' is truly an instant classic. It reminds me of one of my favorite Yogi Berra
quotes (which, unlike many attributed to him, is real, I think). Yogi once said about a restaurant in New York "Nobody goes there
anymore. It's too crowded." Perhaps Yogi should become an editor for the Times.
British readers will no doubt be shocked -- shocked! -- to learn of cozy relations between a major news organization and a national
intelligence agency.
"'I know the circumstances, and if you knew everything that's going on, you'd know it's much ado about nothing,' Baquet
said. 'I can't go into in detail. But I'm confident after talking to Mark that it's much ado about nothing.'
"'The optics aren't what they look like,' he went on. 'I've talked to Mark, I know the circumstance, and given what I know,
it's much ado about nothing.'"
How can you have a Party if you don't have Party elites?
And how can a self-respecting member of the Party claim their individual status within the Party without secret knowledge designed
to identify one another as members of the Party elite?
[Proles are] natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection, like animals ... Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance
not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals the Party was trying to achieve. ... The
ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering -- a world of of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines
and terrifying weapons -- a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts
and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting -- 300 million people all with the same
face. The reality was decaying, dingy cities, where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes... [
1984 ,pp 73-74]
It makes no difference if an imagined socialist England, a collapsing Roman city-state empire, an actual Soviet Union, or a
modern American oligarchy.
Party members thrive while those wretched proles flail in confused and hungry desperation for something authentic (like a George
Bush) or even simply reassuring (like a Barack Obama.)
Non-elite members of the Party -- functionaries -- mistake their "secret" knowledge as professional courtesy rather than
as perquisite and status marker. (I don't suppose it's a secret to anyone that the US CIA regularly plants stories in the NYTimes
and elsewhere... unless you weren't paying attention in the strident disinfo campaign prior to the Iraq invasion.)
Manzetti has "no bad intent" because he is loyal to the Party.
Like all loyal (and very well compensated) Party members, he would never do anything as subversive as reveal Party secrets.
"... The term is used as a catchall for anything that smacks of deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation or fiscal austerity. Today it is routinely reviled as a shorthand for the ideas and practices that have produced growing economic insecurity and inequality, led to the loss of our political values and ideals, and even precipitated our current populist backlash ..."
"... The use of the term "neoliberal" exploded in the 1990s, when it became closely associated with two developments, neither of which Peters's article had mentioned. One of these was financial deregulation, which would culminate in the 2008 financial crash and in the still-lingering euro debacle . The second was economic globalisation, which accelerated thanks to free flows of finance and to a new, more ambitious type of trade agreement. Financialisation and globalisation have become the most overt manifestations of neoliberalism in today's world. ..."
"... That neoliberalism is a slippery, shifting concept, with no explicit lobby of defenders, does not mean that it is irrelevant or unreal. ..."
"... homo economicus ..."
"... A version of this article first appeared in Boston Review ..."
"... Main illustration by Eleanor Shakespeare ..."
As even its harshest critics concede, neoliberalism is hard to pin down. In broad terms, it denotes a preference for markets over
government, economic incentives over cultural norms, and private entrepreneurship over collective action. It has been used to describe
a wide range of phenomena – from Augusto Pinochet to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, from the Clinton Democrats and the UK's
New Labour to the economic opening in China and the reform of the welfare state in Sweden.
The term is used as a catchall for anything that smacks of deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation or fiscal austerity.
Today it is routinely reviled as a shorthand for the ideas and practices that have produced growing economic insecurity and inequality,
led to the loss of our political values and ideals, and even precipitated our current populist backlash .
We live in the age of neoliberalism, apparently. But who are neoliberalism's adherents and disseminators – the neoliberals themselves?
Oddly, you have to go back a long time to find anyone explicitly embracing neoliberalism. In 1982, Charles Peters, the longtime editor
of the political magazine Washington Monthly, published an essay titled
A Neo-Liberal's Manifesto . It makes for interesting reading 35 years later, since the neoliberalism it describes bears little
resemblance to today's target of derision. The politicians Peters names as exemplifying the movement are not the likes of Thatcher
and Reagan, but rather liberals – in the US sense of the word – who have become disillusioned with unions and big government and
dropped their prejudices against markets and the military.
The use of the term "neoliberal" exploded in the 1990s, when it became closely associated with two developments, neither of
which Peters's article had mentioned. One of these was financial deregulation, which would culminate in the 2008
financial
crash and in the still-lingering euro debacle
. The second was economic globalisation, which accelerated thanks to free flows of finance and to a new, more ambitious type of trade
agreement. Financialisation and globalisation have become the most overt manifestations of neoliberalism in today's world.
That neoliberalism is a slippery, shifting concept, with no explicit lobby of defenders, does not mean that it is irrelevant
or unreal. Who can deny that the world has experienced a decisive shift toward markets from the 1980s on? Or that centre-left
politicians – Democrats in the US, socialists and social democrats in Europe – enthusiastically adopted some of the central creeds
of Thatcherism and Reaganism, such as deregulation, privatisation, financial liberalisation and individual enterprise? Much of our
contemporary policy discussion remains infused with principles supposedly grounded in the concept of
homo economicus
, the perfectly rational human being, found in many economic theories, who always pursues his own self-interest.
But the looseness of the term neoliberalism also means that criticism of it often misses the mark. There is nothing wrong with
markets, private entrepreneurship or incentives – when deployed appropriately. Their creative use lies behind the most significant
economic achievements of our time. As we heap scorn on neoliberalism, we risk throwing out some of neoliberalism's useful ideas.
The real trouble is that mainstream economics shades too easily into ideology, constraining the choices that we appear to have
and providing cookie-cutter solutions. A proper understanding of the economics that lie behind neoliberalism would allow us to identify
– and to reject – ideology when it masquerades as economic science. Most importantly, it would help us to develop the institutional
imagination we badly need to redesign capitalism for the 21st century.
N eoliberalism is typically understood as being based on key tenets of mainstream economic science. To see those tenets without
the ideology, consider this thought experiment. A well-known and highly regarded economist lands in a country he has never visited
and knows nothing about. He is brought to a meeting with the country's leading policymakers. "Our country is in trouble," they tell
him. "The economy is stagnant, investment is low, and there is no growth in sight." They turn to him expectantly: "Please tell us
what we should do to make our economy grow."
The economist pleads ignorance and explains that he knows too little about the country to make any recommendations. He would need
to study the history of the economy, to analyse the statistics, and to travel around the country before he could say anything.
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest Tony Blair and Bill Clinton: centre-left politicians who enthusiastically adopted some of the central creeds of Thatcherism
and Reaganism. Photograph: Reuters
But his hosts are insistent. "We understand your reticence, and we wish you had the time for all that," they tell him. "But isn't
economics a science, and aren't you one of its most distinguished practitioners? Even though you do not know much about our economy,
surely there are some general theories and prescriptions you can share with us to guide our economic policies and reforms."
The economist is now in a bind. He does not want to emulate those economic gurus he has long criticised for peddling their favourite
policy advice. But he feels challenged by the question. Are there universal truths in economics? Can he say anything valid or useful?
So he begins. The efficiency with which an economy's resources are allocated is a critical determinant of the economy's performance,
he says. Efficiency, in turn, requires aligning the incentives of households and businesses with social costs and benefits. The incentives
faced by entrepreneurs, investors and producers are particularly important when it comes to economic growth. Growth needs a system
of property rights and contract enforcement that will ensure those who invest can retain the returns on their investments. And the
economy must be open to ideas and innovations from the rest of the world.
But economies can be derailed by macroeconomic instability, he goes on. Governments must therefore pursue a sound
monetary policy , which means restricting the growth of liquidity to the increase in nominal money demand at reasonable inflation.
They must ensure fiscal sustainability, so that the increase in public debt does not outpace national income. And they must carry
out prudential regulation of banks and other financial institutions to prevent the financial system from taking excessive risk.
Now he is warming to his task. Economics is not just about efficiency and growth, he adds. Economic principles also carry over
to equity and social policy. Economics has little to
say about how much redistribution a society should seek. But it does tell us that the tax base should be as broad as possible, and
that social programmes should be designed in a way that does not encourage workers to drop out of the labour market.
By the time the economist stops, it appears as if he has laid out a fully fledged neoliberal agenda. A critic in the audience
will have heard all the code words: efficiency, incentives, property rights, sound money, fiscal prudence. And yet the universal
principles that the economist describes are in fact quite open-ended. They presume a capitalist economy – one in which investment
decisions are made by private individuals and firms – but not much beyond that. They allow for – indeed, they require – a surprising
variety of institutional arrangements.
So has the economist just delivered a neoliberal screed? We would be mistaken to think so, and our mistake would consist of associating
each abstract term – incentives, property rights, sound money – with a particular institutional counterpart. And therein lies the
central conceit, and the fatal flaw, of neoliberalism: the belief that first-order economic principles map on to a unique set of
policies, approximated by a Thatcher/Reagan-style agenda.
Consider property rights. They matter insofar as they allocate returns on investments. An optimal system would distribute property
rights to those who would make the best use of an asset, and afford protection against those most likely to expropriate the returns.
Property rights are good when they protect innovators from free riders, but they are bad when they protect them from competition.
Depending on the context, a legal regime that provides the appropriate incentives can look quite different from the standard US-style
regime of private property rights.
This may seem like a semantic point with little practical import; but China's phenomenal economic success is largely due to its
orthodoxy-defying institutional tinkering. China turned to markets, but did not copy western practices in property rights. Its reforms
produced market-based incentives through a series of unusual institutional arrangements that were better adapted to the local context.
Rather than move directly from state to private ownership, for example, which would have been stymied by the weakness of the prevailing
legal structures, the country relied on mixed forms of ownership that provided more effective property rights for entrepreneurs in
practice. Township and Village Enterprises (TVEs), which spearheaded Chinese economic growth during the 1980s, were collectives owned
and controlled by local governments. Even though TVEs were publicly owned, entrepreneurs received the protection they needed against
expropriation. Local governments had a direct stake in the profits of the firms, and hence did not want to kill the goose that lays
the golden eggs.
China relied on a range of such innovations, each delivering the economist's higher-order economic principles in unfamiliar institutional
arrangements. For instance, it shielded its large state sector from global competition, establishing special economic zones where
foreign firms could operate with different rules than in the rest of the economy. In view of such departures from orthodox blueprints,
describing China's economic reforms as neoliberal – as critics are inclined to do – distorts more than it reveals. If we are to call
this neoliberalism, we must surely look more kindly on the ideas behind the most dramatic
poverty reduction in history.
One might protest that China's institutional innovations were purely transitional. Perhaps it will have to converge on western-style
institutions to sustain its economic progress. But this common line of thinking overlooks the diversity of capitalist arrangements
that still prevails among advanced economies, despite the considerable homogenisation of our policy discourse.
What, after all, are western institutions? The size of the public sector in OECD countries varies, from a third of the economy
in Korea to nearly 60% in Finland. In Iceland, 86% of workers are members of a trade union; the comparable number in Switzerland
is just 16%. In the US, firms can fire workers almost at will;
French
labour laws have historically required employers to jump through many hoops first. Stock markets have grown to a total value
of nearly one-and-a-half times GDP in the US; in Germany, they are only a third as large, equivalent to just 50% of GDP.
The idea that any one of these models of taxation, labour relations or financial organisation is inherently superior to the others
is belied by the varying economic fortunes that each of these economies have experienced over recent decades. The US has gone through
successive periods of angst in which its economic institutions were judged inferior to those in Germany, Japan, China, and now possibly
Germany again. Certainly, comparable levels of wealth and productivity can be produced under very different models of capitalism.
We might even go a step further: today's prevailing models probably come nowhere near exhausting the range of what might be possible,
and desirable, in the future.
The visiting economist in our thought experiment knows all this, and recognises that the principles he has enunciated need to
be filled in with institutional detail before they become operational. Property rights? Yes, but how? Sound money? Of course, but
how? It would perhaps be easier to criticise his list of principles for being vacuous than to denounce it as a neoliberal screed.
Still, these principles are not entirely content-free. China, and indeed all countries that managed to develop rapidly, demonstrate
the utility of those principles once they are properly adapted to local context. Conversely, too many economies have been driven
to ruin courtesy of political leaders who chose to violate them. We need look no further than
Latin American populists or eastern European communist regimes to appreciate the practical significance of sound money, fiscal
sustainability and private incentives.
O f course, economics goes beyond a list of abstract, largely common-sense principles. Much of the work of economists consists
of developing
stylised models of how economies work and then confronting those models with evidence. Economists tend to think of what they
do as progressively refining their understanding of the world: their models are supposed to get better and better as they are tested
and revised over time. But progress in economics happens differently.
Economists study a social reality that is unlike the physical universe. It is completely manmade, highly malleable and operates
according to different rules across time and space. Economics
advances not by settling on the right model or theory to answer such questions, but by improving our understanding of the diversity
of causal relationships. Neoliberalism and its customary remedies – always more markets, always less government – are in fact a perversion
of mainstream economics. Good economists know that the correct answer to any question in economics is: it depends.
Does an increase in the minimum wage depress employment? Yes, if the labour market is really competitive and employers have no
control over the wage they must pay to attract workers; but not necessarily otherwise. Does trade liberalisation increase economic
growth? Yes, if it increases the profitability of industries where the bulk of investment and innovation takes place; but not otherwise.
Does more government spending increase employment? Yes, if there is slack in the economy and wages do not rise; but not otherwise.
Does monopoly harm innovation? Yes and no, depending on a whole host of market circumstances.
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Pinterest 'Today [neoliberalism] is routinely reviled as a shorthand for the ideas that have produced growing economic inequality
and precipitated our current populist backlash' Trump signing an order to take the US out of the TPP trade pact. Photograph: AFP/Getty
In economics, new models rarely supplant older models. The basic competitive-markets model dating back to Adam Smith has been
modified over time by the inclusion, in rough historical order, of monopoly, externalities, scale economies, incomplete and asymmetric
information, irrational behaviour and many other real-world features. But the older models remain as useful as ever. Understanding
how real markets operate necessitates using different lenses at different times.
Perhaps maps offer the best analogy. Just like economic models, maps are
highly stylised representations
of reality . They are useful precisely because they abstract from many real-world details that would get in the way. But abstraction
also implies that we need a different map depending on the nature of our journey. If we are travelling by bike, we need a map of
bike trails. If we are to go on foot, we need a map of footpaths. If a new subway is constructed, we will need a subway map – but
we wouldn't throw out the older maps.
Economists tend to be very good at making maps, but not good enough at choosing the one most suited to the task at hand. When
confronted with policy questions of the type our visiting economist faces, too many of them resort to "benchmark" models that favour
the
laissez-faire
approach. Kneejerk solutions and hubris replace the richness and humility of the discussion in the seminar room. John Maynard
Keynes once defined economics as the "science of thinking in terms of models, joined to the art of choosing models which are relevant".
Economists typically have trouble with the "art" part.
This, too, can be illustrated with a parable. A journalist calls an economics professor for his view on whether free trade is
a good idea. The professor responds enthusiastically in the affirmative. The journalist then goes undercover as a student in the
professor's advanced graduate seminar on international trade. He poses the same question: is free trade good? This time the professor
is stymied. "What do you mean by 'good'?" he responds. "And good for whom?" The professor then launches into an extensive exegesis
that will ultimately culminate in a heavily hedged statement: "So if the long list of conditions I have just described are satisfied,
and assuming we can tax the beneficiaries to compensate the losers, freer trade has the potential to increase everyone's wellbeing."
If he is in an expansive mood, the professor might add that the effect of free trade on an economy's longterm growth rate is not
clear either, and would depend on an altogether different set of requirements.
This professor is rather different from the one the journalist encountered previously. On the record, he exudes self-confidence,
not reticence, about the appropriate policy. There is one and only one model, at least as far as the public conversation is concerned,
and there is a single correct answer, regardless of context. Strangely, the professor deems the knowledge that he imparts to his
advanced students to be inappropriate (or dangerous) for the general public. Why?
The roots of such behaviour lie deep in the culture of the economics profession. But one important motive is the zeal to display
the profession's crown jewels – market efficiency, the invisible hand, comparative advantage – in untarnished form, and to shield
them from attack by self-interested barbarians, namely
the protectionists . Unfortunately, these economists typically ignore the barbarians on the other side of the issue – financiers
and multinational corporations whose motives are no purer and who are all too ready to hijack these ideas for their own benefit.
As a result, economists' contributions to public debate are often biased in one direction, in favour of more trade, more finance
and less government. That is why economists have developed a reputation as cheerleaders for neoliberalism, even if mainstream economics
is very far from a paean to laissez-faire. The economists who let their enthusiasm for free markets run wild are in fact not being
true to their own discipline.
H ow then should we think about globalisation in order to liberate it from the grip of neoliberal practices? We must begin by
understanding the positive potential of global markets. Access to world markets in goods, technologies and capital has played an
important role in virtually all of the economic miracles of our time. China is the most recent and powerful reminder of this historical
truth, but it is not the only case. Before China, similar miracles were performed by South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and a few non-Asian
countries such as
Mauritius . All of these countries embraced globalisation rather than turn their backs on it, and they benefited handsomely.
Defenders of the existing economic order will quickly point to these examples when globalisation comes into question. What they
will fail to say is that almost all of these countries joined the world economy by violating neoliberal strictures. South Korea and
Taiwan, for instance, heavily subsidised their exporters, the former through the financial system and the latter through tax incentives.
All of them eventually removed most of their import restrictions, long after economic growth had taken off.
But none, with the sole exception of Chile in the 1980s under Pinochet, followed the neoliberal recommendation of a rapid opening-up
to imports. Chile's neoliberal
experiment eventually produced the worst economic crisis in all of Latin America. While the details differ across countries,
in all cases governments played an active role in restructuring the economy and buffering it against a volatile external environment.
Industrial policies, restrictions on capital flows and currency controls – all prohibited in the neoliberal playbook – were rampant.
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Pinterest Protest against Nafta in Mexico City in 2008: since the reforms of the mid-90s, the country's economy has underperformed.
Photograph: EPA
By contrast, countries that stuck closest to the neoliberal model of globalisation were sorely disappointed. Mexico provides a
particularly sad example. Following a series of macroeconomic crises in the mid-1990s, Mexico embraced macroeconomic orthodoxy, extensively
liberalised its economy, freed up the financial system, sharply reduced import restrictions and signed the North American Free Trade
Agreement (Nafta). These policies did produce macroeconomic stability and a significant rise in foreign trade and internal investment.
But where it counts – in overall productivity and economic growth –
the experiment failed
. Since undertaking the reforms, overall productivity in Mexico has stagnated, and the economy has underperformed even by the
undemanding standards of Latin America.
These outcomes are not a surprise from the perspective of sound economics. They are yet another manifestation of the need for
economic policies to be attuned to the failures to which markets are prone, and to be tailored to the specific circumstances of each
country. No single blueprint fits all.
A s Peters's 1982 manifesto attests, the meaning of neoliberalism has changed considerably over time as the label has acquired
harder-line connotations with respect to deregulation, financialisation and globalisation. But there is one thread that connects
all versions of neoliberalism, and that is the
emphasis
on economic growth . Peters wrote in 1982 that the emphasis was warranted because growth is essential to all our social and political
ends – community, democracy, prosperity. Entrepreneurship, private investment and removing obstacles that stand in the way (such
as excessive regulation) were all instruments for achieving economic growth. If a similar neoliberal manifesto were penned today,
it would no doubt make the same point.
ss="rich-link"> Globalisation: the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world Read more
Critics often point out that this emphasis on economics debases and sacrifices other important values such as equality, social
inclusion, democratic deliberation and justice. Those political and social objectives obviously matter enormously, and in some contexts
they matter the most. They cannot always, or even often, be achieved by means of technocratic economic policies; politics must play
a central role.
Still, neoliberals are not wrong when they argue that our most cherished ideals are more likely to be attained when our economy
is vibrant, strong and growing. Where they are wrong is in believing that there is a unique and universal recipe for improving economic
performance, to which they have access. The fatal flaw of neoliberalism is that it does not even get the economics right. It must
be rejected on its own terms for the simple reason that it is bad economics.
A version of this article first appeared in
Boston Review
Recently MI6 were implicated in Steel report, Skripals poisonings, Browder machinations, and creation of the Integrity
Initiative. Nice "non-interference" mode...
Notable quotes:
"... The UK's top spy spent some of his time blaming Russia for trying to, as he put it, "subvert the UK way of life" by supposedly poisoning the Skripals and through other mischievous but ultimately never verified actions, though moving beyond the infowar aspect of his speech and into its actual professional substance, he nevertheless touched on some interesting themes ..."
"... In other words, it's all about applying what he calls the "Fusion Doctrine" for building the right domestic and international teams across skillsets in order to best leverage new technologies for accomplishing his agency's eternal mission, which is "to understand the motivations, intentions and aspirations of people in other countries." ..."
"... "being able to take steps to change [targets'] behavior", this has actually been part and parcel of the intelligence profession since time immemorial, albeit nowadays facilitated by social media and other technological platforms that allow shadowy actors such as the UK's own "77th Brigade" to carry out psychological, influence, and informational operations. ..."
"... Considering Russia to be a country that "regards [itself] as being in a state of perpetual confrontation with [the West]", Younger believes that unacceptably high costs must be imposed upon it every time it's accused of some wrongdoing, forgetting that the exact same principle could more applicably be applied against the West by Russia for the same reasons. ..."
"... If read from a cynical standpoint by anyone who's aware of the true nature of contemporary geopolitics, Younger's speech is actually quite informative because it inadvertently reveals what the West itself is doing to Russia by means of projecting its own actions onto its opponent . ..."
"... That in and of itself is actually the very essence of Hybrid War , which is commonly understood to largely include blatantly deceptive techniques such as the one that the UK's top spy is unabashedly attempting to pull off. ..."
"... Accusing one's adversaries of the exact same thing that you yourself are doing is a classic method of deflecting attention from one's own actions by pretending that you're being victimized by the selfsame, which therefore "justifies" escalating tensions by portraying all hostile acts as "proactive defensive responses to aggression". ..."
"... Basically, the British spymaster just sloppily revealed his hand to Russia while attempting to implicate it for allegedly conducting "fourth generation espionage" against the UK. ..."
The head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Alex Younger briefed the public
about the challenges of so-called " fourth
generation espionage ".
The UK's top spy spent some of his time blaming Russia for trying to, as he put it, "subvert
the UK way of life" by supposedly poisoning the Skripals and through other mischievous but
ultimately never verified actions, though moving beyond the infowar aspect of his speech and
into its actual professional substance, he nevertheless touched on some interesting themes.
According to him, "fourth generation espionage" involves "deepening our partnerships to counter
hybrid threats, mastering covert action in the data age, attaching a cost to malign activity by
adversaries and innovating to ensure that technology works to our advantage."
In other words, it's all about applying what he calls the "Fusion Doctrine" for building the
right domestic and international teams across skillsets in order to best leverage new
technologies for accomplishing his agency's eternal mission, which is "to understand the
motivations, intentions and aspirations of people in other countries."
While he remarked that the so-called "hybrid threats" associated with "fourth generation
espionage" necessitate "being able to take steps to change [targets'] behavior", this has
actually been part and parcel of the intelligence profession since time immemorial, albeit
nowadays facilitated by social media and other technological platforms that allow shadowy
actors such as the UK's own "77th Brigade" to
carry out psychological, influence, and informational operations.
Younger warned that "bulk data combined with modern analytics" could be "a serious
challenge" if used against his country , obviously alluding to Cambridge
Analytica's purported weaponization of these cutting-edge technological processes to
supposedly "hack" elections, though neglecting to draw any attention to the fact that his
intelligence agency and its allies could conceivably do the same in advance of their own
interests, something that everyone who uses Western-based social media platforms is theoretically
at risk of having happen to them.
What Younger is most concerned about, however, are what he describes as the "eroded
boundaries" that characterize so-called "hybrid threats" lying between war and peace, which he
fears could undermine NATO's Article 5 obligation for all of the military alliance's members to
support one another during times of conflict. Considering Russia to be a country that "regards
[itself] as being in a state of perpetual confrontation with [the West]", Younger believes that
unacceptably high costs must be imposed upon it every time it's accused of some wrongdoing,
forgetting that the exact same principle could more applicably be applied against the West by
Russia for the same reasons.
He claims that it's the UK that will never respond in kind by
destabilizing Russia like Moscow's accused of doing to the UK, but in reality, it's President
Putin's so-called "judo moves" which prove that it's Russia who has mastered asymmetrical
responses instead. If read from a cynical standpoint by anyone who's aware of the true nature
of contemporary geopolitics, Younger's speech is actually quite informative because it
inadvertently reveals what the West itself is doing to Russia by means of projecting its own
actions onto its opponent .
That in and of itself is actually the very essence of HybridWar ,
which is commonly understood to largely include blatantly deceptive techniques such as the one
that the UK's top spy is unabashedly attempting to pull off.
Accusing one's adversaries of the
exact same thing that you yourself are doing is a classic method of deflecting attention from
one's own actions by pretending that you're being victimized by the selfsame, which therefore
"justifies" escalating tensions by portraying all hostile acts as "proactive defensive
responses to aggression".
Basically, the British spymaster just sloppily revealed his hand to
Russia while attempting to implicate it for allegedly conducting "fourth generation espionage"
against the UK.
"... Trump won't fire his son-in-law, so if Jared doesn't have the decency to resign on his own, he may well be responsible for Trump's downfall in addition to his own. Trump's silly daughter, Ivanka, needs to go to. ..."
"... Time for Bolton to send for the clairvoyant Theresa May who has managed to accuse Russia, and Mr. Putin personally, in the Skripals' poisoning n the absence of any evidence ..."
Comment section (David Wooten): "According to the crown prince himself, Trump's [Jewish]
son-in-law gave him a secret list of his enemies -- the ones like Al Aweed who were
tortured and shaken down for cash. Khashoggi might even have been on that list.
One or more of the tortured ones likely tipped off Erdogan, which is why Turkey only
needed to enter the consulate, retrieve the recorded audio device they planted, and walk out
with the evidence. Turkey also has evidence that puts MbS' personal doctor and other staff
arriving in Turkey at convenient times to do the job -- and probably more. Khashoggi was
anything but a nice person but Trump cannot say that or he'll likely be accused of
involvement in his murder.
Dissociation is made far more difficult by the fact that Jared is a long time friend of
Netanyahu who, like Jared, hasbefriended MbS .
Trump won't fire his son-in-law, so if Jared doesn't have the decency to resign on his
own, he may well be responsible for Trump's downfall in addition to his own. Trump's silly
daughter, Ivanka, needs to go to.
Were it not for the Khashoggi affair, fewer Republican seats would have been lost in the
election."
-- Time for Bolton to send for the clairvoyant Theresa May who has managed to accuse
Russia, and Mr. Putin personally, in the Skripals' poisoning n the absence of any
evidence .
These people -- Bolton, May, Gavin Williamson and likes -- are a cross of the ever-eager
whores and petty brainless thieves. To expose themselves as the willing participants in the
ZUSA-conducted farce requires a complete lack of integrity.
Of course, there is no way to indict the journalist's murderers since the principal
murderer is a personal friend of Netanyahu and Jared.
Jump, Justice, jump, as high as ordered by the "chosen."
By the way, why do we hear nothing about Seth Rich who was murdered in the most surveilled
city of the US?
@annamaria A 1st
grader can see that MbS was behind the murder of Kashoggi.
Trump won't fire his son-in-law, so if Jared doesn't have the decency to resign on his
own, he may well be responsible for Trump's downfall in addition to his own. Trump's silly
daughter, Ivanka, needs to go to.
I've been hoping for this since they moved to Washington with 'big daddy'.
@Anon " crappy
bedtime reading the woolyheadedness "
Hey, Anon[436], is this how your parents have been treating you? My condolences.
If you feel that you succeeded with your "see, a squirrel" tactics of taking attention
from the zionists' dirty and amoral attempts at coverup of the murder of the journalists
Khashoggi, which was accomplished on the orders of the clown prince (the dear friend of Bibi
& Jared), you are for a disappointment.
One more time for you, Anon[436]: the firm evidence of MbS involvement in the murder of
Khashoggi contrasts with no evidence of the alleged poisoning of Skripals by
Russian government.
The zionists have been showing an amazing tolerance towards the clown prince the murderer
because zionists need the clown prince for the implementation of Oded Yinon Plan for Eretz
Israel.
The stinky Skripals' affair involves harsh economic actions imposed on the RF in the
absence of any evidence , as compared to no sanctions in response to the actual murder
of Khashoggi, which involved MbS according to the availableevidence . Thanks
to the zionists friendship with the clown prince, the firm evidence of Khashoggi murder is of
no importance. What else could be expected from the "most moral" Bibi & Kushner and the
treasonous Bolton.
The stinky Skripals' affair involves harsh economic actions imposed on the RF in the
absence of any evidence, as compared to no sanctions in response to the actual murder of
Khashoggi, which involved MbS according to the available evidence. Thanks to the zionists
friendship with the clown prince, the firm evidence of Khashoggi murder is of no
importance. What else could be expected from the "most moral" Bibi & Kushner and the
treasonous Bolton.
"... Neoliberal doctrine leads to skyrocketing inequality, a swelling in the desperate and forgotten poor who are vulnerable to populist messaging and the idea of a strongman peddling easy answers to keep people safe as civil unrest increases. Fascism seeks power for power's sake and total control over the populace, and always cruelty to the marginalised, the 'others'. How all the right wingers hand-wringing over the idea of 'socialist communisms!!1!' can't see that, I don't know. ..."
"... All over the world, failed neoliberalism is being replaced by right-wing populist nationalism & I don't think "repairing democratic institutions" is at the top of their to-do list. ..."
"... I'm certainly in favour of greater nationalisation, especially of essential services. But around the world, neo-liberalism has morphed into neo-fascism and this is where the next fight must be. ..."
"... In social systems, natural selection favours cooperation. In addition, we are biased toward ethical behaviours, so cooperation and sharing are valued in human societies. ..."
"... The consequences of four decades of financialized neoliberal trade policies were by no means equally shared. Internal and external class relations were made evident through narrowly distributed booms followed by widely distributed busts. ..."
"... No wonder you get fascist right wing insurgence in this climate! ..."
Never forget that fascism is the natural defence mechanism of capital. After it is accrued,
it must be defended. The current trend in global politics is not an anomaly but an entirely
predictable outcome.
Neoliberal doctrine leads to skyrocketing inequality, a swelling in the
desperate and forgotten poor who are vulnerable to populist messaging and the idea of a
strongman peddling easy answers to keep people safe as civil unrest increases. Fascism seeks
power for power's sake and total control over the populace, and always cruelty to the marginalised, the 'others'. How all the right wingers hand-wringing over the idea of
'socialist communisms!!1!' can't see that, I don't know.
It's too late for the US I fear, and time is rapidly running out for the UK if they don't
pull their finger out and have another referendum before the self immolation of Brexit.
All over the world, failed neoliberalism is being replaced by right-wing populist nationalism
& I don't think "repairing democratic institutions" is at the top of their to-do list.
If
Australia does swing the pendulum to the left, it, along with NZ, will be one of the few
countries to do so. De-privatising will not be easy & will be met with a huge reactionary
backlash. They'll need to tread very carefully if they want to stay in government.
Neoliberalism may be dead but the neoliberals in the government will never admit it as they
seamlessly transition to authoritarian nationalism with populist promises - and failure to
deliver on them.
The neoliberal project was always a philosophical cover for crony capitalism that betrayed
the public interest by rewarding vested interests for their patronage, perverted democracy,
and served as a mechanism for perverting the natural function of an economy - to fairly
distribute goods, resources, and services throughout society - to favor the welfare of the
few over the many.
The self-interested culture of neoliberalism - the cult of the individual that denies the
common good - pervades every aspect of Australia's life as a nation - business, politics,
sport, education, and health - denying and crowding out public spirit, selfless service, and
societal wellbeing.
For meaningful change to occur there must be a rebirth of the conception of the public
good, and the virtue and necessity of acting to realise it.
However at this stage there is not a communal recognition of what the problem is let alone
how to go about repairing it. For that to happen there must be a widely accepted narrative
that naturally leads to the obvious actions that must be take to redress the damage done by
the neoliberal con job: decreasing economic inequality, restoring democracy, and rebuilding a
sense of common cause.
Piecemeal change will not be sufficient to enact the the sweeping transformation that has
to occur in every department of life. It is not enough to tax multinationals, to have a
federal integrity commission, to build a renewable future, or to move to proportional
representation.
Someone, some party, some coherent philosophical perspective has to explain why it must be
done.
It's certainly the case that the Liberal party, in particular, are now using ideas that fall
outside and to the right of neo-liberalism, but it's also obviously the case that
neo-liberalism and current Liberal thinking share the same underlying goal. Namely, the
transfer of wealth and power towards a narrower and narrower group of people and
corporations.
That suggests the death of neo-liberalism is coming about because – having done so
much damage already – it's no longer capable of delivering the required results, and
that we're moving into a new phase of the death spiral. I think that can also be seen in both
the US (where Trump is using the identified problems of neo-liberalism to further the same
basic agenda, but with less decorum and a larger cadre of useful idiots) and the UK (where
there's still a very strong possibility that Brexit will be used as an excuse to roll back
great swathes of social and democratic safeguards).
Perhaps even more worrying – given the latest reports on how we're destroying
habitat as well as the climate, and how much of our biodiversity is in South America,
particularly the Amazon – is that Brazil is how on a similar path.
The likelihood is that the Liberal party won't get away with what they have planned, but
they – and the forces behind them – certainly won't stop trying. And
unfortunately it's far from obvious that the Labor party will repudiate neo-liberalism
anytime soon. That they signed up for the latest iteration of TPP is hardly a good omen.
Democratic re-engagement is the better way forward from neo-liberalism, but unfortunately
I think it's unlikely to be the one that we end up taking.
All of that said, the deepest problem of all is the way in which democracy and government
have been corrupted, often via the media, but typically at the behest of corporations, and if
there is a way forward it has to be found in addressing those interactions
I'm certainly in favour of greater nationalisation, especially of essential services. But
around the world, neo-liberalism has morphed into neo-fascism and this is where the next
fight must be.
In social systems, natural selection favours cooperation. In addition, we are biased
toward ethical behaviours, so cooperation and sharing are valued in human societies.
But what happens when we are forced into an economic system that makes us compete at every
level? The logical outcome is societal decline or collapse.
Perhaps the worst aspect of neoliberalism was its infection of the Labor party. This has
left our social infrastructure alarmingly exposed.
The consequences of four decades of financialized neoliberal trade policies were by no
means equally shared. Internal and external class relations were made evident through
narrowly distributed booms followed by widely distributed busts.
Globally, debt has forced policy convergence between political parties of differing
ideologies. European center-left parties have pushed austerity even when ideology would
suggest the opposite.
No wonder you get fascist right wing insurgence in this climate!
Thank you Richard Denniss we need to highlight this more and more and start educating the
dumbed down population saturated with neoliberal snake oil!
The Brits recently landed in Mexico. Will they use the Mercosur-EU FTAS to secretly continue
to hold the grip on Europe? Will they install additional military bases in MAKEDONIA,
ALBANIA, KOSOVA the heroin-smuggling human trafficking FAKE US state, BULGARIA, to finish the
AMBO pipeline from IRAQ to GREECE?
City of London Parasites' Paradise (Or the Best Criminal Sanctuary Money Can Buy)
From: Newsbud.com
"with multi-billion pound drug, arms, people smuggling and sex-slave cartels. The "Brits"
specialize in laundering funds from the Mexican, Colombian, Peruvian, Russian, Polish, Czech,
Nigerian narco-kings. Albanian white slavers have their 'private bankers' at prestigious City
banks with a preference for graduates of the London School of Economics. Bi-lingual Greek
kleptocrats, lifelong billion dollar tax evaders, fleeing from their pillaged homeland have
their favorite real estate brokers, who never engage in any sort of naughty 'due diligence'
which might uncover improper tax returns. The City Boys with verve and positive initiative,
aided and abetted by the hyper-kinetic "Tony" Blair's open door policy to swindlers and
saints of all colors and creeds, welcomed each and every Russian gangster-oligarch-democrat,
especially those who paid cash for multi-pound 'Olde English' landmark estates'.
@JLK naling
of open frontiers and multiculturalism among the educated (indoctrinated).
For example, it's still completely unacceptable in middle class British society to support
Nationalism (you're a Nazi) or Anglo racial identity (other races are welcome to their
identities – but if you're and Anglo you're a racist).
It will eventually be resolved by the people who don't care (the working class), who will
toss out their elite and their "educated" middle class collaborators – in fact it's
already happening with Brexit – check out the Daily Mail comments section.
Greetings. We are Anonymous. We have obtained a large number of documents relating to the
activities of the 'Integrity Initiative' project that was launched back in the fall of 2015 and
funded by the British government.
The declared goal of the project is to counteract Russian
propaganda and the hybrid warfare of Moscow. Hiding behind benevolent intentions, Britain has
in fact created a large-scale information secret service in Europe, the United States and
Canada, which consists of representatives of political, military, academic and journalistic
communities with the think tank in London at the head of it.
'UK Integrity Initiative is Meddling in The Affairs of Other Nations'26.11.2018
A leaked hybrid warfare plan of the British government, known as the
"Integrity Initiative," published by the hacker group Anonymous, has become a theme of
discussion among scholars in Europe. Sputnik spoke to Professor David Miller of the University
of Bristol on a plan allegedly adopted by London to counter "Russian propaganda." Sputnik: It
[Integrity Initiative] states that its main aim is to counter Russian disinformation, however,
what was happening with the Moncloa Campaign' in Spain suggests other motives does it not? Read
more at https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201811261070148913-uk-integrity-russia-propaganda/
Statement on Russian media publication of hacked II documents26 November 2018
EU-wide 'anti-Russian psy-ops' program
confirms UK govt funding, Anonymous denies leak26 Nov, 2018
A network exposed by
leaked documents as a Europe-wide PR operation aimed at curbing "Russian propaganda" has
confirmed receiving money from the British government, while Anonymous has denied on Twitter
that it's behind the leak. The Integrity Initiative (II) is a network claiming to fight
disinformation that threatens democracy. A trove of alleged II documents, which purports to
show costs and internal guidelines as well as names of individuals cooperating with it, has
been published by people claiming to be part of the Anonymous collective. A major
Anonymous-linked Twitter account has denied it was linked to the leak. Read more at
https://www.rt.com/news/444899-uk-psyop-leak-reaction/
"... Rather, they seem to appear to reveal a plot by the British intelligence and security services working in collusion with then CIA Director John Brennan to subvert the course of the 2016 election in favor of the Deep State and Establishment favorite Hillary Clinton. How did that one work out? ..."
And there are other friends in unlikely
places. Beleaguered British Prime Minister Theresa May is wailing loudly
against a Trump threat
to reveal classified documents relating to Russiagate. The real problem is that
the documents apparently don't expose anything done by the Russians.
Rather, they seem to appear to reveal
a plot by the British intelligence and security services
working in collusion with then CIA Director
John Brennan to subvert the course of the 2016 election in favor of the Deep State and Establishment
favorite Hillary Clinton. How did that one work out?
So how about it? Teenagers who get in
trouble often have to ditch their bad friends to turn their lives around. There is still a chance for the
United States if we keep our distance from the bad friends we have been nurturing all around the world,
friends who have been convincing us to make poor choices. Get rid of the ties the bind to the Saudis,
Israelis, Ukrainians, Poles, and yes, even the British. Deal fairly with all nations and treat everyone the
same, but bear in mind that there are only two relationships that really matter – Russia and China. Make a
serious effort to avoid a war by learning how to get along with those two nations and America might actually
survive to celebrate a tricentennial in 2076.
You don't say; British Collusion to influence the 2016 US Presidential elections. Why, if the
beneficiary was anyone other than a Democrat, much less one named Clinton, someone might
actually appoint a Special Counsel to look into it, not to mention the misdeeds of the
various agencies and departments who aided and abetted it.
"You don't say; British Collusion to influence the 2016 US Presidential elections."
MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of
John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given. They later put Michael
Steele onto the project; he was a guy with credible Russian contacts. Basically, the scam
worked like this:
They funneled an MI6 intelligence file to Michael Steele (governments routinely keep such
files on influential foreigners and what they are up to) so he could use his contacts to
launder the information and make it appear that it came from sources within Russia; they then
funneled the report back to elements of the FBI so they could use it to justify to the FISA
court a spying campaign on Trump (the FBI illegally withheld the source of the document);
they found nothing proving any Russian connection but they kept the spy program going; they
tried justifying the spy program with a fake story involving a reliable asset that once
passed information from Jimmy Carter's campaign to George H.W. Bush in an effort to help
Reagan win the 1980 election; they later paid the asset nearly a quarter million dollars for
his efforts using a fake "India-China" grant despite the grant running to 2018, the asset
attempted to get a job in the Trump administration so he could act as a mole ; the Obama
regime purposely mishandled information in regards to the spying program (ex: Michael Steele
leaked his document to various news sources before the election and later lied to congress
about it), ensuring it would leak to the press; the Obama regime illegally unmasked elements
of Trump's personal contacts so they could clandestinely leak suggested targets off the
record to the right people
They lost the election anyway, so they then planted dirt and negative press to make the
document look legit – lies about Manafort meeting Assange (Guardian is funded by the
British government to police the left), WaPo lies claiming a vast Russian conspiracy just as
Trump came into office (it was an effort to delegitimize him and create calls for Hillary to
take his place), leaking bank records, the special counsel .and leaking information on Trump
policies to the media using a secret security clearance credentials program enacted by Obama.
They also ran interference through CIA guys like Mark Warner in an effort to cover up the
mole they planted; they falsely asserted this was a national security issue when the man's
identity was well-known to the press and he was never an undercover spy like Jarret was, at
least not in recent history.
To put this all into perspective, imagine the following scenario:
The government takes cctv footage of you at a grocery store; in the background there is an
attractive woman. The woman then goes missing. The government illegally reads your emails and
finds that you like sexual jokes. The government then interviews a friend of yours who claims
that you once made a risque rape joke back in college. They also plant a mole in your
workplace who befriends you and reports back all of your politically incorrect humor. Then
the cops find the woman's body and the government claims that you killed her because you were
in the area at the time and you make bad jokes, which has been confirmed by multiple credible
people. You look guilty, don't you? The government 1) took information out of context 2)
laundered circumstantial evidence through a credible witness when they originally obtained it
elsewhere using nefarious sources. That's what they did to Trump, but much much much
worse.
a plot by the British intelligence and security services to subvert the course of the 2016
election in favor of the Deep State and Establishment favorite Hillary Clinton. How did that
one work out?
Deep State and Establishment stooge Donald Trump.
There is still a chance for the United States if we
Guardian is just a propaganda outlet. That sad fact does not exclude the possibility of publishing really good articles,
thouth. That still happens occasionally.
The fact that they follow MI6 and Foreign Office talking points in all foreign events coverage a is just a testament the GB is
a "national security state". Nothing more, nothing less.
Notable quotes:
"... I'm not going to debunk the Guardian article here. It has been debunked by better debunkers than I (e.g., Jonathan Cook , Craig Murray , Glenn Greenwald , Moon of Alabama , and many others). ..."
"... The short version is, The Guardian 's Luke Harding, a shameless hack who will affix his name to any propaganda an intelligence agency feeds him, alleged that Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, secretly met with Julian Assange (and unnamed "Russians") on numerous occasions from 2013 to 2016, presumably to conspire to collude to brainwash Americans into not voting for Clinton. Harding's earth-shaking allegations, which The Guardian prominently featured and flogged, were based on well, absolutely nothing, except the usual anonymous "intelligence sources." After actual journalists pointed this out, The Guardian quietly revised the piece ( employing the subjunctive mood rather liberally ), buried it in the back pages of its website, and otherwise pretended like they had never published it. ..."
"... By that time, of course, its purpose had been served. The story had been picked up and disseminated by other "respectable," "authoritative" outlets, and it was making the rounds on social media. Nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution, in an attempt to counter the above-mentioned debunkers (and dispel the doubts of anyone else still capable of any kind of critical thinking), Politico posted this ass-covering piece speculating that, if it somehow turned out The Guardian 's story was just propaganda designed to tarnish Assange and Trump well, probably, it had been planted by the Russians to make Luke Harding look like a moron. This ass-covering piece of speculative fiction, which was written by a former CIA agent, was immediately disseminated by liberals and "leftists" who are eagerly looking forward to the arrest, rendition, and public crucifixion of Assange. ..."
"... And this is why The Guardian will not be punished for publishing a blatantly fabricated story. Nor will Luke Harding be penalized for writing it. Luke Harding will be rewarded for writing it, as he has been handsomely rewarded throughout his career for loyally serving the ruling classes. Greenwald, on the other hand, is on thin ice. It will be instructive to see how far he pushes his confrontation with The Guardian regarding this story. ..."
"... It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. ..."
"... Those who are conforming to [official truth] are doing so, not because they are deceived, but because it is safer and more rewarding to do so. ..."
"... The powerless are either servants of power or they are heretics. There is no third alternative. ..."
"... It is important to realize that "the truth" is not going to "rouse the masses from their slumber" and inspire them to throw off their chains. People are not going to suddenly "wake up," "see the truth" and start "the revolution." ..."
"... The distinction is simple. We can't know the truth about distant and complex events like 9/11 or JFK unless we were directly involved, and those people are all dead. For big events we have to rely on, or ignore, the official accounts. ..."
"... Given all this, still, we can approach an approximation of truth that some can agree on. Here is where the trouble starts . ..."
The short version is, The Guardian 's Luke
Harding, a shameless hack who will affix his name to any propaganda an intelligence agency
feeds him, alleged that Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, secretly met with
Julian Assange (and unnamed "Russians") on numerous occasions from 2013 to 2016, presumably to
conspire to collude to brainwash Americans into not voting for Clinton. Harding's earth-shaking
allegations, which The Guardian prominently featured and flogged, were based on well,
absolutely nothing, except the usual anonymous "intelligence sources." After actual journalists
pointed this out, The Guardian quietly revised the piece ( employing the subjunctive mood
rather liberally ), buried it in the back pages of its website, and otherwise pretended
like they had never published it.
By that time, of course, its purpose had been served. The story had been picked up and
disseminated by other "respectable," "authoritative" outlets, and it was making the rounds on
social media. Nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution, in an attempt to counter the
above-mentioned debunkers (and dispel the doubts of anyone else still capable of any kind of
critical thinking), Politico posted this
ass-covering piece speculating that, if it somehow turned out The Guardian 's story
was just propaganda designed to tarnish Assange and Trump well, probably, it had been planted
by the Russians to make Luke Harding look like a moron. This ass-covering piece of speculative
fiction, which was written by a former CIA agent, was immediately disseminated by liberals and
"leftists" who are eagerly looking forward to the arrest, rendition, and public crucifixion
of Assange.
At this point, I imagine you're probably wondering what this has to do with manufacturing
"truth." Because, clearly, this Guardian story was a lie a lie The Guardian got
caught telling. I wish the "truth" thing was as simple as that (i.e., exposing and debunking
the ruling classes' lies). Unfortunately, it isn't. Here is why.
Much as most people would like there to be one (and behave and speak as if there were one),
there is no Transcendental Arbiter of Truth. The truth is what whoever has the power to say it
is says it is. If we do not agree that that "truth" is the truth, there is no higher court to
appeal to. We can argue until we are blue in the face. It will not make the slightest
difference. No evidence we produce will make the slightest difference. The truth will remain
whatever those with the power to say it is say it is.
Nor are there many "truths" (i.e., your truth and my truth). There is only one "truth" the
"official truth". The "truth" according to those in power. This is the whole purpose of the concept
of truth. It is the reason the concept of "truth" was invented (i.e., to render any other
"truths" lies). It is how those in power control reality and impose their ideology on the
masses (or their employees, or their students, or their children). Yes, I know, we very badly
want there to be some "objective truth" (i.e., what actually happened, when whatever happened,
JFK, 9-11, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Schrödinger's dead cat, the Big Bang, or
whatever). There isn't. The truth is just a story a story that is never our story.
The "truth" is a story that power gets to tell, and that the powerless do not get to tell,
unless they tell the story of those in power, which is always someone else's story. The
powerless are either servants of power or they are heretics. There is no third alternative.
They either parrot the "truth" of the ruling classes or they utter heresies of one type or
another. Naturally, the powerless do not regard themselves as heretics. They do not regard
their "truth" as heresy. They regard their "truth" as the truth, which is heresy. The truth of
the powerless is always heresy.
For example, while it may be personally comforting for some of us to tell ourselves that we
know the truth about certain subjects (e.g., Russiagate, 9-11, et cetera), and to share our
knowledge with others who agree with us, and even to expose the lies of the corporate media on
Twitter, Facebook, and our blogs, or in some leftist webzine (or "fearless adversarial" outlet
bankrolled by a beneficent oligarch), the ruling classes do not give a shit, because ours is
merely the raving of heretics, and does not warrant a serious response.
Or all right, they give a bit of a shit, enough to try to cover their asses when a
journalist of the stature of Glenn Greenwald (who won a Pulitzer and is frequently on
television) very carefully and very respectfully almost directly accuses them of lying. But
they give enough of a shit to do this because Greenwald has the power to hurt them, not because
of any regard for the truth. This is also why Greenwald has to be so careful and respectful
when directly confronting The Guardian , or any other corporate media outlet, and state
that their blatantly fabricated stories could, theoretically, turn out to be true. He can't
afford to cross the line and end up getting branded a heretic and consigned to Outer Mainstream
Darkness, like Robert Fisk, Sy Hersh, Jonathan Cook, John Pilger, Assange, and other such
heretics.
Look, I'm not trying to argue that it isn't important to expose the fabrications of the
corporate media and the ruling classes. It is terribly important. It is mostly what I do
(albeit usually in a more satirical fashion). At the same time, it is important to realize that
"the truth" is not going to "rouse the masses from their slumber" and inspire them to throw off
their chains. People are not going to suddenly "wake up," "see the truth" and start "the
revolution." People already know the truth the official truth, which is the only truth there
is. Those who are conforming to it are doing so, not because they are deceived, but because it
is safer and more rewarding to do so.
And this is why The Guardian will not be punished for publishing a blatantly
fabricated story. Nor will Luke Harding be penalized for writing it. Luke Harding will be
rewarded for writing it, as he has been handsomely rewarded throughout his career for loyally
serving the ruling classes. Greenwald, on the other hand, is on thin ice. It will be
instructive to see how far he pushes his confrontation with The Guardian regarding this
story.
As for Julian Assange, I'm afraid he is done for. The ruling classes really have no choice
but to go ahead and do him at this point. He hasn't left them any other option. Much as they
are loathe to create another martyr, they can't have heretics of Assange's notoriety running
around punching holes in their "truth" and brazenly defying their authority. That kind of stuff
unsettles the normals, and it sets a bad example for the rest of us heretics.
#
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Good piece. I think there's another layer, though.
The truth or falsehood of individual facts about the physical world can often be
determined with near-certainty. But when it comes to history, or "news" about current events/
politics, reality is much too complex to address directly. Too many individual facts to be
comprehensible, let alone useful.
We must pick, choose, emphasize, or ignore particular elements, and arrange them into some
kind of structure, in order to form a useful narrative. Or in the case of "news," the legacy
media oligarchy largely performs this function for us -- we simply passively accept/ adopt
their narrative. Or, in many cases, "choose" between the closely-related variants of that
narrative offered by the "liberal" vs. "conservative" press.
This process of abstraction, simplification, and organization inevitably involves data
loss. So no narrative is "true" in the same sense that individual facts about the real world
are true. But some narratives incorporate large amounts of "facts" that are demonstrably
false, and some are more useful/ descriptive/ predictive than others. No one engaged in this
process is "objective." They -- or we -- are all in some way part of the story. It should be
self-evident that some narratives are more useful to the perceived interests of owners of
major media outlets than others, and that these will assume a much more prominent place in
their coverage than ones that are deleterious to those interests.
Ideally, most people would take these factors into account when evaluating the "news," and
maintain a much more skeptical attitude than they typically do. But there are several factors
that prevent this.
One is simply time/ efficiency. These individual narratives, taken together, support --
and are supported by -- our overall worldview. There aren't enough hours in the day to be
constantly skeptical about everything, especially since the major tools of distortion
involved in constructing mainstream narratives tend to be selection bias/ memory-holing, with
obvious lies about known facts (like the Guardian story referenced here) used only sparingly.
It's simply not practical to to constantly consider potentially "better" narratives, and to
reevaluate one's worldview based on these.
And which narrative we believe often has more to do with perceived social pressure/ social
acceptability than with "truth." As you put it,
Those who are conforming to it are doing so, not because they are deceived, but because
it is safer and more rewarding to do so.
Mass media pushing a common narrative creates an artificial perception of social
consensus. Creating, or even finding, alternative narratives means fighting the inertia of
this perceived consensus, and potentially suffering social costs for believing in the "wrong"
one. The social role of narratives is largely independent of their "truth" -- if what you're
"supposed" to believe is highly implausible, that actually gives it higher value as a signal
of loyalty to the establishment.
It's probably best to maintain a resolutely agnostic attitude toward most "news" items,
unless one is particularly interested in that particular event. " Why are they pushing
this particular story?" "Why now ?" and " What are they trying to accomplish
here?" are often more useful questions than "Is it true?"
It's not a new issue -- only exacerbated by the advent of mass visual media:
"Propaganda" -- Edward Bernays (1928)
"The Free Press"– Hilaire Belloc (1918)
I get what Hopkins is trying to do here, but redefining terms (i.e., "truth") doesn't do what
he thinks it does.
The truth is not ' what most people think '; it's not ' what we are told to
believe '; it's not ' the official narrative '.
There is a useful cautionary tale embedded in Hopkins' piece, but he doesn't tease it out
properly.
Take this excerpt:
The truth is what whoever has the power to say it is says it is. If we do not agree that
that "truth" is the truth, there is no higher court to appeal to. We can argue until we are
blue in the face. It will not make the slightest difference. No evidence we produce will
make the slightest difference. The truth will remain whatever those with the power to say
it is say it is.
With significant caveats, it is a reasonable description of the way the political world
works: if the political class decides that its interests are best served by declaring that a
specific narrative X is 'true', it will obtain immediate compliance from about half
the livestock, and can then rely on force (peer pressure; subsidy or taxation; state
coercion) to get an absolute majority of the herd to declare that they accept the 'truth' of
X .
If X is objectively false, too bad.
Try to run a legal argument based on the objective falsity of a thing that the political
class has deemed to be true: you'll be shit outta luck.
This is highly relevant where I am sitting: here are two examples – one really
obvious, one a bit less so (but far more important because of its radical implications).
Obvious Example: Drug Dogs
Recent research has shown that drug sniffing dogs give false positive signals between 60%
and 80% of the time – i.e., in terms of identifying people who are in actual
physical possession of drugs at any point in time, drug sniffing dogs perform worse than
a coin toss.
Note that this is before considering that the dog's handler is often pointing the dog at a
target that the handler thinks is likely to be carrying drugs. (Although in reality, drug
dogs are paraded around at concerts and in public spaces, sniffing every passer-by).
However there is an Act of Parliament (capitalise all the magic words) that asserts that a
signal from a drug sniffing dog is sufficient to qualify as what Americans call "probable
cause" – i.e., reasonable suspicion for a search.
Does anyone think that evidence should be admissible if it results from a search conducted
based on 'probable cause' derived from a method that produces worse outcomes than tossing a
coin?
Judges will tie themselves into absolute epistemological knots to get that evidence
admitted – and they will refuse to permit defence Counsel from adducing evidence about
drug dog inaccuracy because since the defendant actually did have drugs in their
possession, the dog didn't signal falsely.
In other words, the judge conflates posterior probability with prior
probability; the prior probability that the dog is correct, is 10%-40%; this should not
suffice to generate probable cause (or 'reasonable suspicion).
More Interesting Example: 'Representative' Democracy
In general, Western governments assert that their legitimacy stems from two primary
sources: some founding set of principles (usually a constitution – written or
otherwise), and 'representativeness' (including ratification of the constitution by a
representative mechanism, for those places with written foundational documents).
The Arrow Impossibility Theorem [1,2] and the Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem
[3,4], both show that there is no way of accurately determining group preferences using an
ordinal voting mechanism.
What this boils down to, is that representativeness is a lie – and it's a lie before
any consideration of voting outcomes ; it's a meta -problem (the problem that
ordinal voting cannot do what it is claimed to do – viz ., accurately identify
the 'will of the people'/'social preferences'/'what the people want').
Beyond the meta-problem, there is also the actual counting problem: no government has ever
been elected having obtained the votes of an outright bare majority, i.e., 50%-plus-1
of the entire eligible franchise. (It's more like 25-35% for most parliamentary systems
– for US presidential elections in the full-franchise period, the winner is voted for
by 29% of the eligible population; you would be horrified to look at US Senate
results).
So when the new unhappy lords (and their Little Eichmann bureaucrat enablers)
promulgate laws based on assertions of legitimacy because of a constitutional
Grundnorm and/or the representative nature of government both of those things are
pretty obvious furphies; they are objectively not 'truth' and no amount of heel-clicking and
wishing will make it so.
Which brings us to a key legal aphorism that has a jurisprudential history going back four
centuries: Ratio legis est anima legis, et mutata legis ratione, mutatur ex lex
– which dates from Milborn's case ( Coke 7a KB [1609]).
The reason for a law is the soul of the law, and if the reason for a law has changed,
the law is changed .
What this means – explicitly – is that " no law can survive the
[extinction of the] reasons on which it is founded ".
American courts re-expressed this as " cessante ratione legis, cessat ipsa lex "
(the reason for a law having ceased, the law itself ceases) – e.g., in Funk v. United
States , 290 US 371 (1933) in which Justice Sutherland opined –
This means that no law can survive the reasons on which it is founded. It needs no
statute to change it; it abrogates itself . If the reasons on which a law rests are
overborne by opposing reasons, which in the progress of society gain a controlling force,
the old law, though still good as an abstract principle, and good in its application to
some circumstances, must cease to apply as a controlling principle to the new
circumstances.
(Emphasis mine)
Again: try running this argument in a court: " The asserted basis for all laws
promulgated by the government, is provably false. Under a doctrine with a 4-century
jurisprudential provenance, the law itself is void ."
See how far you get.
So Hopkins makes a good-but-obvious point – power does not respect either rights
or truth; as such it does you no good whatsoever to have the actual truth on your side.
He should have made the point better.
C J Hopkins, despite some good quotes and insights above, regrettably falls into the trap of
peddling Derrida-tier relativistic nonsense, playing a word game about 'truth', as if 'truth'
was not real merely because most people have strong incentives to avoid being devoted to it
Where you stand depends upon where you sit, etc., Karl Marx's dictums about economic and
power positions shaping consciousness, and of course the century-old classic:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not
understanding it.
from Upton Sinclair (1878-1968). Hopkins more or less repeats Sinclair when he says
Those who are conforming to [official truth] are doing so, not because they are
deceived, but because it is safer and more rewarding to do so.
Despite selling-out truth to the relativism devil in some passages, Hopkins nevertheless
creates some quotable, including the particularly insightful:
The powerless are either servants of power or they are heretics. There is no third
alternative.
The following notion of Hopkins is seen now and then in the alt-sphere, but always bears
repeating
It is important to realize that "the truth" is not going to "rouse the masses from their
slumber" and inspire them to throw off their chains. People are not going to suddenly "wake
up," "see the truth" and start "the revolution."
Iron and blood are the tools used to force people to accept what isn't true.
(Another way to tell: it was uttered by a fucking politician – a cunt who wanted to
live in palaces paid for by the sweat of other people's brows).
Truth does not need violence to propagate itself: in a completely-peaceful system of free
exchange, bad ideas (of which lies are a subset) will get driven out of the market place
because they will fail to conform to ground truth.
Falsehood requires violence (arguably it is a form of violence: fraud is 'violent'
because it causes its victims to misallocate their resources or to deform their preferences
and expectations).
In a very real sense, truth does not need friends: all it requires is an absence of
powerful enemies.
The distinction is simple. We can't know the truth about distant and complex events like 9/11
or JFK unless we were directly involved, and those people are all dead. For big events we
have to rely on, or ignore, the official accounts.
But we CAN know the truth about our own situation, our own neighborhood, and our own
families. The current riots in France are a concrete ASSERTION of local truth against the
blatant and condescending official lies. The majority of France is getting poorer and
suffering more from migrant crime. Macron insists that starvation is necessary to serve Gaia,
and crime is necessary to serve Juncker. The people would prefer to have a leader that serves
France.
@FB Scientific truth
is limited by two factors – assumptions, and hidden variables. For example,
we might drop a brick in a vacuum and believe that it falls at 9.8 m/s squared. Here, we make
the assumption that the force of gravity is constant. And for most of history we were unaware
of the hidden variable of relativity to the speed of light.
So, assuming (LOL) that we are able to eliminate all assumptions and account for all
hidden variables, there is a scientific truth. That is ASSUMING we are not just a simulation
in someone elses computer!
Given all this, still, we can approach an approximation of truth that some can agree on.
Here is where the trouble starts .
@The scalpel LOL and
then there is the 'observer effect' also especially in good old quantum mechanics in the end
scientific truth does boil down to what 'some can agree on'
@Kratoklastes Strength
is the production of force over distance. That is to say, force is a quantifiable, physical
phenomenon that, deconstruct it as much as you want, will hit you like a tsunami whether you
believe it or not.
Force only works because there is a real world that transcends philosophical bullshit and
marketing.
The subjective piece is will: victory is attained when the enemies will to resist is
crushed. Through the repeated use of physical force, eventually any enemy can be worn down
and vanquished.
The world is finite, desire is infinite, and for every desire and appetite, there is a
will. As multiple wills will that they attain their infinite desires in a finite world, there
will always be a conflict of will, which will always ultimately be resolved by force. Which
means ultimately, despite the rich imaginations and appetites of humans, and their related
striving, physical force will ultimately rule the day, and conquer, condition, and constrain
the mental life of mankind.
Of course, desire and appetite will not take no for an answer, and in their frustration,
they will imagine, fantasize, and conceptualize rationales for why this is not so. This is
the nature of our desires, and in good times of prosperity and peace, they may even bend our
reason in the direction of these appetites and fantasies, until the instincts for self
preservation and endurance rust, and are even forgotten. But like the moon revealed by a
passing cloud, the perpetual war of human existence will inevitably reassert itself, and
those that have prepared for the inevitable will vanquish those who were content to daydream
when they should have been preparing.
After reading the article and the aggregate comments, I am strengthened in my belief that
the physics analogy of Schrödinger's cat is among the most useful (and
notwithstanding the otherwise valid criticism of it in the comments). In the same way that
the Oxford English Dictionary, for example, does not purport to define a given word,
per se , but rather gives a detailed description of how the word has in fact been used
over the years and centuries.
I refer to my version of Schrödinger's cat as counter-sense words or
oscillating-contradictions .
Oscillating contradictions and cogno-linguistic manipulation
The primary means by which corporate supremacy, for example, is achieved and maintained in
practice is via the maintenance and use of a small arsenal of about two dozen critical
counter-sense or yo-yo -like words/terms that are asserted or claimed to mean
either "X" or "Minus-X" at the option of the decision-maker.
Among the most important and sui generis (in a class of its own) is the word
person which is held to mean a living, breathing being of conscience (literally
a being of equity) with the rights, powers and privileges of such being ("X"), or else it can
mean a corporate entity which is a notional/inanimate item of property to be bought
and sold and otherwise traded for profit in the stock and financial markets ("Minus-X").
By way of example/demonstration of the ongoing cognitive manipulation process, if someone
had managed to hit the judges of the U.S. Supreme Court with a blast of truth-ray just
before they announced their decision in Citizens United, here is what we may have got
instead:
[MORE]
We here at the Supreme Court are part of what can be fairly and broadly referred to as
an arm of the entrenched-money-power.
At certain times and under certain circumstances it is to our enormous advantage over
you the masses that corporations be natural-persons-in-law with the rights, powers and
privileges of a natural person or living being of conscience.
At other times and other circumstances it is to our enormous advantage over you the
masses that corporations be items of property that can be actively bought and sold and
traded for profit in the stock and financial markets.
Your laughable naiveté is manifest in your expectation that you are going to
receive a definitive answer from this Court, or even that it is possible for us to give you
one. Among the foundational purposes of this Court is to actively prevent that question
from being answered definitively at all. The instant we give a definitive answer, the game
is over.
Whatever answer we give you must perpetuate the systematized delusion that the same
concept (corporate personhood) can mean either X (a living being of conscience), or minus-X
(an item of property), depending on the ever-changing needs of the decider.
So our current answer is that a corporation is a natural-person-in-law with the rights,
powers and privileges of a natural person, except when it isn't. We'll let you know next
time whether that situation has changed in the meantime.
Essentially all counter-sense words/terms follow that same template .
Notwithstanding that the respective concepts are logically and objectively mutually
exclusive , the judges of the Courts (and the broadly-defined
financial-world/social-control-structure) maintain that it can be either or both , and
we'll let you know if and when it becomes important.
So a corporate person has a right of free speech when giving money to
influence political parties, but not to object to itself being sold as a piece of property in
the stock and financial markets or when it is acquired in a merger or takeover financed by
its own assets. If a corporation has the legal capacity and rights of a natural person, then
how can it be owned as the legal property of another? The purpose of the Courts is to ensure
that that question is never presented in that way.
After person , the remaining most significant counter-sense or yo-yo
-like words are (surprise surprise) essentially all money-and-finance-based, and the most
important among these is the word principal and its role in facilitating illegal
front-loading or ex-temporal fraud (interest illegally and unlawfully compounded in
advance).
Is the amount of principal the actual or net amount advanced by the creditor and
received by the debtor for their own use and control?
Or is it the amount that the debtor agrees that they owe regardless of the amount
received?
Is the amount of principal a question of fact ? Or of the agreement of
parties ?
[Here is the premise / offer that is referenced immediately below:]
Lender (e.g., typical second-mortgage lender): "I will loan you $10,000 at 20%
per annum provided that you sign and give to me a marketable security that claims or
otherwise purports to evidence that I have loaned you $15,000 at 10% per annum, plus an
undisclosed and unregistered side-agreement and cheque (check) back to me for a bonus or
loan fee of $5,000 as a payment from the nominal proceeds."
In the process example used above, what is the principal amount of the loan? Is it
$10,000 because that is the factual net amount invested by the creditor and received by the
debtor for their own use? Or is it $15,000 because that is the amount that the debtor is
required to falsely agree that they have received and owe as a condition of the loan? Or is
it $20,000 because that is the total cash-equivalent/money assets ($15,000 mortgage + $5,000
cheque) that the debtor has to give to the creditor?
Is it a noun/fact ? Or is it an adjective/opinion merely pretending to be a
noun? All debt and therefore money in the world today depends on the answer to that question
that theoretically cannot exist.
Principal is a special type (and most significant form) of counter-sense
word or oscillating contradiction where dictionaries normally only give one sense,
while commercial practice defines the contrary. It would be very difficult to put the
Whatever-the-debtor-agrees-that-they-owe sense into a dictionary, because the fraud against
meaning (as well as the criminal law) is manifest in spelling it out, and ever more so in
more specialized financial dictionaries.
So virtually every legal, financial, accounting, and ordinary English dictionary and/or
regulation defines it to the effect "The actual amount invested, loaned or advanced to the
debtor/borrower net of any interest, discount, premium or fees", while virtually every
financial security in the real world at least implicitly incorporates the fraudulent
alternative/contrary meaning.
This in turn allows the academic world to function on the rational/factual
definition, while the markets maintain a wholly contradictory deemed or pretended
reality, while both remain oblivious to the contradiction.
Thus principal means the nominal creditor's actual and net investment, unless it
doesn't .
With this class of counter-sense word where there is a necessary and definitive
answer, the real job of the judges of the Courts becomes to make certain that the question is
never officially asked, and under no circumstances is it to be definitively answered.
With just one of these words you can theoretically steal the Earth . With a
financial system that is relatively saturated with them, such becomes child's play .
With these rules a group of competently-trained chimpanzees otherwise pulling
levers at random could do as well as the so-called wizards of Wall Street .
And significantly, these oscillating contradictions enable the judges to be self-righteous
in the extreme on behalf of the entrenched-money-power, while looting the little
people of the product of their labour.
As in: You have received the principal amount ($10,000) and you are going to pay
back the principal amount ($15,000) plus the ever-accumulating (and super-leveraged)
interest upon it according to your contract, while the meaning of the word oscillates
between fact and opinion – between a noun and an adjective
– according to what the judge needs it to mean (or accommodate) at any given instant in
time.
It seems impossibly obvious in this simple example, but with several of them orchestrated
simultaneously or sequentially, anything can truly be made to mean anything
.
A partial list of the most critical oscillating-contradicitions includes: loan, credit,
discount, interest, rate-of-interest, agreement, contract, security, repay, restitution,
etc., all of which mean either "X" or its conceptual opposite "Minus-X" at the option of the
entrenched-money-power whose vast financial fortunes are founded on such cogno-linguistic
arbitrage .
Here are what I believe to be four essential tools needed to triangulate
reality via congo-linguistic parallax . The first two are mine, and the last two
are from the American and English Courts, respectively.
1. Humans are highly cogno-linguistic . We perceive reality very largely as a
function of the language that we use to describe it. Most everyone inherently believes
and presumes that you have to be able to think something before you can say it.
The greater reality is that, above a certain base level of perception and communication, you
have to have the words and language by which to say something before you can think
it .
2. The world is ever-increasingly controlled and administered by people who genuinely
believe whatever is necessary for the answer they need. Administrative agents of the
entrenched-money-power have solved the criminal-law enigma of mens rea or guilty
mind by evolving or devolving (take your pick) into professional schizophrenics
who genuinely believe whatever they need to believe for the answer they need, and who
communicate among themselves subconsciously by how they name things. They suffer a
cogno-linguistically-induced diminished capacity that renders them incapable of
perceiving reality beyond labels .
3. Their core business model or modus operandi is the systematized delusion
:
"A "systematized delusion" is one based on a false premise, pursued by a logical process
of reasoning to an insane conclusion ; there being one central delusion, around which other
aberrations of the mind converge." Taylor v. McClintock, 112 S.W. 405, 412, 87 Ark. 243.
(West's Judicial Words and Phrases (1914)).
4.
One must not confuse the object of a conspiracy [to defraud] with the
means by which it is intended to be carried out. Scott v. Metropolitan Police
Commissioner [1974] 60 Cr. App. R. 124 H.L.
I have long since abandoned my search for truth, per se, since I came to realize that the
best I can ever do is to constantly strive to move closer to it. With apologies to the
physicists, Truth is the Limit of Infinite Good Faith .
@Tulip " which will
always ultimately be resolved by force."
Right there is where you lost the plot. That statement is just your opinion and it cannot
be proven true. The rest of your argument falls victim to this logical error.
" and those that have prepared for the inevitable will vanquish those who were content to
daydream when they should have been preparing."
Also, just your opinion. For example, the "dreamer" might die still comforted by his/her
dreams, while the "prepper" might waste his life witing for the "inevitable' that never
arrives.
In what can be described as a monumental step forward in the relentless pursuit of 9/11
truth, a United States Attorney has agreed to comply with federal law requiring submission to
a Special Grand Jury of evidence that explosives were used to bring down the World Trade
Centers.
The Lawyers' Committee for 9/11 Inquiry successfully submitted a petition to the federal
government demanding that the U.S. Attorney present to a Special Grand Jury extensive
evidence of yet-to-be-prosecuted federal crimes relating to the destruction of three World
Trade Center Towers on 9/11 (WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7).
After waiting months for the reply, the U.S. Attorney responded in a letter, noting that
they will comply with the law.
Some good documentary films here to watch for free:
My question/quibble relates to your objection to the use of sniffer dogs to establish
probable cause for search because it is no better than a coin toss. That seems fallacious
if, according to your figures, the dogs sniff 500 people and get excited by 10 of them of
which 3 are correctly identified and 7 are false positives.
Yeah. The concepts of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative
predictive value might be very helpful in assessing this.
"... The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at governments that run up debt. And, of course, its loans famously come with strings attached: adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye to the Big State. ..."
"... Yet, the irony is painful. Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome, too centralized and faceless, to be efficient and responsive ..."
"... The problem is that the ruthless sentimentalists of neoliberalism like to tell themselves – and anyone else who will listen – that removing the dead hand of state control frees the individual citizen to be entrepreneurial and productive. Instead, it places the financially powerful beyond any state, in an international elite that makes its own rules, and holds governments to ransom. That's what the financial crisis was all about ..."
"... Markets cannot be free. Markets have to be nurtured. They have to be invested in. Markets have to be grown. Google, Amazon and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments. ..."
"... The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists that the provision of work alone is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market. Yet even Adam Smith, the economist who came up with that theory , did not agree that economic activity alone was enough to keep humans decent and civilised. ..."
The crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response should be a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth
is created and distributed around the globe
he IMF's limited admission of guilt over the Greek bailout is a start, but they still can't see the global financial system's
fundamental flaws, writes Deborah Orr.
The International Monetary Fund has admitted that some of the decisions it made in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis
were wrong, and that the €130bn first bailout of Greece was "bungled". Well, yes. If it hadn't been a mistake, then it would have
been the only bailout and everyone in Greece would have lived happily ever after.
Actually, the IMF hasn't quite admitted that it messed things up. It has said instead that it went along with its partners in
"the Troika" – the European Commission and the European Central Bank – when it shouldn't have. The EC and the ECB, says the IMF,
put the interests of the Eurozone before the interests of Greece. The EC and the ECB, in turn, clutch their pearls and splutter with
horror that they could be accused of something so petty as self-preservation.
The IMF also admits that it "underestimated" the effect austerity would have on Greece. Obviously, the rest of the Troika takes
no issue with that. Even those who substitute "kick up the arse to all the lazy scroungers" whenever they encounter the word "austerity",
have cottoned on to the fact that the word can only be intoned with facial features locked into a suitably tragic mask.
Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign that financial institutions may slowly be
coming round to the idea that they are the problem. They know the crash was a debt-bubble that burst. What they don't seem to acknowledge
is that the merry days of reckless lending are never going to return; even if they do, the same thing will happen again, but more
quickly and more savagely. The thing is this: the crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response from the start should have
been a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment",
as the philosopher
John Gray has said all along.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at governments that run up debt. And, of
course, its loans famously come with strings attached: adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye
to the Big State.
Yet, the irony is painful. Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome, too centralized and faceless,
to be efficient and responsive. I agree.
The problem is that the ruthless sentimentalists of neoliberalism like to tell themselves – and anyone else who will listen
– that removing the dead hand of state control frees the individual citizen to be entrepreneurial and productive. Instead, it places
the financially powerful beyond any state, in an international elite that makes its own rules, and holds governments to ransom. That's
what the financial crisis was all about. The ransom was paid, and as a result, governments have been obliged to limit their
activities yet further – some setting about the task with greater relish than others. Now the task, supposedly, is to get the free
market up and running again.
But the basic problem is this: it costs a lot of money to cultivate a market – a group of consumers – and the more sophisticated
the market is, the more expensive it is to cultivate them. A developed market needs to be populated with educated, healthy, cultured,
law-abiding and financially secure people – people who expect to be well paid themselves, having been brought up believing in material
aspiration, as consumers need to be.
So why, exactly, given the huge amount of investment needed to create such a market, should access to it then be "free"? The neoliberal
idea is that the cultivation itself should be conducted privately as well. They see "austerity" as a way of forcing that agenda.
But how can the privatization of societal welfare possibly happen when unemployment is already high, working people are turning to
food banks to survive and the debt industry, far from being sorry that it brought the global economy to its knees, is snapping up
bargains in the form of busted high-street businesses to establish shops with nothing to sell but high-interest debt? Why, you have
to ask yourself, is this vast implausibility, this sheer un-sustainability, not blindingly obvious to all?
Markets cannot be free. Markets have to be nurtured. They have to be invested in. Markets have to be grown. Google, Amazon
and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they
avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments.
And further, those who invest in these companies, and insist that taxes should be low to encourage private profit and shareholder
value, then lend governments the money they need to create these populations of sophisticated producers and consumers, berating them
for their profligacy as they do so. It's all utterly, completely, crazy.
The other day a health minister,
Anna Soubry
, suggested that female GPs who worked part-time so that they could bring up families were putting the NHS under strain. The
compartmentalised thinking is quite breathtaking. What on earth does she imagine? That it would be better for the economy if they
all left school at 16? On the contrary, the more people who are earning good money while working part-time – thus having the leisure
to consume – the better. No doubt these female GPs are sustaining both the pharmaceutical industry and the arts and media, both sectors
that Britain does well in.
As for their prioritising of family life over career – that's just another of the myriad ways in which Conservative neoliberalism
is entirely without logic. Its prophets and its disciples will happily – ecstatically – tell you that there's nothing more important
than family, unless you're a family doctor spending some of your time caring for your own. You couldn't make these characters up.
It is certainly true that women with children find it more easy to find part-time employment in the public sector. But that's a prima
facie example of how unresponsive the private sector is to human and societal need, not – as it is so often presented – evidence
that the public sector is congenitally disabled.
Much of the healthy economic growth – as opposed to the smoke and mirrors of many aspects of financial services – that Britain
enjoyed during the second half of the 20th century was due to women swelling the educated workforce. Soubry and her ilk, above all
else, forget that people have multiple roles, as consumers, as producers, as citizens and as family members. All of those things
have to be nurtured and invested in to make a market.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists that the provision of work alone
is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market. Yet even Adam Smith, the economist who
came up with that theory , did not agree
that economic activity alone was enough to keep humans decent and civilised.
Governments are left with the bill when neoliberals demand access to markets that they refuse to invest in making. Their refusal
allows them to rail against the Big State while producing the conditions that make it necessary. And even as the results of their
folly become ever more plain to see, they are grudging in their admittance of the slightest blame, bickering with their allies instead
of waking up, smelling the coffee and realising that far too much of it is sold through Starbucks.
"... 'Neoliberalism' is just a sanitised-sounding expression, to cover-up the fact that what we are really seeing here is re-branded, far-right, corporatist ideology. ..."
"... There is a major dividing line. There are those who recognise the abuses of the system and lobby for changes and there are those who lobby for further exploitation. ..."
"... The West became over-indebted when it embraced globalisation which necessarily impoverishes the Middle and Working Classes of the developed nations. A chap called Jimmy Goldsmith warned of this and was widely condemned for it. There is another issue Guardianistas would rather not confront : you can a welfare state or you can have open borders. But you can't have both. ..."
"... Private enterprise is inefficient because at it's heart it rules out cooperation. Being happiest if it's a monopoly, there's nothing a business would like better than wipe out all competition. ..."
"... Right now, the neoliberals think that those in the Far East are the workers and those in the West are the consumers, until the Far East becomes the market and wages so low in the West that they become the workers, unless of course some kind souls decide to invest money in Education, Health and infrastructure in Africa on a huge scale, so we then have Africa as the workers and the far East as the market, and the West, apart from those who own large numbers of shares or business outright, presumably either starve to death or pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and start all over again, inventing and setting up completely new industries, providing the newly universally educated and healthy Chinese and Africans and South Americans haven't done it first. ..."
"... The economic model we have is bankrupt and in its death throes ..."
"... Except it's not. It is still very much alive and growing. ..."
"... deregulated capitalism has failed. That is the product of the last 20 years. The pure market is a fantasy just as communism is or any other ideology. In a pure capitalist economy all the banks of the western world would have bust and indeed the false value "earned" in the preceding 20 years would have been destroyed. ..."
"... "Multinationals need to recognise that paying tax is an investment. Without that tax, their markets will slowly evaporate." However, the gains for the transnational rich are immediate and enormous, while the failure of their markets is slow and, so far, almost entirely painless. ..."
"... Accountants now hold the whip hand in government and business. They know the price of everything but the value of nothing. They advocate selling off industries, outsourcing to low wage economies, zero hours contracts and deregulation (under the bogus campaign line of cutting red tape). ..."
"... Google, Amazon and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they avoid their taxes, because they can , because they are more powerful than governments. ..."
"... If you invent a set of rules that says a country that deficit spends above an arbitrary percentage of its GDP is horribly inefficient and far too high then it should not be a surprise that when that happens, it is described as such. ..."
"... But the basic problem is this: it costs a lot of money to cultivate a market – a group of consumers – and the more sophisticated the market is, the more expensive it is to cultivate them. A developed market needs to be populated with educated, healthy, cultured, law-abiding and financially secure people ..."
"... The economic model we have is bankrupt and in its death throes is gobbling up the last scintilla of surplus that can be extracted from the poor ( anyone not independently wealthy). ..."
'Neoliberalism' is just a sanitised-sounding expression, to cover-up the fact that what we are really seeing here is re-branded,
far-right, corporatist ideology.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
- Benito Mussolini
There is a major dividing line. There are those who recognise the abuses of the system and lobby for changes and there
are those who lobby for further exploitation.
So on the one hand there are relatively rich philanthropists who are quietly supporting campaigns to redistribute wealth and
our abstaining, and on the other you have people arguing for repealing employment legislation.Worst of the lot are people who
pretend to care about the poor but then proceed to fill their own boots.
As consequence people like Warren Buffet should perhaps be among the good guys, whilst people like Tony Blair are the worst
of lot.
All very true. The failures of markets are well documented in economics: the tendency towards monopoly, the failure to value social
goods etc.
In addition, it is ironic that the arch advocates of the 'free market' came begging ( read lobbying) to their governments insisting
upon public financial bailouts for themselves or their counter parties. It was the 'free markets' failure to correctly price 'risk'
that was the route of the economic collapse.
As regards access to 'free markets' it seems patently obvious that if you extract the most money from that market (Amazon et
al), you should contribute a fair share towards the infrastructure of that market: roads, educations, health care etc.
@EllisWyatt - ... we have a real problem with corporations that have a default setting of minimize taxes through ever more
complex structures. It can't be beyond the wit of HMRC to reduce the complexity of the tax legislation and make it harder to
avoid? The prize is continued access to the UK market
We also have the problem that for half the households in the land the level of welfare and benfits rather than wages is the
major determinant of their disposable income and general prosperity.
The welfare code is now comparable in size to the tax code. The tax-benefit affairs of the working poor in the UK are now becoming
as complex as those of the companies that employ them.
The welfare rights industry, which is essentially tax-benefit-lawyering for claimants, is now as large and complex as the tax-lawyering
industry for companies.
It really is insane that we set the minimum wage so low that it attracts income tax, and then attempt to collect tax from the
employing company to fund a tax credit to top up the same low wages that the same company is paying.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists that the provision of work alone is
enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market
Does it? where does it say that? An article which as usual blanket condemns "financial institutions" but actually means banks.
The West became over-indebted when it embraced globalisation which necessarily impoverishes the Middle and Working Classes of
the developed nations. A chap called Jimmy Goldsmith warned of this and was widely condemned for it. There is another issue Guardianistas
would rather not confront : you can a welfare state or you can have open borders. But you can't have both.
Though I'd say private enterprise is capable of building markets - but not of sustaining them. Take books: If few people
know how to read, someone will start a fee paying school to teach those who can pay for it. Then books will take off. And that
will generate money for some, who'll send their kids to school.
However it will always, inevitably, crash at some point: Business can build up, but will always do it in destructuve cycles
- exactly like the brush fires that destroy and regenerate the savannas. As somebright spark once said: Capitalism contains the
seeds of it's own destruction, or something along those lines.
And we don't want to live like that - so we have regulation, and the state.And the state fertilises, and safeguards, by cutting
the grass, making mulch, and spreading the rich gooey muck all over the nice, green, verdant, state controlled pampa.
The cowboys, now, they prefer no cutting of grass, and letting their cattle chomp away undistrurbed. And now my analogy is
starting to wear thin.
The bottom line: Private enterprise is inefficient because at it's heart it rules out cooperation. Being happiest if it's
a monopoly, there's nothing a business would like better than wipe out all competition.
Hence, the necessity for state spending, and state regulation, which the private sector is blind to, because it can't look
ahead.
People are members of families, and are employers and workers, who are customers or clients, and part of
their local communities and professions and trades and hobbyists/clubs who are large scale wholesale consumers who create the
markets that provides employment and income to individuals who are workers. And, and, one big circle.
Right now, the neoliberals think that those in the Far East are the workers and those in the West are the consumers, until
the Far East becomes the market and wages so low in the West that they become the workers, unless of course some kind souls decide
to invest money in Education, Health and infrastructure in Africa on a huge scale, so we then have Africa as the workers and the
far East as the market, and the West, apart from those who own large numbers of shares or business outright, presumably either
starve to death or pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and start all over again, inventing and setting up completely new industries,
providing the newly universally educated and healthy Chinese and Africans and South Americans haven't done it first.
OK. I was against it for a long time, but go ahead. There's no way of avoiding it. Eat the Rich. Apart from the fact that ultra
thin is fashionable, and with all that dieting and exercising, they are the only people who actually get the time for lots of
exercise these days, and they'll taste incredibly tough and stringy.
@CaptainGrey - Ssshhh not on CiF, we all know that capitalism has failed its just that we can't point to a successful alternative
model because such a thing has never existed, its just that this time its different and the model I advocate will lead us all
to the sunny uplands of utopia.
Obviously there will be a little bit of coercion and oppression to get us to those sunny uplands, but you can't make an omlette
etc. plus don't worry that stuff will only happen to "bad people"
The economic model we have is bankrupt and in its death throes
Except it's not. It is still very much alive and growing. The "alternatives" have crashed and burned save Cuba and North
Korea. Capitalism, especially the beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has won and countless people have gained
as a result.
@CaptainGrey - deregulated capitalism has failed. That is the product of the last 20 years. The pure market is a fantasy just
as communism is or any other ideology. In a pure capitalist economy all the banks of the western world would have bust and indeed
the false value "earned" in the preceding 20 years would have been destroyed.
In the 19th century based on experience the public services became part of the public sector to avoid corruption and corporate
blackmail. The neoclassical revolution of the late 20th century has pushed us back to days when elites regarded the state as their
property. Democracy was a threat which won out either through the British model or violent revolution. A small elite cannot endure
if the majority feel exploited.
The Bilderberg Conference should look to the past and learn from the mistakes committed. Neoclassicism will eventually impoverish
them
@UnevenSurface - Multinationals need to recognise that paying tax is an investment. Without that tax, their markets will
slowly evaporate.
"Multinationals need to recognise that paying tax is an investment. Without that tax, their markets will slowly evaporate."
However, the gains for the transnational rich are immediate and enormous, while the failure of their markets is slow and, so far,
almost entirely painless.
@UnevenSurface - I think corporation tax is becoming obsolete given globalization and the increasing dominance of online / global
distribution.
Amazon, Starbucks (and to a lesser extent Google) need to have people on the ground in their market, for customer service,
distribution, warehouse staff, baristas etc. So they'll pay employer taxes etc.
The question is is that enough? I think we are missing a trick with the UK market due to outdated tax legislation that hasn't
really changed in 30 years.
After the US the UK is arguably the most attractive market in the world. Large, homogenous, wealthy with a low propensity to
save and a rapid rate of adoption of new technology / products. We need to think about how we can exploit this in relation to
corporate taxes because even though I am far from left wing, we have a real problem with corporations that have a default setting
of minimise taxes through ever more complex structures.
It can't be beyond the wit of HMRC to reduce the complexity of the tax legislation and make it harder to avoid? The prize is
continued access to the UK market
Accountants now hold the whip hand in government and business. They know the price of everything but the value of nothing.
They advocate selling off industries, outsourcing to low wage economies, zero hours contracts and deregulation (under the bogus
campaign line of cutting red tape).
All of these policies will ultimately end up with capitalism destroying itself. Low wage stagnation will result in penniless
consumers which results in no growth which results in cuttin wages to maintain shareholder returns which results in penniless
consumers etc etc etc. All our institutions are gradually eroded and life for the average citizen will become more and more unpleasant.
Profit share may be a way forward, it's not perfect, companies can effectively use it to freeze wages and benefit from unpaid
overtime, that creates unemployment as four people working a couple of hours extra ever day are denying someone else a job, but
used in the right way it could ensure people get a share in the wealth they help create.
At the sharp end it's tough, at the
company I worked at, all the managers were summoned to a meeting in September and told they had until Christmas to increase turnover
and profits, or they would be out of a job.
At the same company, one of my managers complained that a successful manager at another branch was a crook. The CEO replied
'Yes, but he's a crook that makes a million pounds in profit every year'. I wonder how Deborah's article would have gone down
with him?
Everything was easier when the U S and Europe ran the world's economies with Bank regulations, currency controls and only the
establishment could avoid income, capital gains and IHT taxes and grow wealthy generation after generation. Today there are simply
too many players in the global arena and the rules have been torn up. We are in a jungle where greed is rife and only the powerful
and corrupt survive, shipping and burying their loot in offshore havens.
We need a new global order with a change of mentality
and more morality among the world's politicians, banking and corporate leaders. Unless we end corruption and exploitation of natural
resources in the poor nations and a fairer distribution of the economic wealth the world faces economic and social collapse
Google, Amazon and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't
be so great for them, they avoid their taxes, because they can , because they are more powerful than governments.
Is it beyond the wit of government to close these (perfectly legal) loopholes? Otherwise, what you are asking for is for these
companies to make charitible donations to government - nothing wrong with that per se, but let's not hide behind the misleading
term 'tax avoidance' - companies are obliged to minimise taxes within the law, face it.
It is perfectly clear that in much of the EU public expenditure has been horribly inefficient and far too high
If you invent a set of rules that says a country that deficit spends above an arbitrary percentage of its GDP is horribly
inefficient and far too high then it should not be a surprise that when that happens, it is described as such.
Whether that has any basis in reality or, as I suspect, is only relevant within its own ridiculous framework, is surely the
question.
Deborah Orr is established writer for the Guardian and Married to a Will Self whose is almost certainly a millionaire. She
is one of the rich. The idea that envy is driving her politics is just utterly absurd, and suggests a total lack of reflection.
But the basic problem is this: it costs a lot of money to cultivate a market – a group of consumers – and the more sophisticated
the market is, the more expensive it is to cultivate them. A developed market needs to be populated with educated, healthy,
cultured, law-abiding and financially secure people
Not really; Amazon is just as happy to sell us trashy films, multipacks of chocolate, obesity drugs and baseball bats to stove
our neighbour's head in. There's certainly an argument to be made that companies should have a duty to invest in the infrastructure
that enables their product to be transported, stored etc...but they shouldn't be expected to give a toss if their customers are
unhealthy ignoramuses. A market's a market.
But some countries manage to do this much more efficiently and effectively than others.
In Europe it would appear to be the Social Democratic Nordic countries and Germany which has very strong employment rights.
Korea's economic growth was based on government investment and a degree of protectionism. These are precisely the ideas that neoliberalism
opposes.
If they had adopted The Keynes Plan at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference then the IMF and the World Bank would never have been
set up. We most likely would not have had the euro crisis and the problem of trade imbalances between counties would most likely
have gone away.
Now that is what I call 'Keynesian'. Feel free to continue to make up your own definitions though.
Socialism for the 1% with the rest scraping around for the crumbs in an ever more divided world run by The Bilderbergers who play
the politicians like puppets.
@emkayoh - I am not sure its in its death throes, I think what we are seeing is capitalism attempting to transform itself again.
The success of that transformation will depend on how willing people across the western world to put up with reduced welfare,
poverty pay and almost no employment rights. If we say no and make things too hot for the ruling class we have a chance to take
control of the future direction of our world, if not then what's the point.
This is a strange rant. Everyone agrees that free markets need to be nurtured by appropriate state institutions. But some countries
manage to do this much more efficiently and effectively than others. It is perfectly clear that in much of the EU public expenditure
has been horribly inefficient and far too high.
There is no contradiction between being in favour of free markets and believing that markets and societies should be nurtured
appropriately. We think people should be free and all accept that they should be nurtured.
So why, exactly, given the huge amount of investment needed to create such a market, should access to it then be "free"?
Corporate taxation is best explained as the license that business pays to access the market -- which is in turn created through
the schools, hospitals, roads, etc. that the tax pays for. Unfortunately the new Corporate Social Irresponsibility being acted
out by multinationals today neatly avoids paying that license, and sooner or later will damage them. Multinationals need to recognize
that paying tax is an investment. Without that tax, their markets will slowly evaporate.
The economic model we have is bankrupt and in its death throes is gobbling up the last scintilla of surplus that can be extracted
from the poor ( anyone not independently wealthy).
"... What sticks in the neoliberalism craw is that the state provides these services instead of private businesses, and as such "rob" them of juicy profits! The state, the last easy cash cow! ..."
"... Who could look at the way markets function and conclude there's any freedom? Only a neoliberal cult member. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be dissuaded. They cannot be persuaded. Only the market knows best, and the fact that the market is a corrupt, self serving whore is completely ignored by the ideology of their Church. ..."
"... when Thatcher and Reagan deregulated the financial markets in the 80s, that's when the trouble began which in turn led to the immense crash in 2008. ..."
"... Neo-liberalism is just another symptom of liberal democracy which is government by oligarchs with a veneer of democracy ..."
"... The state has merged with the corporations so that what is good for the corporations is good for the state and visa versa. The larger and richer the state/corporations are, the more shyster lawyers they hire to disguise misdeeds and unethical behavior. ..."
"... If you support a big government, you are supporting big corporations as well. The government uses the taxpayer as an eternal fount of fresh money and calls it their own to spend as they please. Small businesses suffer unfairly because they cannot afford the shyster lawyers and accountants that protect the government and the corporations, but nobody cares about them. ..."
"... Deborah's point about the illogical demands of neoliberalism are indeed correct, which is somewhat ironic as neoliberalism puts objective rationality at the heart of its philosophy, but I digress... ..."
"... There would not be NHS, free education etc. without socialism; in fact they are socialism. It took the Soviet-style socialism ("statism") 70 years to collapse. The neoliberalistic capitalism has already started to collapse after 30 years. ..."
"... I'm always amused that neoliberal - indeed, capitalist - apologists cannot see the hypocrisy of their demands for market access. Communities create and sustain markets, fund and maintain infrastructure, produce and maintain new consumers. Yet the neolibs decry and destroy. Hypocrites or destructive numpties - never quite decided between Pickles and Gove ..."
"... 97% of all OUR money has been handed over to these scheming crooks. Stop bailing out the banks with QE. Take back what is ours -- state control over the creation of money. Then let the banks revert to their modest market-based function of financial intermediaries. ..."
"... The State can't be trusted to create our money? Well they could hardly do a worse job than the banks! Best solution would be to distribute state-created money as a Citizen's Income. ..."
"... To promote the indecent obsession for global growth Australia, burdened with debt of around 250 billion dollars, is to borrow and pay interest on a further 7 billion dollars to lend to the International Monetary Fund so as it can lend it to poorer nations to burden them with debt. ..."
This private good, public bad is a stupid idea, and a totally artificial divide. After all,
what are "public spends"? It is the money from private individuals, and companies,
clubbing together to get services they can't individually afford.
What sticks in the
neoliberalism craw is that the state provides these services instead of private businesses,
and as such "rob" them of juicy profits! The state, the last easy cash cow!
Neoliberalism is a modern curse. Everything about it is bad and until we're free of it, it
will only ever keep trying to turn us into indentured labourers. It's acolytes are required
to blind themselves to logic and reason to such a degree they resemble Scientologists or
Jehovah's Witnesses more than people with any sort of coherent political ideology, because
that's what neoliberalism actually is... a cult of the rich, for the rich, by the rich... and
it's followers in the general population are nothing but moron familiars hoping one day to be
made a fully fledged bastard.
Who could look at the way markets function and conclude there's any freedom? Only a
neoliberal cult member. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be dissuaded. They cannot
be persuaded. Only the market knows best, and the fact that the market is a corrupt, self
serving whore is completely ignored by the ideology of their Church.
It's subsumed the entire planet, and waiting for them to see sense is a hopeless cause. In
the end it'll probably take violence to rid us of the Neoliberal parasite... the turn of the
century plague.
"Capitalism, especially the beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has
won and countless people have gained as a result."
I agree with you and it was this beneficial version of capitalism that brought down the
Iron Curtain. Working people in the former Communist countries were comparing themselves with
working people in the west and wanted a piece of that action. Cuba has hung on because people
there compare themselves with their nearest capitalist neighbor Haiti and they don't want a
piece of that action. North Korea well North Korea is North Korea.
Isn't it this beneficial capitalism that is being threatened now though? When the wall
came down it was assumed that Eastern European countries would become more like us. Some have
but who would have thought that British working people would now be told, by the likes of
Kwasi Kwarteng and his Britannia Unchained chums, that we have to learn to accept working
conditions that are more like those in the Eastern European countries that got left behind
and that we are now told that our version of Capitalism is inferior to the version adopted by
the Communist Party of China?
@bullwinkle - No , when Thatcher and Reagan deregulated the financial markets in the 80s,
that's when the trouble began which in turn led to the immense crash in 2008.
Neo-liberalism is just another symptom of liberal democracy which is government by oligarchs
with a veneer of democracy.
This type of government began in America about 150 years ago with the Rockefellers,
Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Ford etc who took advantage of new inventions, cheap immigrant labour
and financial deregulation in finance and social mores to amass wealth for themselves and
chaos and austerity for workers.
All this looks familiar again today with new and old oligarchs hiding behind large
corporations taking advantage of the invention of the €uro, mass immigration into
western Europe and deregulation of the financial "markets" and social mores to amass wealth
for a super-wealthy elite and chaos and austerity for workers.
So if we want to see where things went wrong we need only go back 150 years to what happened
to America. There we can also see our future?
The beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has won
Free education and the NHS are state institutions. As Debbie said, Amazon never taught
anyone to read. Beneficial capitalism is an oxymoron resulting from your lack of
understanding.
especially the beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has won and
countless people have gained as a result.
At one and the same time being privatized and having their funding squeezed, a direct
result of the neoliberal dogma capitalism of austerity. Free access is being eroded by the
likes of ever larger student loans and prescription costs for a start.
they avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than
governments
Let's not get carried away here. Let's consider some of the things governments can do,
subject only to a 5 yearly check and challenge:
force people upon pain of imprisonment to pay taxes to them
pay out that tax money to whomever they like
spend money they don't have by borrowing against obligations imposed on future taxpayers
without their agreement
kill people in wars, often from the comfort of a computer screen thousands of miles
away
print money and give it to whomever they like,
get rid of nation state currencies and replace them with a single, centrally controlled
currency
make laws and punish people who break them, including the ability to track them down in
most places in the world if they try and run away.
use laws to create monopolies and favour special interests
Let's now consider what power apple have...
- they can make iPhones and try to sell them for a profit by responding to the demands of
the mass consumer market. That's it. In fact, they are forced to do this by their owners who
only want them to do this, and nothing else. If they don't do this they will cease to
exist.
The state has merged with the corporations so that what is good for the corporations is good
for the state and visa versa. The larger and richer the state/corporations are, the more
shyster lawyers they hire to disguise misdeeds and unethical behavior.
If you support a big government, you are supporting big corporations as well. The
government uses the taxpayer as an eternal fount of fresh money and calls it their own to
spend as they please. Small businesses suffer unfairly because they cannot afford the shyster
lawyers and accountants that protect the government and the corporations, but nobody cares
about them. Remember, that Green Energy is big business, just like Big Pharma and Big Oil.
Most government shills have personally invested in Green Energy not because they care about
the environment, only because they know that it is a safe investment protected by government
for government. The same goes for large corporations who befriend government and visa
versa.
@NeilThompson - It's all very well for Deborah to recommend that the well paid share work.
Journalists, consultants and other assorted professionals can afford to do so. As a
self-employed tradesman, I'd be homeless within a month.
@SpinningHugo - Interesting that those who are apparently concerned with prosperity for all
and international solidarity are happy to ignore the rest of the world when it's going well,
preferring to prophesy apocalypse when faced with government spending being slightly reduced
at home.
@1nn1t - That is a point which just isn't made enough. This is the first group of politicians
for whom a global conflict seems like a distant event.
As a result we have people like Blair who see nothing wrong with invading countries at a
whim, or conservatives and UKIP who fail to understand the whole point of the European Court
of Human Rights.
They seem to act without thought of our true place in the world, without regard for the
truly terrible capacity humanity has for self destruction.
Deborah's point about the illogical demands of neoliberalism are indeed correct, which is
somewhat ironic as neoliberalism puts objective rationality at the heart of its philosophy,
but I digress...
The main problem with replacing neoliberalism with a more rational, and fairer system,
entails that people like Deborah accept that they will be less wealthy. And that my friends is the main problem. People like Deborah, while they are more than
happy to point the fingers at others, are less than happy to accept that they are also part
of the problem.
(Generalisation Caveat: I don't know in actuality if Deborah would be unhappy to be less
wealthy in exchange for a fairer system, she doesn't say)
Good critique of conservative-neoliberalism, unless you subscribe to it and subordinate any
morals or other values to it.
She mentions an internal tension and I think that's because conservatism and neoliberal
market ideology are different beasts.
There are different models of capitalism quite clearly the social democratic version in
Scandinavia or the "Bismarkian" German version have worked a lot better than the UKs.
Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign
that financial institutions may slowly be coming round to the idea that they are the
problem.
How is it a sign of that? We are offered no clues.
What they don't seem to acknowledge is that the merry days of reckless lending are never
going to return;
Try reading a history of financial crashes to dislodge this idea.
... even if they do, the same thing will happen again, but more quickly and more
savagely.
This may or may not be true but here it is mere assertion.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at
governments that run up debt.
At this point I start to have real doubts as to whether Deborah Orr has actually read even
the Executive Summary of the Report this article is ostensibly a response to.
All the comments that follow about the need for public infrastructure, education,
regulated markets and so on are made as if they were a criticism of the IMF and yet the IMF
says many of those same things itself. The IMF position may, of course, be contradictory -
but then that is something that would need to be demonstrated. It seems that Deborah has not
got beyond reading a couple of Guardian articles on the issues she discusses and therefore is
in no position to do this.
Efforts are being made to narrow the skills gap with other countries in the region, as
the authorities look to take full advantage of Bangladesh's favorable demographics and help
create conditions for more labor-intensive led growth. The government is also scaling up
spending on education, science and technology, and information and communication
technology.
Which seems to be the sort of thing Deborah Orr is calling for. She should spend a little
time on the IMF website before criticising the institution. It is certainly one that merits
much criticism - but it needs to be informed.
And the solution to the problems? For Deborah Orr the response
... from the start should have been a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth
is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment", as the philosopher
John Gray has said all along.
Does anyone have any idea what this is supposed to mean? There are certainly no leads on
this in the link given to "the philosopher" John Gray. And what a strange reference that is.
John Gray, in his usual cynical mode, dismisses the idea of progress being achieved by the
EU. But then I suppose that is consistent from a man who dismisses the idea of progress
itself.
... Conservative neoliberalism is entirely without logic.
The first step in serious political analysis is to understand that the people one opposes
are not crazy and are not devoid of logic. If that is not clearly understood then all that is
left is the confrontation of assertion and contrary assertion. Of course Conservative
neoliberalism has a logic. It is one I do not agree with but it is a logic all the same.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this [the need
for public investment and a recognition of the multiple roles that individuals have].
Wrong again.
It insists that the provision of work alone is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a
market.
And again.
This stuff can't be made up as you go along on the basis of reading a couple of newspaper
articles. You actually have to do some hard reading to get to grip with the issues. I can see
no signs of that in this piece.
@NotAgainAgain - We are going off topic and that is in no small part down to my own fault, so
apologies. Just to pick up the point, I guess my unease with the likes of Buffet, Cooper-Hohn
or even the wealthy Guardian columnists is that they are criticizing the system from a
position of power and wealth.
So its easy to advocate change if you feel that you are in the vanguard of defining that
change i.e. the reforms you advocate may leave you worse off, but at a level you feel
comfortable with (the prime example always being Polly's deeply relaxed attitude to swingeing
income tax increases when her own lifestyle will be protected through wealth).
I guess I am a little skeptical because I either see it as managed decline, a smokescreen
or at worst mean spiritedness of people prepared to accept a reasonable degree of personal
pain if it means other people whom dislike suffer much greater pain.
"There is a clear legal basis in Germany for the workplace representation of employees in
all but the very smallest companies. Under the Works Constitution Act, first passed in 1952
and subsequently amended, most recently in 2001, a works council can be set up in all private
sector workplaces with at least five employees."
The UK needs to wake up to the fact that managers are sometimes inept or corrupt and will
destroy the companies they work for, unless their are adequate mechanisms to hold poor
management to account.
Capitalism, especially the beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has
won
There would not be NHS, free education etc. without socialism; in fact they are
socialism. It took the Soviet-style socialism ("statism") 70 years to collapse. The neoliberalistic
capitalism has already started to collapse after 30 years.
I'm always amused that neoliberal - indeed, capitalist - apologists cannot see the hypocrisy
of their demands for market access. Communities create and sustain markets, fund and maintain
infrastructure, produce and maintain new consumers. Yet the neolibs decry and destroy.
Hypocrites or destructive numpties - never quite decided between Pickles and Gove, y'see.
@JamesValencia - Actually on reflection you are correct and I was wrong in my attack on the
author above. Having re-read the article its a critique of institutions rather than people so
my points were wide of the mark.
I still think that well heeled Guardian writers aren't really in a position to attack the
wealthy and politically connected, but I'll save that for a thread when they explicitly do
so, rather than the catch all genie of neoliberalism.
@CaptainGrey - deregulated capitalism has failed. That is the product of the last 20
years. The pure market is a fantasy just as communism is or any other ideology. In a pure
capitalist economy all the banks of the western world would have bust and indeed the false
value "earned" in the preceding 20 years would have been destroyed.
If the pure market is a fantasy, how can deregulated capitalism have failed? Does one not
require the other? Surely it is regulated capitalism that has failed?
97% of all OUR money has been handed over to these scheming crooks. Stop bailing out the
banks with QE. Take back what is ours -- state control over the creation of money. Then let
the banks revert to their modest market-based function of financial intermediaries.
The State can't be trusted to create our money? Well they could hardly do a worse job than
the banks! Best solution would be to distribute state-created money as a Citizen's
Income.
@1nn1t - Some good points, there is a whole swathe of low earners that should not be in the
tax system at all, simply letting them keep the money in their pocket would be a start.
Second the minimum wage (especially in the SE) is too low and should be increased.
Obviously the devil is in the detail as to the precise rate, the other issue is non
compliance as there will be any number of businesses that try and get around this, through
employing people too ignorant or scared to know any better or for family businesses - do we
have the stomach to enforce this?
Thirdly there is a widespread reluctance to separate people from the largesse of the
state, even at absurd levels of income such as higher rate payers (witness child tax
credits). On the right they see themselves as having paid in and so are "entitled" to have
something back and on the left it ensures that everyone has a vested interest in a big state
dipping it hands into your pockets one day and giving you something back the next.
@Uncertainty - Which is why the people of the planet need to join hands.
The only group of people in he UK to see that need were the generation that faced WW2
together.
It's no accident that, joining up at 18 in 1939, they had almost all retired by 1984.
To promote the indecent obsession for global growth Australia, burdened with debt of around
250 billion dollars, is to borrow and pay interest on a further 7 billion dollars to lend to
the International Monetary Fund so as it can lend it to poorer nations to burden them with
debt.
It is entrapment which impoverishes nations into the surrender of sovereignty,
democracy and national pride. In no way should we contribute to such economic immorality and
the entire economic system based on perpetual growth fuelled by consumerism and debt needs
top be denounced and dismantled. The adverse social and environmental consequence of
perpetual growth defies all sensible logic and in time, in a more responsible and enlightened
era, growth will be condemned.
"... Socialism for the 1% with the rest scraping around for the crumbs ..."
"... Don't you think a global recession and massive banking collapse should be classified as 'crash and burn'? ..."
"... It's one of the major contradictions of modern conservatism that the raw, winner-takes-all version of capitalism it champions actually undermines the sort of law abiding, settled communities it sees as the societal ideal. ..."
"... Rich people have benefited from this more than most: they need workers trained by a state-funded education system and kept healthy by a state-funded healthcare system; they depend on lending from banks rescued by the taxpayer; they rely on state-funded infrastructure and research, and – like all of us – on a society that does not collapse. Whether they like it or not, they would not have made their fortunes without the state spending billions of pounds ..."
"... You have to be careful when you take on the banksters. Abe Lincoln John Kennedy and Hitler all tried or (in Kennedy's case planned) on the issuance of money via the state circumventing the banks. All came to a sticky end. No wonder politicians run scared of them. ..."
"... Now, that's a novel interpretation! The working people in "Communist" countries had free healthcare and education, guaranteed employment and heavily subsidized housing. The reason we have healtcare and free education is that working people in Capitalist countries would otherwise have revolted to have Socialism. In the absence of competition, there is no benefit for the Capitalist to be "beneficial". ..."
"... The banks could plainly see that they were stoking a bubble, but chose not to pass on the increased risk of lending to consumers by raising their interest rates and coolling the market. Why? Because they were making a handsome short-term profit. The banks put their own short-term interests above their long-term interests of financial stability. When the house of cards came tumbling down - we bailed them out. It was idiotic banks who failed to properly control their risk of lending that caused the crash, not interventionist politicians. ..."
Virtually everyone knows what went wrong, with the exception only of uncontrollable
ultra-right neoliberal buffs who try and put the blame on everyone else with various out and
out lies and deceptions, and they are thankfully petering and dying out by the day, including
deluded contributors to CiF, who seem to be positively and cruelly reveling in the suffering
their beloved thesis has and is causing.
So, now that we know the symptoms, what about the cure? The coalition want to make the poor
and vulnerable suffer even more than they have done over the last three decades or so while
still refusing to clamp down and wholly regulate the bankers, corporates and free markets, who
still hold too much power like the unions in the 70's,while Ed Miliband and 'One Nation
Labour' merely suggest in mild, diffident terms about financial regulation and a more balanced
economy, while still not wanting to upset those nice bankers too much.
It's time they were
upset though, and made to pay for their errors and recklessness; while they still award
themselves bonuses and take advantage of Gideon's recent tax cut, the poor and vulnerable who
were never responsible for the long recession now have money taken off them and struggle to
feed, pay bills and clothe themselves and their families, supported by the Daily Fail and co.
who look on them as scrounging, lazy, criminal, violent, drunken, drug addicted and promiscuous
sub-humans, who deserve their fate.
There's quite a few in the middle/professional classes
(many bankers) if they didn't know, but they don't bother with such, do they?
The economic model we have is bankrupt and in its death throes
I am not sure if this is true. We have the same economic system (broadly speaking,
capitalism) as nearly every country in the world, and the world economy is growing at a
reasonable rate, at around 3-4% for 2013-14 (see http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/pdf/c1.pdf
for more details).
We perceive a problem in (most of) Europe and North America because our economies are
growing more slowly than this, and in some cases not at all. The global growth figure comes
out healthy because of strong growth in the emerging countries, like China, Brazil and India,
who are narrowing the gap between their living standards and ours. So, the world as a whole
isn't broken, even if our bit of it is going through a rough patch.
This is pertinant to a discussion of Deborah Orr's article, because in it she calls for
global changes:
The response from the start should have been a wholesale reevaluation of the way in
which wealth is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment", as the
philosopher John Gray has said all along.
My point is: I don't think this argument will work, because I don't see why the emerging
countries would want wholesale change to what, for them, is quite a successful recipe, just
because it going down badly in Europe. Instead, European countries need to do whatever it
takes to fix their banking systems; but also learn to live within their means, and show some
more of the discipline and enterprise that made them wealthy in the first place.
@Uncertainty - I`m not defending philanthropy, i am saying in answer to some personal attacks
on Miss Orr below the line, that her status as either rich or poor is irrelevant, it is her
politics that count .
Tony Benn and Polly Toynbee both receive much abuse in this manner on Cif.
@kingcreosote - Socialism for the 1% with the rest scraping around for the crumbs
And yet the rest have more crumbs than under any other conceivable system. Look
at the difference that even limited market liberalisation has made to poverty in China. No loaf, no crumbs. You can always throw the loaf out of the window if you don't like the
inequality and then no-one can have anything.
@jazzdrum - I don't have much time for those rich who feel guilty about their greed and do
'charity' to salve their souls. Oh and get a Knighthood as a result.
The more honest giver is the person who gives of what little they have in their purse and
go without as a result. Not a tax dodge re-branded as philanthropy.
Also, such giving from the rich often has strings and may be tailored to what they think
are the 'deserving poor'. I don't like that either.
@Herbolzheim - It's one of the major contradictions of modern conservatism that the raw,
winner-takes-all version of capitalism it champions actually undermines the sort of law
abiding, settled communities it sees as the societal ideal.
More and more people are beginning to understand this as a fundamentally political problem (
ref. @XerXes1369). The 'left' prefers to concentrate on the role of a financial elite (which
is supposed to be exerting some kind of malign supernatural force on the state), to divert
attention from what mainstream 'left' poltics in this society has turned out to be.
When the state is taking over 60% of the income of even those on minimum wages we se
how, from the very top to the very bottom, that the state is the problem.
It's become a monster that will destroy us all.
I would query where you get these figures from, but where it not for the state, do you really
think that somebody on the minimum wage, keeping 100% of their wages, would be able to
afford, out of these wages, health care, schooling for their children, infrastructure
maintenance, their own police force and army, their own legal system?
This from an article in the Independent:
Rich people have benefited from this more than most: they need workers trained by a
state-funded education system and kept healthy by a state-funded healthcare system; they
depend on lending from banks rescued by the taxpayer; they rely on state-funded
infrastructure and research, and – like all of us – on a society that does not
collapse. Whether they like it or not, they would not have made their fortunes without the
state spending billions of pounds.
So the state, although not perfect benefit all of us, get over it!
You have to be careful when you take on the banksters.
Abe Lincoln John Kennedy and Hitler all tried or (in Kennedy's case planned) on the
issuance of money via the state circumventing the banks. All came to a sticky end. No wonder politicians run scared of them.
Free education and the NHS are state institutions. As Debbie said, Amazon never taught
anyone to read. Beneficial capitalism is an oxymoron resulting from your lack of
understanding.
Yes they are state institutions and the tax system should be changed to prevent
Amazon et al from avoiding paying their fair share. But beneficial capitalism is not an
oxymoron, it is alive and present in virtually every corner of the world. Rather than accuse
me of not understanding, I think you would do well to take the beam out of your eye.
I agree with you and it was this beneficial version of capitalism that brought down the
Iron Curtain. Working people in the former Communist countries were comparing themselves
with working people in the west and wanted a piece of that action.
Now, that's a novel interpretation! The working people in "Communist" countries had free
healthcare and education, guaranteed employment and heavily subsidized housing. The reason we have healtcare and free education is that working people in Capitalist
countries would otherwise have revolted to have Socialism. In the absence of competition, there is no benefit for the Capitalist to be
"beneficial".
The banks couldn't stop property hyperinflation, at 20% a year for well over a
decade.
The banks could plainly see that they were stoking a bubble, but chose not to pass on the
increased risk of lending to consumers by raising their interest rates and coolling the
market. Why? Because they were making a handsome short-term profit. The banks put their own
short-term interests above their long-term interests of financial stability. When the house
of cards came tumbling down - we bailed them out. It was idiotic banks who failed to properly
control their risk of lending that caused the crash, not interventionist politicians.
Last week there was a story where HSBC have taken on a senior ex-MI5 person to shore up
their money laundering 'problems'. They're being fined over a billion dollars by the fed
for taking blood money from murderers, drug dealers and corrupt politicians.
Not the Security Services' Director General by any chance?
-- In a filing to the Bermuda Stock Exchange ("BSX"), HSBC Holdings plc (Ticker:
HSBC.BH), announced the appointment of Sir Jonathan Evans to the Board of Directors.
The filing stated:
Sir Jonathan Evans (55) has been appointed a Director of HSBC Holdings plc with effect
from 6 August 2013. He will be an independent non-executive Director and a member of the
Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee.
Sir Jonathan's career in the Security Service spanned 33 years, the last six of which as
Director General. During his career Sir Jonathan's experience included counter-espionage,
protection of classified information and the security of critical national infrastructure.
His main focus was, however, counter-terrorism, both international and domestic including,
increasingly, initiatives against cyber threats. As Director General he was a senior
advisor to the UK government on national security policy and attended the National Security
Council.
He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2013 New Year's
Honours List and retired from the Service in April 2013.
I think there's some really good points in the article.
Last week there was a story where HSBC have taken on a senior ex-MI5 person to shore up
their money laundering 'problems'. They're being fined over a billion dollars by the fed for
taking blood money from murderers, drug dealers and corrupt politicians.
Their annual fee for this guy with 20 years experience to tackle a billion dollar fine and
the disfunction in their organisation? A lousy 100 k. Fee to UK for training him? 0.
Ridiculous! It should have been 10 times that for him and a finders fee of perhaps 10
million to the state.
Realistically, the state has NO clue about it's real value, or the real value of the UK
population. And the example above, I think, demonstrates banks' attitude to the global demand
that they clean up their act. We neef to take this lot to the cleaners before the stench gets
any worse.
Like bolshevism this secular regions is to a large extent is a denial of Christianity. While Bolshevism is closer to the Islam,
Neoliberalism is closer to Judaism.
The idea of " Homo economicus " -- a person who in all
his decisions is governed by self-interest and greed is bunk.
Notable quotes:
"... There is not a shred of logical sense in neoliberalism. You're doing what the fundamentalists do... they talk about what neoliberalism is in theory whilst completely ignoring what it is in practice. ..."
"... In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but the consequences where deemed too high (as they inevitable are). The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality of neoliberalism. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is based on the thought that you get as much freedom as you can pay for, otherwise you can just pay... like everyone else. In Asia and South America it has been the economic preference of dictators that pushes profit upwards and responsibility down, just like it does here. ..."
"... We all probably know the answer to this. In order to maintain the consent necessary to create inequality in their own interests the neoliberals have to tell big lies, and keep repeating them until they appear to be the truth. They've gotten so damn good at it. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is a modern curse. Everything about it is bad and until we're free of it, it will only ever keep trying to turn us into indentured labourers. ..."
"... It's acolytes are required to blind themselves to logic and reason to such a degree they resemble Scientologists or Jehovah's Witnesses more than people with any sort of coherent political ideology, because that's what neoliberalism actually is... a cult of the rich, for the rich, by the rich... and it's followers in the general population are nothing but moron familiars hoping one day to be made a fully fledged bastard ..."
"... Who could look at the way markets function and conclude there's any freedom? Only a neoliberal cult member. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be dissuaded. They cannot be persuaded. Only the market knows best, and the fact that the market is a corrupt, self serving whore is completely ignored by the ideology of their Church. ..."
Unless you are completely confused by what neoliberalism is there is not a shred of logical sense in this.
There is not a shred of logical sense in neoliberalism. You're doing what the fundamentalists do... they talk about what neoliberalism
is in theory whilst completely ignoring what it is in practice.
In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but the consequences where deemed too high (as they inevitable
are). The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality of neoliberalism.
Savers in a neoliberal society are lambs to the slaughter. Thatcher "revitalised" banking, while everything else withered and
died.
Neoliberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom, communism is definitely not. Neoliberalist policies have lifted
millions of people out of poverty in Asia and South America.
Neoliberalism is based on the thought that you get as much freedom as you can pay for, otherwise you can just pay... like
everyone else. In Asia and South America it has been the economic preference of dictators that pushes profit upwards and responsibility
down, just like it does here.
I find it ironic that it now has 5 year plans that absolutely must not be deviated from, massive state intervention in markets
(QE, housing policy, tax credits... insert where applicable), and advocates large scale central planning even as it denies reality,
and makes the announcement from a tractor factory.
Neoliberalism is a blight... a cancer on humanity... a massive lie told by rich people and believed only by peasants happy
to be thrown a turnip. In theory it's one thing, the reality is entirely different. Until we're rid of it, we're all it's slaves.
It's an abhorrent cult that comes up with purest bilge like expansionary fiscal contraction to keep all the money in the hands
of the rich.
Why, you have to ask yourself, is this vast implausibility, this sheer unsustainability, not blindingly obvious to all?
We all probably know the answer to this. In order to maintain the consent necessary to create inequality in their own interests
the neoliberals have to tell big lies, and keep repeating them until they appear to be the truth. They've gotten so damn good
at it.
Neoliberalism is a modern curse. Everything about it is bad and until we're free of it, it
will only ever keep trying to turn us into indentured labourers.
It's acolytes are required
to blind themselves to logic and reason to such a degree they resemble Scientologists or
Jehovah's Witnesses more than people with any sort of coherent political ideology, because
that's what neoliberalism actually is... a cult of the rich, for the rich, by the rich... and
it's followers in the general population are nothing but moron familiars hoping one day to be
made a fully fledged bastard.
Who could look at the way markets function and conclude there's any freedom? Only a
neoliberal cult member. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be dissuaded. They cannot
be persuaded. Only the market knows best, and the fact that the market is a corrupt, self
serving whore is completely ignored by the ideology of their Church.
It's subsumed the entire planet, and waiting for them to see sense is a hopeless cause. In
the end it'll probably take violence to rid us of the Neoliberal parasite... the turn of the
century plague.
How many alternative economic systems would you say have been given a fair trial under
reasonably favorable circumstances?
A good question. Answer: admittedly, not a huge number - but not none either. Feudalism
held sway in the middle ages and mercantilism in the 18th century, before both fell out of
fashion. In the 20th century Russia stuck with communism for 74 years, and many other
countries tried it for a while. At one time (around 1949-89) there were enough countries in
the communist block for us to be able to say that they at least had a fair chance to make it
work - that is, if it didn't work, they can't really blame it on the rest of the world
ganging up on them.
Lately, serious challengers to the global economic order have been more isolated
(Venzuela, Cuba, North Korea?) - so maybe you could argue that, if they are struggling, it is
because they have been unfairly ganged up on. But then again, aren't they pursuing a
version of socialism that has close affinities to that tried in the Soviet Union?
The problem with giving any novel political idea a really extended trial is that you have
to try it out on live human beings. This means that, once a critical mass of data has built
up that indicates a political idea doesn't work out as hoped, then people inevitably lose the
will to try that idea again.
So my question is: are critics of the current world economic order able to spell out
exactly how their proposed alternative would differ from Soviet-style socialism?
I'd tend to agree with you but in that case it's not an ideology, merely
pragmatism. The convergence of the parties merely reflects the wider consensus in society.
The alternative is simple but people have become so wedded to the libertarian parts of
liberal democracy that it will be some time before they are ready to contemplate the
alternative, a return to the Judaeo/Christian version of human rights - an absolute right to
God who made us, to the truth, to life, to a natural family, and to own the means of earning
a living - to which all should be entitled and all should be held to account.
These are rights that any sensible person will tell you that we should be entitled to but
believe it or not they are anathema to liberal democracy which is based on exploiting the
selfishness of the individual to the detriment of the common good and the good of society at
large.
This post is a variant of "fake prosperity" -- yet another neoliberal myth. Also known as
"rising tidelift all boats"
The improvement of the standard of living in 90th was mainly due to economic plunder of xUSSR
and Eastern Europe as well as well as communication revolution happening simultaneously. The
period from 1990 to 2000 is known as "Triumphal March of Neoliberalism". Aftger year 200
neoliberalism went into recession and in 2008 in deep crisis. The neoliberal ideology was dead by
2008.
Indeed. That was in the time of feudalism and mercantilism.
No, it was as recently as WW2 more or less. After that it followed a confusing
period where social and political freedoms darted ahead up to the '80s when the economic
freedoms started being championed by the right: Thatcher, Reagan, etc.
That saw a liberalisation of trade and an explosive growth in international trade with
huge benefits for the whole world: developing countries like the Asian dragons have seen
their standards of living skyrocket and practically they can't get up with the developed
countries in one generation. China, and India to an extent, is following on that path with
pretty good results.
As the same time the developed countries saw a huge improvement in their standard of
living with products and services available at incredible prices. Even the countries that did
not get on this yet are benefiting and the fact that starvation in the world is less of a
problem is the proof of that for example.
The response should be a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created
and distributed around the globe
But we know already how that is done: voluntary transactions among free agents.
That's called a free market and it is by far the most efficient way to produce wealth
humanity has ever known. Sure, we tried other methods (slavery, forced labour, communal
entities, government controlled economies, tribal economies, etc.) but nothing worked as well
as free markets.
The calls for governments' intervention in the economy is misguided and counterproductive.
They already extract about 50% of all wealth created in this country. That's way too much
since most of the money taken by governments is money diverted from productive use.
Wrong. Traditional liberalism supported both social and economic freedoms. That included
support for most of the civil rights and freedoms we enjoy today AND free trade and free
investments.
Indeed. That was in the time of feudalism and mercantilism.
I take this opportunity to draw everyone's attention to a Finnish theorist and proponent
of liberal economical and political thinking, whose treatise on liberal national economy
preceded Adam Smith by 11 years: Anders Chydenius (1729-1803).
Margaret Thatcher left office 23 years ago. The de-regulation of the City occurred in
1986, 27 years ago. Since then UK GDP has more than doubled, inflation and unemployment are
far lower, and the numbers living in extreme poverty have fallen dramatically.
This is an attractive but idealistinc notion, because the person destiny often is shaped by
forces beyond his control. Like Great Depression or WWII. The proper idea is that the society as
a whole serves as a "social security" mechanism to prevent worst outcomes. At the same time
neoliberalism accept bailout for financial sector and even demand them for goverment.
@dmckm - Nobody is owed a good living in this world. That's what freedom means: one is free
to chose the best way to make a living. Are you saying that by forcing people to pay you
something they don't want to is freedom?
No market is 'Free'. Free markets do not exist. Markets are there for those with a vested
interest. i.e. the banksters. Note the growth of Hedge funds or slush funds for the rich.
Neoliberalism like Bolshevism is based on brainwashing and propaganda. In this case by
bought by financial elite and controlled by intelligence agencies MSM.
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism? This is not just a financial agenda. This a highly organized multi armed counterculture operation to force us, including Ms Orr [unless she has...connections] into what Terence McKenna [who was in on it] termed the `Archaic Revival'. That is - you and me [and Ms Orr] - our - return to the medieval dark ages, if we indeed survive that far. ..."
"... The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. ..."
"... A free market larger than a boot fair has never existed. A market can never have power, it's just a market after all. It's the people in the market that have power... or some of them... the few... have it disproportionately compared to others, and straight away the market isn't free. ..."
"... It's only even approximately free when properly regulated, but that's anathema to market fundamentalists so they end up with a market run for the benefit of vested interests that they will claim is "free" until their dying breath. ..."
"... Power belongs with democratically elected governments, not people in markets responsible only to themselves. Amazing that people still think as you do after all that's happened. ..."
@taxhaven - I love this "free markets" expression, but can we really have free markets please
then? This means that no taxpayer money is to be spent to bail out the capitalist bankers
when things so sour.
It also means that there is completely free movement of labor so I as an employer should
be able to hire anyone I like for your job and pay the wage that the replacement is willing
to take i.e. tough luck to you if the person is more qualified and is willing to work for
less but does not have the work visa because in free markets there will be no such things as
work permits.
Neoliberalism has spawned a financial elite who hold governments to ransom
Neoliberalism? This is not just a financial agenda. This a highly organized multi
armed counterculture operation to force us, including Ms Orr [unless she has...connections]
into what Terence McKenna [who was in on it] termed the `Archaic Revival'. That is - you and
me [and Ms Orr] - our - return to the medieval dark ages, if we indeed survive that
far.
The same names come up time and time again. One of them being, father of propaganda,
Edward Bernays.
Bernays wrote what can be seen as a virtual Mission Statement for anyone wishing to bring
about a "counterculture." In the opening paragraph of his book Propaganda he wrote:
".. The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions
of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this
unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling
power of our country. We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas
suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.
This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organised. Vast
numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a
smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere
of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by
the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social
patterns of the masses.
It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind..."[28]
Bernays' family background made him well suited to "control the public mind." He was the
double nephew of psychoanalysis pioneer Sigmund Freud. His mother was Freud's sister Anna,
and his father was Ely Bernays, brother of Freud's wife Martha Bernays.
about being permitted to engage in voluntary exchange of goods and services with others,
unmolested.
And if we ever had that, would it make the ideal society?
A free market larger than a boot fair has never existed. A market can never have power,
it's just a market after all. It's the people in the market that have power... or some of
them... the few... have it disproportionately compared to others, and straight away the
market isn't free.
It's only even approximately free when properly regulated, but that's
anathema to market fundamentalists so they end up with a market run for the benefit of vested
interests that they will claim is "free" until their dying breath.
Power belongs with democratically elected governments, not people in markets responsible
only to themselves. Amazing that people still think as you do after all that's happened.
@MysticFish - If these are completely different things, why has the austerity-stricken
tax-payer been co-opted into paying for events like Thatcher's funeral
How is that corporatism?
Bilderberg policing,
How is that corporatism?
corporate funded think-tanks are having their non-mandated corporatist policies
prioritized over government election pledges on policy?
Neo-liberalism and fascist corporatism are completely different things.
If these are completely different things, why has the austerity-stricken tax-payer been
co-opted into paying for events like Thatcher's funeral and Bilderberg policing, and why is
it that corporate funded think-tanks are having their non-mandated corporatist policies
prioritised over government election pledges on policy?
In reality this is mostly neocolonial way of dealing with countries. Allowing local oligarchy
to steal as much loaned by foreign states money as they can and converting the country into the
debt slave. Look at Greece and Ukraine for two prominent examples.
The position of OneCommentator is a typical position of defenders and propagandists
of neoliberalism
IMF is part of "Washington Consensus" with the direct goal of converting countries into debt slaves of industrialized
West. It did not work well with Acia counties, but it is great success in some countries in Europe and most of Africa and Latin
America (with Argentina as the most recent example)
Notable quotes:
"... As central banks such as the FED and the ECB operate with insatiable greed and cannot be audited or regulated by any government body anywhere in the world, due to their charters having been set up that way, then bankers are free to meet secretly and plot depressions so as to gain full control over sovereign nations and manipulate markets so that their "chums and agents" in business can buy up assets and land in depressed economies – while possible wars could also make corporations and banks more money as well! ..."
..."neoliberal", concept behind the word, has nothing to do with liberal or liberty or
freedom..
Wrong. Traditional liberalism supported both social and economic freedoms. That
included support for most of the civil rights and freedoms we enjoy today AND free trade and
free investments. It used to be that liberals were practically unpopular with right wing
(traditional conservative for example) parties but more or less on the same side as left wing
parties, mainly because of their social positions. More recently the left wing parties became
more and more unhappy with the economic freedoms promoted by liberals while the right wing
parties embraced both the economic and social freedoms to a certain degree.
So, the leftists
found themselves in a bind practically having reversed roles which the the conservatives as
far as support for liberalism goes. So, typically, they're using propaganda to cover their
current reactionary tendencies and coins a new name for liberals: neoliberals which, they
say, are not the same as liberals (who are their friends since liberal means freedom lover
and they like to use that word a lot).
"austerity" is the financial sectors' solution to its survival after it sucked most the
value out of the economy and broke it.
Austerity is caused by incompetent governments unable to balance their budgets.
They had 60 years to do it properly after ww2 and the reconstruction that followed but many
of them never did it. So now it is very simple: governments ran out of money and nobody wants
to lend them more. That's it, they hit the wall and there is nothing left on the bottom if
the purse.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at
governments that run up debt.
It is a bit more complicated than that. Developed countries like Greece are supposed to run
more or less balanced budgets over longer periods. Sure, they need to borrow money on a
regular basis and may that is supposed to be done by issuing bonds or other forms of
government debt that investors buy on the open market. For such governments the IMF is
supposed to just fill in in a minor way not to provide the bulk of all the loans needed on a
temporary basis. Because of incompetent governments Greece is practically bankrupt hence it
is not going to be able to pay back most of the existing debts and definitely not newer
debts. So practically the IMF is not, ending money to them, it is giving them the money. So,
I would say that they have a good reason to wag its finger.
If private, stockholder-held central banks such as the FED and the FED-backed ECB were not
orchestrating this depression, and anybody who believed they were was a "wacko-nutcase
conspiracy theorist", then why do they keep repeating the same mistakes of forcing un-payable
bailout loans, collapsing banks, wiping out people's savings and then imposing austerity on
those nations year after year – when it is clearly a failed policy?
Possible Answers :
1. Bank presidents are all ex-hippies who got hooked on LSD in the 70's and have not yet
recovered fully as their brains are still fried!
2. Central bankers have been recruited from insane asylums in both Europe and America in
government-sponsored programs to see whether blithering idiots are capable of running large,
international financial institutions.
3. All catastrophic events in the banking/business world, such as the derivative and
housing crash of 2008, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and The Great Depression of 1929-40
were totally random events that just occurred out of nowhere and central banks were caught
off guard – leaving them no option but to play with their willies for years on end
until a major war suddenly happened to pull the whole world out of "bad times"!
4. As central banks such as the FED and the ECB operate with insatiable greed and cannot
be audited or regulated by any government body anywhere in the world, due to their charters
having been set up that way, then bankers are free to meet secretly and plot depressions so
as to gain full control over sovereign nations and manipulate markets so that their "chums
and agents" in business can buy up assets and land in depressed economies – while
possible wars could also make corporations and banks more money as well!
Please choose one of the possible answers from above and write a short 500 word essay on
whether it may or may not true – using well-defined logical arguments. I expect your
answers in by Friday of this week as I would like to get pissed out of my mind at the pub on
Saturday night!
The neoliberal idea is that the cultivation itself should be conducted privately as
well. They see "austerity" as a way of forcing that agenda.
..."neoliberal", concept behind the word, has nothing to do with liberal or liberty or
freedom...it is a PR spin concept that names slavery with a a word that sounds like the
opposite...if "they" called it neoslavery it just wouldn't sell in the market for political
concepts.
..."austerity" is the financial sectors' solution to its survival after it sucked most the
value out of the economy and broke it. To mend it was a case of preservation of the elite and
the devil take the hindmost, that's most of us.
...and even Labour, the party of trade unionism, has adopted austerity to drive its
policy.
...we need a Peoples' Party to stand for the revaluation of labour so we get paid for our
effort rather than the distortion, the rich xxx poor divide, of neoslavery austerity.
@outragedofacton - You have to be careful when you take on the banksters.
Abe Lincoln, John Kennedy and Hitler all tried or (in Kennedy's case planned) on the
issuance of money via the state circumventing the banks.
I hadn't realised the John WIlkes Booth and Lee Harey Oswald were bankers.
But I do always enjoy the scenes in Saving Private Ryan when thousands of
heavily-armed Goldman Sachs employees land on Omaha beach.
While he is not a central banker, I heard that
Lloyd Blankfein used to fly in Las Vegas on weekends and gamble in casino, as week was not enough for him
Notable quotes:
"... As central banks such as the FED and the ECB operate with insatiable greed and cannot be audited or regulated by any government body anywhere in the world, due to their charters having been set up that way, then bankers are free to meet secretly and plot depressions so as to gain full control over sovereign nations and manipulate markets so that their "chums and agents" in business can buy up assets and land in depressed economies -- while possible wars could also make corporations and banks more money as well! ..."
If private, stockholder-held central banks such as the FED and the FED-backed ECB were not
orchestrating this depression, and anybody who believed they were was a "wacko-nutcase
conspiracy theorist", then why do they keep repeating the same mistakes of forcing un-payable
bailout loans, collapsing banks, wiping out people's savings and then imposing austerity on
those nations year after year -- when it is clearly a failed policy?
Possible Answers :
1. Bank presidents are all ex-hippies who got hooked on LSD in the 70's and have not yet
recovered fully as their brains are still fried!
2. Central bankers have been recruited from insane asylums in both Europe and America in
government-sponsored programs to see whether blithering idiots are capable of running large,
international financial institutions.
3. All catastrophic events in the banking/business world, such as the derivative and
housing crash of 2008, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and The Great Depression of 1929-40
were totally random events that just occurred out of nowhere and central banks were caught
off guard -- leaving them no option but to play with their willies for years on end until a
major war suddenly happened to pull the whole world out of "bad times"!
4. As central banks such as the FED and the ECB operate with insatiable greed and
cannot be audited or regulated by any government body anywhere in the world, due to their
charters having been set up that way, then bankers are free to meet secretly and plot
depressions so as to gain full control over sovereign nations and manipulate markets so that
their "chums and agents" in business can buy up assets and land in depressed economies --
while possible wars could also make corporations and banks more money as well!
Please choose one of the possible answers from above and write a short 500 word essay on
whether it may or may not true -- using well-defined logical arguments. I expect your answers
in by Friday of this week as I would like to get pissed out of my mind at the pub on Saturday
night!
Still it is surprising that they have gone so quickly from their stated position at the
start of the republic of a rejection of kings and emperors to their position now of
corruption so ingrained it is impossible to make distinctions.
Too right, I've spat my tea every time I hear some non-Brit brag of their
freedom from royal tyranny. They are blissfully unaware they have created/inherited such in
all but name. Fat Cat Bastard or Henry the Eighth, try to spot the difference in style or
attitude.
"... I can also assure you that Luke Harding, the Guardian, Washington Post and New York Times have been publishing a stream of deliberate lies, in collusion with the security services. ..."
Luke Harding and the Guardian Publish Still More Blatant MI6 Lies
The right wing Ecuadorean government of President Moreno continues to churn out its
production line of fake documents regarding Julian Assange, and channel them straight to MI6
mouthpiece
Luke Harding of the Guardian.
Amazingly, more Ecuadorean Government documents have just been discovered for the Guardian,
this time spy agency reports detailing visits of Paul Manafort and unspecified "Russians" to
the Embassy. By a wonderful coincidence of timing, this is the day after Mueller announced that
Manafort's plea deal was over.
The problem with this latest fabrication is that Moreno had already released the visitor
logs to the Mueller inquiry. Neither Manafort nor these "Russians" are in the visitor logs.
This is impossible. The visitor logs were not kept by Wikileaks, but by the very strict
Ecuadorean security. Nobody was ever admitted without being entered in the logs. The procedure
was very thorough. To go in, you had to submit your passport (no other type of document was
accepted). A copy of your passport was taken and the passport details entered into the log.
Your passport, along with your mobile phone and any other electronic equipment, was retained
until you left, along with your bag and coat. I feature in the logs every time I visited.
There were no exceptions. For an exception to be made for Manafort and the "Russians" would
have had to be a decision of the Government of Ecuador, not of Wikileaks, and that would be so
exceptional the reason for it would surely have been noted in the now leaked supposed
Ecuadorean "intelligence report" of the visits. What possible motive would the Ecuadorean
government have for facilitating secret unrecorded visits by Paul Manafort? Furthermore it is
impossible that the intelligence agency – who were in charge of the security –
would not know the identity of these alleged "Russians".
Previously Harding and the Guardian have published documents faked by the Moreno government
regarding a diplomatic appointment to Russia for Assange of which he had no knowledge. Now they
follow this up with more documents aimed to provide fictitious evidence to bolster Mueller's
pathetically failed attempt to substantiate the story that Russia deprived Hillary of the
Presidency.
My friend William Binney, probably the world's greatest expert on electronic surveillance,
former Technical Director of the NSA, has stated that
it is impossible the DNC servers were hacked, the technical evidence shows it was a
download to a directly connected memory stick. I knew the US security services were conducting
a fake investigation the moment it became clear that the FBI did not even themselves look at
the DNC servers, instead accepting a report from the Clinton linked DNC "security consultants"
Crowdstrike.
I would love to believe that the fact Julian has never met Manafort is bound to be
established. But I fear that state control of propaganda may be such that this massive "Big
Lie" will come to enter public consciousness in the same way as the non-existent Russian hack
of the DNC servers.
Assange never met Manafort. The DNC emails were downloaded by an insider. Assange never even
considered fleeing to Russia. Those are the facts, and I am in a position to give you a
personal assurance of them.
I can also assure you that Luke Harding, the Guardian, Washington Post and New York
Times have been publishing a stream of deliberate lies, in collusion with the security
services.
I am not a fan of Donald Trump. But to see the partisans of the defeated candidate (and a
particularly obnoxious defeated candidate) manipulate the security services and the media to
create an entirely false public perception, in order to attempt to overturn the result of the
US Presidential election, is the most astonishing thing I have witnessed in my lifetime.
Plainly the government of Ecuador is releasing lies about Assange to curry favour with the
security establishment of the USA and UK, and to damage Assange's support prior to expelling
him from the Embassy. He will then be extradited from London to the USA on charges of
espionage.
Assange is not a whistleblower or a spy – he is the greatest publisher of his age, and
has done more to bring the crimes of governments to light than the mainstream media will ever
be motivated to achieve. That supposedly great newspaper titles like the Guardian, New York
Times and Washington Post are involved in the spreading of lies to damage Assange, and are
seeking his imprisonment for publishing state secrets, is clear evidence that the idea of the
"liberal media" no longer exists in the new plutocratic age. The press are not on the side of
the people, they are an instrument of elite control.
My opinions are conflicted, but I'd rather give Assange a Nobel Peace Prize than a criminal
conviction. He definitely deserves a Nobel Prize more than Obama. I was in an eatery in
Cambridge, MA, when I heard Obama's prize announced, and even there people where aghast and
astounded.
The Guardian was bought by Soros, a few years ago.
Washpost, NYT and CNN, Deep State mouthpieces.
That the USA, as long as Deep State has not been eradicated completely from USA society, will
continue to try to get Assange, and of course also Snowdon, in it claws, is more than
obvious.
So what are we talking about ?
Assange just uses the freedom of information act, or how the the USA euphemism for telling
them nothing, is called.
How Assange survives, mentally and bodily, being locked up in a small room without a
bathroom, for several years now, is beyond my comprehension.
But of course, for 'traitors' like him human rights do not exist.
"I can also assure you that Luke Harding, the Guardian, Washington Post and New York Times
have been publishing a stream of deliberate lies, in collusion with the security services."
These outfits are largely state-run at this point. The Washington Post is owned by Jeff
Bezos, a man with deep ties to the CIA through his Amazon company (which depends upon federal
subsidies and has received security agency "support") and the Guardian is clandestinely
funded through UK government purchases, among other things. MI6 has also effectively
compromised the former integrity and objectivity of that outlet by threatening them with
prosecutions for revealing MI6 spy practices. And the NYT has always been state-run. See
their coverage of the Iraq War. The Israelis have bragged about having an asset at the Times.
The American government has several.
It's amazing to see the obvious progression of the lies as they take hold in an anti-Trump
elite who seem completely impervious to understanding his victory over Clinton. All these
people who claim to be so cosmopolitan and educated seem to think Assange or Manafort would
have any interest in meeting each other. (Let alone in the company of unspecified
'Russians'.)
At first it was that Assange was wrong to publish the DNC leaks because it hurt Clinton
and thus helped Trump.
Then it was that Assange was actively trying to help Trump.
Now it's that Assange is in collusion with Trump and the 'Russians'.
The same thing happened with the Trump-Russian nonsense which goes ever more absurd as
time goes on. Slowly boiling the frog in the public's mind. The allegations are so
nonsensical, yet there are plenty of educated, supposedly cosmopolitan people who don't
understand the backgrounds or motives of their 'liberal' heroes in the NYT or Guardian who
believe this on faith.
None of these people will ever question how if any of this is true how the security
services of the West didn't know it and if they supposedly know it, how come they aren't
acting like it's true. They are acting like they're attempting to smear politicians they
don't like, however.
Luke Harding is particularly despicable. He made his name as a journalist off privileged
access to Wilkileaks docs, and has been persistently attacking Assange ever since the Swedish
fan-girl farce.
Assange did make a mistake (of which I am sure he is all too aware now) in the choice to,
rather than leave the info. open on-line, collaborate with the filthy Guardian, the sleazy
NYT, and I forget dirty name of the third publication.
@anon Since you
are posting as Anon coward, I am not expecting a reply, but would be interested in (and would
not doubt) state funding of the 'Guardian'?
As for the NYT, they are plainly in some sense state-funded, but the state in question is
neither New York nor the U.S.A., but the state of Israel.
@Che Guava
Perhaps he is referring to the sheer volume of ads the British government places for public
sector appointments. As for the paper edition, most of it seems to be bought by the BBC!
So he screamed in the cafeteria and spilled his morning coffee. We all wondered what
happened to him and so we looked at his friend, and he told us that he must have read the
NYT, as that was his common reaction, a cry of pain and anguish and screams of "all lies, all
lies, all lies" whenever he reads the newspaper or watches the TV, esp. NYT.
Your article and the previous news about Manfort visiting Assange and the funny timing of
the same reminded me of this story.
The Western MSM is a lying scamming neoliberal propaganda machine.
"... You might like to report on the recent bill in Congress giving broadcasters "immunity" for spying. The New York Times acquires information from spying on citizens by the CIA twenty four hours a day - aa CIA Wire Service which is unconscionable for a newspaper. Such information allows the Times to keep competitors out of favored industries, scoop other news groups, and enhance revenues by pirated material. The Times isn't a newspaper at all but a clandestine operation run by intelligence units. ..."
"... Interestingly, the NYT revelation itself was illegal, a felony under the Intelligence Act of 1917. ..."
"... Which, ipso facto, makes at least that part of the Intelligence Act of 1917 unconstitutional: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" ( US. Constitution, Amendment I ). This perhaps explains why no newspaper has ever been prosecuted under the Intelligence Act of 1917. Prosecutors would rather have it available as a threat rather than having it thrown out as unconstitutional, and of course the Supreme Court can't rule on its constitutionality unless someone has standing to bring a case against it before them. ..."
"... It's also not surprising that the CIA would take an interest in how it is perceived. I would argue that the CIA was actually preventing or controlling the flow of info the WH was giving to filmmakers. ..."
"... This story only scratches the surface on the extent of corruption in US media and journalism in general over the last 10-15 years. The loss of journalistic integrity and objectivity in US media is on display as many media outlets showcase their one-sided liberal or conservative views. Sadly, the US media has become just as polarized as the government. However, the greatest corruption is not with the govt-media connection; the greatest corruption involves the lobbyists - foreign and domestic. Lobbying groups exert an enormous influence on politicians and the media and it extends to both sides of the aisle. ..."
"... It's no secret that the CIA and State Department have colluded with media since 1950. Public relations is nothing more than propaganda. And if you think the CIA doesn't have it's own PR department, with *hundreds* of employees, dedicated to misinformation, spin, half-truths, and psychological operations, well, consider this your wake-up call. ..."
"... "The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media." - William Colby - Former CIA Director ..."
"... "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William Casey, CIA Director 1981 ..."
"... While you rightly characterize this case as indicating the "virtual merger" of government and media "watchdogs," I think a meta-theme running through your writings illuminates the "virtual merger" of both corporate & state power (esp. after Citizens United), ..."
"... the real issue is not personalities or trivial post deletions, the real issue is that the CIA is tightly bound to the institutions of America ... and that this is not a good thing for everyone ..."
...this is the norm not the exception. It's also representative of a very significant cross
section of the State Department/CIA/Pentagon/DC Beaurcratic Machine, made up of various
Leftists, Statists, academia, and privileged youth with political science degrees from east
coast/DC/Ivy League schools.
I am having a very difficult time wrapping my mind around this story.....we have an alleged
CIA spokesperson purportedly attempting to engage in damage control with a prominent national
newspaper regarding the flow of information between the CIA and film-makers doing a story on
the Bin Laden raid. Ostensibly, the information provided, regarding the raid, was to help
secure the President's reelection bid?
I note that the logo on the phone of the published photo of CIA spokesperson Marie Harf
looks remarkably similar, if not identical, to the Obama campaign logo. A "Twitter" account
profile for M's. Harf references that she is a "National Security Wonk at OFA...." . Could
the "OFA" she makes reference to possibly be "Obama for America"? Her recent tweet history
includes commentaries critical of Romney and his supporters, which appear to be in response
to her observations while watching Republican Convention coverage.
My understanding heretofore was that those engaged in the Intelligence Community,
particularly spokespersons, preferred to keep a low profile and at least appear apolitical.
Based upon the facts as presented, one must reexamine whether a US intelligence agency is
engaging in the most blatant form political partisanship to unduly influence a US
Presidential election.
You might like to report on the recent bill in Congress giving broadcasters "immunity" for
spying. The New York Times acquires information from spying on citizens by the CIA twenty
four hours a day - aa CIA Wire Service which is unconscionable for a newspaper. Such
information allows the Times to keep competitors out of favored industries, scoop other news
groups, and enhance revenues by pirated material. The Times isn't a newspaper at all but a
clandestine operation run by intelligence units.
I'm surprised by the pettiness of it all. And it's this pettiness that makes me think that
such data exchange is not only routine, but an accepted way to enhance a career. After all, who really cares what Dowd writes? I
believe Chomsky called her 'kinda a gossip columnist'. And, that's what she is.
That anyone
would bother passing her column to the CIA is, on the face of it, a little absurd. I don't
say she is a bad columnist, she's probably quite good, but hardly of interest to the CIA,
even when she is writing about the CIA. So basically, someone passed her column along,
because this is normal, and the more ambitious understand that this is how you 'get along'.
This kind of careerism is something I see, on some level, every day: the ambitious see the
rules of the game, and follow them, and the rationale comes later. For most of us, this
doesn't involve the security services. However, the principle that the MSM is, at the least,
heavily influenced by state power is fairly well understood by now in more critical circles:
all forms of media are subject to unusual and particular state pressures, due to their
central import in propaganda and mass-persuasion. The NYT is, in short, an obvious target for
this kind of influencing. And as such should really know much much better.
Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that most of what I read, or see on the nightly
broadcasts, is essentially bullshit. I could switch to RT, and in a way its counter-point
would be useful in stimulating my own critical thinking, but much of what RT broadcasts is
also likely to be bullshit. We have a world of competing propaganda memes where nobody knows
the truth. It's like we are all spooks now, each and every one of us. An excellent article,
again.
Interestingly, the NYT revelation itself was illegal, a felony under the Intelligence
Act of 1917.
Which, ipso facto, makes at least that part of the Intelligence Act of 1917
unconstitutional: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press" ( US. Constitution,
Amendment I ). This perhaps explains why no newspaper has ever been prosecuted under the
Intelligence Act of 1917. Prosecutors would rather have it available as a threat rather than
having it thrown out as unconstitutional, and of course the Supreme Court can't rule on its
constitutionality unless someone has standing to bring a case against it before them.
Excellent article, but it's not necessarily a surprise to see a reporter who has developed a
relationship with his source do that source a favor in hopes that the favor will some day be
returned with greater access.
It's also not surprising that the CIA would take an interest in
how it is perceived. I would argue that the CIA was actually preventing or controlling the
flow of info the WH was giving to filmmakers.
This story only scratches the surface on the
extent of corruption in US media and journalism in general over the last 10-15 years. The
loss of journalistic integrity and objectivity in US media is on display as many media
outlets showcase their one-sided liberal or conservative views. Sadly, the US media has
become just as polarized as the government. However, the greatest corruption is not with the govt-media connection; the greatest corruption involves the lobbyists - foreign and domestic.
Lobbying groups exert an enormous influence on politicians and the media and it extends to
both sides of the aisle.
What the commoners fail to understand is that the Public Relations (PR) industry controls 75%
of the information that you are fed from major media outlets. It's an industry that has
artfully masked everything you thought you knew. It's no secret that the CIA and State
Department have colluded with media since 1950. Public relations is nothing more than
propaganda. And if you think the CIA doesn't have it's own PR department, with *hundreds* of
employees, dedicated to misinformation, spin, half-truths, and psychological operations,
well, consider this your wake-up call.
Glenn, thanks for illuminating the insidious, dangerous cynicism pervading American media
& culture, which have become so inured to hypocrisy, corruption & desecration of
sacrosanct democratic values & institutions that has been crucial to the normalization of
formerly intolerable practices, laws & policies eating away at the foundations of our
constitutional democracy. The collective moral, principled "lines in the sand" protecting us
from authoritarian pressures are steadily being washed away, compromised, thanks to media
obsequious complicity.
While you rightly characterize this case as indicating the "virtual merger" of government
and media "watchdogs," I think a meta-theme running through your writings illuminates the
"virtual merger" of both corporate & state power (esp. after Citizens United), and all
the "checks & balances" enshrined in our constitution after 9/11 (e.g. deferential
judiciary, bi-partisan Congressional consensus on increasingly authoritarian, secretive US
executive, propagandistic media, etc.). At least that's my thinking, and I see no significant
countervailing pressure capable of slowing- let alone reversing- this authoritarian
re-ordering of our constitutional order & political culture, though a few exceptions
exist (e.g. Judge Forrest's suprising courage to suspend NDAA provision 1021), and rare
journalists like yourself.
One astounding example of this widespread cynicism facilitating this authoritarian trend,
was the media's rather restrained response to the revelation that elements in the massive
Terrorist/Military Industrial Complex (HBGary) had been plotting military-style
social-engineering operations to discredit & silence progressive journalists,
specifically naming YOU, who I see as one of the rare defenders of the
constitutional/democratic "lines in the sand" under relentless attack. Where was the
overwhelming collective shock & outrage, or media demanding criminal investigations into
US taxpayer-funded attacks on our so-called "free press?"
My question for Glenn, is whether he thinks it would be possible for him to get legal
standing to sue the private (& US??) entities, which proposed the covert
discrediting/repression operations targeting you specifically?
I'm no lawyer, but it seems the documents published by Anonymous, reveal actions
constituting criminal conspiracy. Given the proposed methods included forms of
politically-motivated military warfare & coercion, the guilty parties would likely be
aggressively investigated and charged with some terrorist crimes, if they had been busted
planning attacks on people/entities that trumpeted Obama administration policies or its
corporate backers (i.e. if they were Anonymous). The HBGary proposal to discredit/silence
Wikileaks defenders strongly indicated they had experience with- & confidence in- such
covert operations. Requiring a journalist/academic to be covertly
discredited/destroyed/silenced before they get legal standing would be as absurd as the Obama
administration's argument that Chris Hedges & Co. plaintiffs lack standing because they
hadn't yet been stripped of their rights & secretly indefinitately detained without
charges or trial.
I thought you might be in the unique position to use the US courts to pry open & shine
some light upon the clearly anti-democratic, authoritarian abuses of power, & virtual
fusion of corporate & state powers, which you so eloquently write about.
I glad that foreign journalism is available for me to read our the internet, it's the only
way i can find truthful information about what's going on in my own country (USA). I've known the liberal media bias was a problem for a long time, but articles like this
continually remind me that things are far worse than they appear.
All the actions surrounding the NY Times and the CIA on this issue are atrocious. With this
type of "journalistic independence", why am I paying for a Times account??
As a favor to all readers, following is a summation of all past, present, and future ideas as
articulated by the Fortune Cookie Thinker, John Andersson:
A certain amount of genocide is good because the world is overpopulated.
You should never question authority; after all, you are not an expert on authority.
Everyone wins when we kill terrorists; the more we kill, the more we generate, thus the
more we kill again, which makes us win more.
It is not possible to have absolute power; therefore, power does not corrupt.
Drones kill bad people. Only bad people are killed by drones. Thus, drones are good. We
should have more drones. That is all.
I secretly think he's the real "Jack Handy" from the Deep Thoughts series on SNL.
In my high school history class in 1968 I learned all about how newspapers printed propaganda
stories before WWI and Spanish American war in order to influence the public so they would
want to go to war and it was called "yellow journalism". I also had an English teacher that
taught us about "marketing" and how they use visuals and printed words and film to make us
want to buy a product. My father taught me to NOT BELEIVE everything you read. Now it is
called "critical thinking" and has been added as a general education class in college that
you have to take for a college degree. Critical thinking about what you read and see and hear
should be taught as early as 10 year olds so people can think for themselves. I do not read
main stream newspapers in America but read news sites all over the world.
THANK GOD FOR THE
INTERNET THAT YOU CAN READ WHAT OTHER NEWSPAPERS. I discovered Glenn on Democracy Now and
they are my go to place to read about what is really happening.
the real issue is not personalities or trivial post deletions, the real issue is that the CIA
is tightly bound to the institutions of America ... and that this is not a good thing for
everyone
"... We should not even talk about "conflict of interest" anymore. It is a collusion all the way. We saw it in the phone hacking scandal here, now at the New York Times. I have always wondered about these white tie dinners in Washington DC and how chummy and cozy the reporters looked mingling with the power-holders and -brokers. ..."
"... In what is turning out to be the CIA Century, the American President and major news outlets seem to operate under CIA authority and in accordance with CIA standard operating procedures. ..."
"... Or Afghanistan. Many of the cruise missile libs supported the invasion of Afghanistan but not Iraq. ..."
"... The press is managed on behalf of what I will call US powers. Those powers seem to be high level military, clandestine agencies, financial industry "leaders", and war contractors. The political parties and the faces they present to the public (with some few exceptions) act as functionaries to keep up the illusion that the US is a democracy. ..."
"... And I am not sure why I associate Washington's bureaucratic CIA with dancing midgets. ..."
If we thought the public trust in journalism is low, then this news only pushes it down further. Do people in journalism care?
Some do very much but for the most the media and the power-holders are in collusion.
We should not even talk about "conflict of interest" anymore. It is a collusion all the way. We saw it in the phone hacking
scandal here, now at the New York Times. I have always wondered about these white tie dinners in Washington DC and how chummy
and cozy the reporters looked mingling with the power-holders and -brokers.
The critical articles are nothing more than smokescreens. We are led to believe how hard-hitting the newspapers are and how
they hold the politicians and other power-brokers to fire. All hogwash. It is better we recognize that the citizens are merely
props they need to claim legitimacy.
Not till this moment did I realize that we are under siege. I thought Julian Assange was the one under siege but he was just trying
to offer us a path to freedom. With Assange neutralized and The New York Times and its brethren by all appearances thoroughly
compromised, how can any one of us stand for all of us against government malfeasance let alone tyranny?
Where would you go if you had dispositive proof of devastating government malfeasance? In what is turning out to be the
CIA Century, the American President and major news outlets seem to operate under CIA authority and in accordance with CIA standard
operating procedures.
It would actually be foolish to take evidence of horrific government behavior to the titular head of the government {who'd
likely persecute you as a whistleblower} or the major news organizations supposedly reporting to us about it {they'd bring it
right back to the government for guidance on what to do}.
Without safe and reliable ways to stand and speak for and to each other on a large scale about the foul deeds of our government,
we are damned to live very lonely vulnerable lives at the mercy of an unrestrained government.
Excerpt from script of Three Days of the Condor --
Higgins: I can't let you stay out, Turner.
Turner slowly stops, leans back against a building, shakes his head sadly.
Turner: Go home, Higgins. They have it all.
Higgins: What are you talking about?
Turner: Don't you know where we are?
Higgins looks around. The huge newspaper trucks are moving out.
Turner: It's where they ship from.
Higgins' head darts upward and he reads the legend above Turner's head. THE NEW YORK TIMES. He is stunned.
Higgins: You dumb son of a bitch.
Turner: It's been done. They have it.
Higgins: You've done more damage than you know.
Turner: I hope so.
Higgins: You want to rip us to pieces, but you damn fool you rely on us. {then} You're about to be a very lonely man,
Turner.
***
Higgins: It didn't have to turn out like this.
Turner: Of course it did.
Higgins: {calling out as they depart separate ways} Turner! How do you know they'll print it?
Turner stops. Stares at Higgins. Higgins smiles.
Higgins: You can take a walk. But how far? If they don't print it.
Several commenters have pointed out that the NYT does do "good" journalism. That is true. It is also true that they tell
absolute lies. See Judith Miller. The best way to sell a lie is to wrap it in the truth.
I know it's late in the comments thread by the time anyone bothers to read THIS minor contribution, but I think it worth mentioning
how this article from Glenn proves just how important are outlets like Democracy Now, RT, Cenk Uyger, Dylan Ratigan, et al. You
really have to turn away from the mainstream media as a source of anything. Far too compromised, by both their embeddedness with
the government, and their for-profit coroporate owners.
Note CNN's terrible ratings problems as of late, and the recent news that they are considering turning to more reality-type
shows to get the eyeballs back. If that isn't proof positive of the current value of corporate news, I don't know what is.
DemocracyNow.org. I think I'm going to donate to them today....
i'm do not understand why so many people are against authority in general, even when the legal & enforcement system is there
to protect your property, life and rights. i understand when corruption exists, it should be seriously addressed, but why throw
out a whole system that is "somewhat working"? why blindly call for revolution?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments
are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying
its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety
and Happiness."
This is a political officer acting as editor of a major newspaper. I agree this has been going on for some time. Here is my analysis
of that. The press is managed on behalf of what I will call US powers. Those powers seem to be high level military, clandestine
agencies, financial industry "leaders", and war contractors. The political parties and the faces they present to the public (with
some few exceptions) act as functionaries to keep up the illusion that the US is a democracy.
Romney and Obama are functionaries. They do as they're told. Obama is the more useful of the two as fewer people seem able
to look honestly at his policies. They will not oppose Obama for doing the same things and worse as Bush. It is why all stops
are being pulled out to get him, rather than Romney elected. The policies will be the same but the reaction of our population
to each man is vastly different.
So yes, the capture of the media has been going on for quite some time. It appears nearly consolidated at this time. Instead
of using this as a reason to ignore the situation, it is more important than ever to speak out. History is helpful in learning
how to confront injustice. It is not a reason, as I see many use it, to say; "well it's always been that way, so what?" In history,
we learn about corruption but we also learn that people opposed corruption. Is there some reason why we cannot also oppose corruption
right now?
I though Michael Wolff's recent analysis of Apple (here in the Guardian) was in many ways metaphorical for Western leadership,
his article acting in some ways to explain the behavior we see in cultural "elites."
Worth the read.
And somehow, after reading this article, all I can think of is the Wizard of Oz and a dancing midget army singing in
repetitive, high-pitched tones.
And I am not sure why I associate Washington's bureaucratic CIA with dancing midgets.
Who will be the first commenter to leave the classic devastating critique: "The author fails to present a balanced view, showing
only one side. The author's argument has no substance and is not really worth anything."
Don't forget this one: "The author just complains and complains without ever offering a solution or a better approach."
Also, can anyone 'splain me how to do a "response"?
"What do you mean by claiming Hersh "cozys up" to MIC ppl? And what would be a specific
example of a story he broke after doing that?"
Our Men in Iran?
"We did train them here, and washed them through the Energy Department because the
D.O.E. owns all this land in southern Nevada," a former senior American intelligence
official told me. ... In a separate interview, a retired four-star general, who has advised
the Bush and Obama Administrations on national-security issues, said that he had been
privately briefed in 2005 about the training of Iranians associated with the M.E.K. in
Nevada
His conversations with Lieutenant Calley are apparently what allowed him to break the My
Lai massacre story as well, even though members of the military had already spoken out about
it, and there had been already been charges brought. It just revealed the story to the
general public, which prompted a fuller investigation and courts martial. I'm sure there are
others.
So, obviously Hersh's "cozying up" (surely not the right term for it, though) is in the
interests of raising public awareness of nefarious deeds, and is not scared of painting these
organizations in a bad light, whereas Mazzetti's goal here seems to be to maintain his
privileged access by providing favors - totally different motivations. It's rather easy to
contrast the two, which "smartypants54" has even stated here.
Whatever the case, it's true that elements of the NYT have been mouthpieces more or less
for government and corporate power for a long time. While I agree with Glenn about the faux
cynicism perpetuating this kind of activity - "don't be naive, this is done all the time" - I
can understand that it exists.
Such cynicism on the part of the public, rather than being an acknowledgment of
acceptance and approval of such practices, can also be seen as part of a more radical
critique of the corporate media in general, and the NYT particularly, in that such
organizations - not that I totally agree with this - , by their very nature, can't be
reformed and can never be totally effective checks on power because of the way they're
structured, and who they answer to.
That's definitely not a reason to stop pointing it out, though.
"... Here's a wonderful example of the NYT's propensity for re-writing history: http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/08/30/ny-times-scrubs-mention-cia-arming-syrian-rebels-177311/ Long live the memory hole. ..."
The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence Victor Marchetti
"It is the first book the federal government of the United States ever went to court to
censor before its publication. The CIA demanded the authors remove 399 passages but they
stood firm and only 168 passages were censored. The publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, chose to
publish the book with blanks for censored passages and with boldface type for passages that
were challenged but later uncensored."
There exists in our nation today a powerful and dangerous secret cult -- the cult of
intelligence. Its holy men are the clandestine professionals of the Central Intelligence
Agency.
Its patrons and protectors are the highest officials of the federal government.
Its membership, extending far beyond governmental circles, reaches into the power centers
of industry, commerce, finance, and labor. Its friends are many in the areas of important
public influence -- the academic world and the communications media.
The cult of
intelligence is a secret fraternity of the American political aristocracy.
The purpose of
the cult is to further the foreign policies of the U.S. government by covert and usually
illegal means, while at the same time containing the spread of its avowed enemy, communism.
Traditionally, the cult's hope has been to foster a world order in which America would
reign supreme, the unchallenged international leader.
Today, however, that dream stands
tarnished by time and frequent failures. Thus, the cult's objectives are now less
grandiose, but no less disturbing. It seeks largely to advance America's self-appointed
role as the dominant arbiter of social, economic, and political change in the awakening
regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And its worldwide war against communism has to
some extent been reduced to a covert struggle to maintain a self-serving stability in the
Third World, using whatever clandestine methods are available.
"... "clear that much of the material was indeed on the Integrity Initiative or Institute systems." ..."
"... The organization expressed outrage over the publication of emails belonging to its alleged agents, and implied that the Russian intelligence community must have been behind the leak. ..."
"... The leaked documents, if confirmed genuine, expose the II as a semi-secretive operation to coordinate efforts by seemingly independent journalists, academics and experts involved in exposing and countering "Russian propaganda." The documents say the program cost £1,961,000 ($2.5 million) this year alone. ..."
A network exposed by leaked documents as a Europe-wide PR operation aimed at
curbing "Russian propaganda" has confirmed receiving money from the British government, while
Anonymous has denied on Twitter that it's behind the leak. The Integrity Initiative (II) is a
network claiming to fight disinformation that threatens democracy. A trove of alleged II
documents, which purports to show costs and internal guidelines as well as names of individuals
cooperating with it, has been published by people claiming to be part of the Anonymous
collective. A major Anonymous-linked Twitter account has denied it was linked to the leak.
Responding to the leak on Monday, the organization
said it did indeed receive funding from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)
for the past two years, but insisted that private donors were its primary source of money.
The statement neither confirmed nor denied that the documents were genuine, saying that it
didn't have time to validate them yet. But it said it was "clear that much of the material
was indeed on the Integrity Initiative or Institute systems."
It claimed that many of the published documents were "dated and never used," and
that many of the individuals listed as members of II "clusters of influencers" were
never contacted by the program.
The documents not confirmed. However:
1. Their detail suggests they may be genuine
2. Nobody with knowledge has denied they're genuine
3. Some of those named have confirmed their association
4. Wkileaks hasn't evidenced its concerns
5. A history of some Wiki & Anonymous animosity
The organization expressed outrage over the publication of emails belonging to its alleged
agents, and implied that the Russian intelligence community must have been behind the leak.
Russian news agency RIA Novosti contacted the FCO for comment about the disclosure, but its
representative said that information about the II was "already in the public domain,"
and that the British diplomatic service was "happy for the project to receive greater
exposure."
Interesting to watch Westerners picking up the Kremlin propaganda line that standing up to
Putin's lying, thieving, murdering regime is 'anti Russian'. Putin and his enablers and
appeasers are the true 'Russophobes'.
The leaked documents, if confirmed genuine, expose the II as a semi-secretive operation
to coordinate efforts by seemingly independent journalists, academics and experts involved in
exposing and countering "Russian propaganda." The documents say the program cost
£1,961,000 ($2.5 million) this year alone.
RT, which reported on the leak last Friday, asked a number of alleged participants in the II
program about their contribution. The majority of these have not yet replied, except for
journalist Edward Lucas and Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council Stephen
Blank.
It's been amusing to watch Putin sympathisers in the West who claim to be so adept at
seeing through 'government lies' and 'MSM bias' uncritically swallow and regurgitate the
version of events spread by Kremlin propaganda outlets that are known to relentlessly lie and
distort.
Skripal events probably helped to advance this line of investigation. So in a way UK intelligence services put their own
stooge on the line of fire.
Notable quotes:
"... Russian prosecutors on Monday claimed that Magnitsky and several other people familiar with Browder's illicit activities in Russia may have been killed on his order. They said a new criminal case has been opened against Browder in Russia, and that Moscow will seek his extradition as an alleged ringleader of an international criminal enterprise involved in money laundering ..."
"... The prosecutors identified four people who were suspects in the Browder case, all of whom died over the course of less than two years as the investigation against him unfolded. Oktay Gasanov was the first of the four, dying in October 2007; while Magnitsky's death in November 2009 was the last. By the time of his death, Magnitsky had spent almost a year in pre-trial detention. The two others were Valery Kurochkin and Sergey Korobeinikov, who died in April 2008 and September 2008, respectively. ..."
"... Considering that the three individuals, with the exception of Magnitsky, died within months of each other while being investigated as part of Browder's case, "it is highly likely that they were killed to get rid of accomplices who could give an incriminating testimony against Browder," a senior official with the Russian General Prosecutor's office told journalists. The same may be true for Magnitsky, he said. The prosecutor stressed that Russia didn't conduct detailed studies into how the suspected poison affects living organisms, but several research institutions based in the US, France and Italy did. ..."
"... The prosecutors claim that Browder was the party who benefited most from the death of Magnitsky. They cited journalist Oleg Lurie, who shared a prison cell with Magnitsky before the latter's death. Speaking under oath during a court hearing in New York, Lurie said that his cellmate had complained to him that Browder's lawyers were pressuring him into signing a false statement. Magnitsky's testimony claimed that he had uncovered a conspiracy to embezzle taxpayers' money involving Russian officials. ..."
"... The Russian prosecutors said Browder allegedly wanted to silence his employee after obtaining the false claim. The statement itself was used to blame Russian officials for Magnitsky's death and accuse the Russian government of a cover-up. ..."
"... Described by critics as a 'vulture capitalist,' Browder seemed quite comfortable earning millions of dollars in the financial wild west. In 2005, as fallen oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was standing trial for tax evasion, Browder scolded him on the BBC for using personal wealth to grasp at political power, and for leaving "in his wake aggrieved investors too numerous to count." He was also a staunch public supporter of the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... The investor then reinvented himself as an anti-Putin figure, using the death of Magnitsky to lobby various countries to impose sanctions on the Russian officials he blamed for his employee's death. The US Magnitsky Act was passed in 2012, allowing people accused by Washington of human rights violations to be targeted. However, it is perceived by the Kremlin as just a tool to restrain Russia for the sake of global political and economic competition. ..."
"... Among Browder's latest exploits is playing a role in the 'Russiagate' story. A key part of the elusive search for collusion between US President Donald Trump and the Russian government is a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer. The meeting was apparently organized with a view to lobbying for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act. Its architect, Browder, has therefore been eager to lend his expertise on 'Russian machinations' to US lawmakers and media outlets. ..."
"... If you like this story, share it with a friend! ..."
Kremlin
critic Bill Browder may have given the order for his employee Sergei Magnitsky to be poisoned
with a rare toxin in a Russian prison cell, along with other suspects in a tax-evasion probe
against him, prosecutors have said. British financier Browder was once a well-connected
investor in post-Soviet Russia, but he became a fugitive from the law in the country after
being accused of financial crimes. In the West, however, he is best known as the employer of
Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian accountant who died in police custody while being investigated in
connection to the Browder case. Magnitsky's death became an international scandal, with Browder
accusing Russian officials of killing him.
Russian prosecutors on Monday claimed that Magnitsky and several other people familiar with
Browder's illicit activities in Russia may have been killed on his order. They said a new
criminal case has been opened against Browder in Russia, and that Moscow will seek his
extradition as an alleged ringleader of an international criminal enterprise involved in money
laundering.
The prosecutors identified four people who were suspects in the Browder case, all of whom
died over the course of less than two years as the investigation against him unfolded. Oktay
Gasanov was the first of the four, dying in October 2007; while Magnitsky's death in November
2009 was the last. By the time of his death, Magnitsky had spent almost a year in pre-trial
detention. The two others were Valery Kurochkin and Sergey Korobeinikov, who died in April 2008
and September 2008, respectively.
Korobeinikov died after falling off a high-rise building, while the others had health
complications. The Russian prosecutors believe all four of them may have been killed with a
rare water-soluble compound of aluminum. Each of the men showed symptoms consistent with being
poisoned by the toxin prior to their deaths, while Korobeinikov had traces of it in his liver,
according to a post mortem. An investigation into four possible murders has been
opened.
Considering that the three individuals, with the exception of Magnitsky, died within
months of each other while being investigated as part of Browder's case, "it is highly likely
that they were killed to get rid of accomplices who could give an incriminating testimony
against Browder," a senior official with the Russian General Prosecutor's office told
journalists. The same may be true for Magnitsky, he said. The prosecutor stressed that Russia
didn't conduct detailed studies into how the suspected poison affects living organisms, but
several research institutions based in the US, France and Italy did.
The prosecutors claim that Browder was the party who benefited most from the death of
Magnitsky. They cited journalist Oleg Lurie, who shared a prison cell with Magnitsky before the
latter's death. Speaking under oath during a court hearing in New York, Lurie said that his
cellmate had complained to him that Browder's lawyers were pressuring him into signing a false
statement. Magnitsky's testimony claimed that he had uncovered a conspiracy to embezzle
taxpayers' money involving Russian officials.
The Russian prosecutors said Browder allegedly wanted to silence his employee after
obtaining the false claim. The statement itself was used to blame Russian officials for
Magnitsky's death and accuse the Russian government of a cover-up.
Last year, Browder was sentenced by a Russian court to nine years in prison for tax evasion.
The trial was held in absentia and Moscow failed to have him extradited to serve the term. The
prosecutors said that they will renew attempts to get custody of Browder as part of the new
criminal case, using a UN convention on fighting transnational crime to have him arrested.
Browder is a US-born British financier, whose change of citizenship had the benefit of
allowing him to avoid paying tax on foreign earnings. However, he claimed the switch was
prompted by his family being persecuted in the US during the McCarthyism witch hunt, while the
UK seemed like the land of law and order.
He made a fortune in Russia during the country's chaotic transition to a market economy,
having invested before there was a stock exchange in Moscow. His Hermitage Capital Management
fund was a leading foreign investment entity in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Described by critics as a 'vulture capitalist,' Browder seemed quite comfortable earning
millions of dollars in the financial wild west. In 2005, as fallen oil tycoon Mikhail
Khodorkovsky was standing trial for tax evasion, Browder scolded him on the BBC for using personal
wealth to grasp at political power, and for leaving "in his wake aggrieved investors too
numerous to count." He was also a staunch public supporter of the policies of Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
The transformation of his public image from a financial shark into a human rights crusader
started when Browder himself entered the spotlight of Russian law enforcement. In 2007, the
foundation he ran was targeted by a probe into possible large-scale embezzlement of Russian
taxpayers' money. Magnitsky, who worked for Browder and had knowledge of his firms' finances,
was arrested and held in pre-trial detention until his death in November 2009. The British
businessman insisted that the entire case was fabricated and that Magnitsky had been
assassinated for exposing a criminal scheme involving several Russian tax officials.
The investor then reinvented himself as an anti-Putin figure, using the death of
Magnitsky to lobby various countries to impose sanctions on the Russian officials he blamed for
his employee's death. The US Magnitsky Act was passed in 2012, allowing people accused by
Washington of human rights violations to be targeted. However, it is perceived by the Kremlin
as just a tool to restrain Russia for the sake of global political and economic
competition.
Browder's new-found status as a rights advocate and self-proclaimed worst enemy of Putin
helps him deflect Russia's attempts to prosecute him. On several occasions, Russia filed
international arrest warrants against him with Interpol, which even led to his brief detention
in Spain last May.
Among Browder's latest exploits is playing a role in the 'Russiagate' story. A key part
of the elusive search for collusion between US President Donald Trump and the Russian
government is a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer. The meeting was
apparently organized with a view to lobbying for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act. Its
architect, Browder, has therefore been eager to lend his expertise on 'Russian machinations' to
US lawmakers and media outlets.
Vesti News
Published on 26 Nov 2018
Subscribe to Vesti News
On Monday, the Russian General Prosecutor's Office announced the initiation of a new criminal case against William Browder,
an international schemer and fraudster. Now Browder is suspected of organizing and leading a criminal community in Russia.
For many years, Browder has been making frantic efforts to avoid going to Russian prison.
Well, lucky for him Interpol can't come after him, now that he almost singlehandedly
prevented a Russian from becoming Director. He's only Assistant Director, so he must be
powerless.
There; you see? The GRU could obviously learn a few lessons from Browder. If you want to rub
someone out, don't use a distinctive nerve agent that everyone will know came from Russia,
you numbskulls. Try to make it something undetectable, but if you can't manage that, at least
make it something so general it might have come from anywhere. Then immediately announce that
Browder did it.
@ABasu - My comment was not in direct agreement with the article, it was a critique of the
first comment above.
I won't even begin with the welfare debate in which you somehow think that 'welfare' and
its relatively recent introduction is somehow anti neo-liberal because that is nothing other
than newspeak...
The point I was making (with perhaps a less than perfect example) is that language is
political and therefore it matters greatly what we call things.
"... And that bloody word...'modernisation' (Moderni- z -ation - for the management speak geeks). Why is it every time I come across that word in meetings, it means some worker is either losing money or losing their job? ..."
"... the monetisation of everything and the use of language to make the neo-liberal nightmare through which we are living seem, not only the norm, but the only way. ..."
"... Social security becomes welfare and suddenly masses of society (the majority of benefit claimants being in work) are not drawing on an insurance policy but are in receipt of 'welfare' subject to the largesse and judgements of an ever more cruel and avaricious 'elite'. ..."
"... I'm a big fan of Steven Poole's Unspeak , which looks at the way in which terms and terminology have been engineered precisely to hollow out meaning and present an argument instead. A kind of Neoliberal Emperor's New Clothes, the problem is that, obviously, if your vocabulary and your meanings become circumscribed, it limits what can be said, and even how people think about what's being said. ..."
And that bloody word...'modernisation' (Moderni- z -ation - for the management
speak geeks). Why is it every time I come across that word in meetings, it means some worker
is either losing money or losing their job? Or some manager is about to award themselves
a bonus?
@gyges1 - No, she is surely railing against the monetisation of everything and the use of
language to make the neo-liberal nightmare through which we are living seem, not only the
norm, but the only way.
Social security becomes welfare and suddenly masses of society (the majority of benefit
claimants being in work) are not drawing on an insurance policy but are in receipt of
'welfare' subject to the largesse and judgements of an ever more cruel and avaricious
'elite'.
Language matters and its distortion is a political act.
But without these Exciting New Word Uprating Initiatives, we can never win The Global Race...
or something.
I'm a big fan of Steven Poole's
Unspeak , which looks at the way in which terms and terminology have been engineered
precisely to hollow out meaning and present an argument instead. A kind of Neoliberal
Emperor's New Clothes, the problem is that, obviously, if your vocabulary and your meanings
become circumscribed, it limits what can be said, and even how people think about what's
being said.
(By the way, the link's to Amazon, but, obviously, you may find you have a better
"Customer Experience" if you get from somewhere less tax-dodgy.)
Quite. Language is the first victim of any hegemonic project. Examples abound in communism,
fascism and neoliberalism. There's nothing to argue with in this article yet, unsurprisingly,
the usual swivel-eyed brigade seem to have popped up. Perhaps your discussion of work strays
a little too close to philosophy for the unthinking. I don't know why I'm disheartened by
some of the responses, as the same voices appear btl in almost ever CIF article, but I am
somehow. Perhaps because the point of the article - the hijacking of language - is so
obviously true as to be uncontroversial to any but the ideologically purblind, yet still....
@thesingingdetective - what is an insurance policy other than a financial product where in
return for payments over a period of time a claim can be made in certain circumstances?
If anything, particularly given that the link between contributions and claims is now
nugatory, describing welfare as welfare is much more honest and much less "neoliberal". It is
a set of payments and entitlements society has agreed upon to ensure a level of welfare for
all rather than an insurance policy which each individual may claim against if they've kept
up their payments.
If an anti-neo-liberal, supportive of the article can get this so back to front, perhaps
the "debate" being posited is an empty one about language.
If you changed a few words from the Communist Manifesto, it could easily be about
neo-liberalism and leftist attitudes towards it.
"A spectre is haunting Europe; the spectre of neo-liberalism. All the leftists of old
Europe have entered into a Holy Alliance to exorcise this spectre; Toynbee and Loach;
Redgrave and Harris.
Where is the party in power that has not been decried as neo-liberalistic by its leftist
opponents on the sidelines?"
Take FE as a case study on how the coin counters have taken over the world.
Back in the dark ages of the 1980s, the maths department had 7 lecturers (2 part time) and
two people to look after the admin - there was also the Department Head (who was a lecturer)
and a Head of School. They had targets, loosely defined, but it was a rare year when there
wasn't a smattering of A grades at A level...
Then along came the coin counters, the target setters, with their management degrees and
swivel eyed certainty that 'greed is good... competition! competition! competition!' and with
them came the new professionals into the department... the 'Quality Manager'... the
'Curriculum Manager' the 'Exams Manager' the 'Deputy Exams Manager'... and the paperwork
increased to feed the beast that counts everything but knows nothing... and targets were
set.... 'Targets! Targets! Targets!... and we were all sent in search of excellence... 'teach
to the exam' 'We must meet our targets'... 'we won't use exam board 'A' because they're
tough' and the exam boards reacted to their own target culture by all simplifying. The
universities began to notice the standard of 'A' grade students (who increased) was
equivelant to a C grade of 5 years ago. However, targets were being met (on paper) quality
was maintained (on paper) we were improving year on year (on paper). However, what was going
on in the real world is that our students were being sold a pup - their level of competence
and of knowledge was very much inferior to their same grade fore bearers of just 5 years
previous
Eventually, the department became 1 full time lecturer and 4 on 'zero hour contracts' and
the Head of School became 'Chief Executive' the 'Head of Department' became 'Department
Manager' and a gap developed between those who taught and those who 'managed'... not just a
culture gap... a bloody big pay gap...
Who benefited from all this marketisation?
Not the lecturers... not the students... not the universities... not industry...not the
economy...
Who benefited? Work it out for yourselves (as I used to tell my students)
@roachclip - I am familiar with the numerous wiki sites including Wikipedia, thank you very
much. If you read the article yourself you would see it supports my point of view here.
There are loads of other examples of rarely scrutinised terms in our economic
vocabulary, for instance that bundle of terms clustered around investment and expenditure
– terms that carry with them implicit moral connotations. Investment implies an
action, even a sacrifice, undertaken for a better future. It evokes a future positive
outcome. Expenditure, on the other hand, seems merely an outgoing, a cost, a burden.
This is absolute nonsense...the terms "investment" and "expenditure" carry no moral
connotations that I can determine. Does the author accept that we need to have terms to
express each of these concepts? Perhaps she would like to come up with some alternative
suggestions for the notions of "contributing money" and "spending money"?
Seconded, its uses and abuses of the English Language second only that of the Church. A
fitting comparison in my book because they both have much in common. Both are well aware that
it is through language and the control of which that true cultural change is achieved.
Both know that this new language must be propagated as far and as wide as possible, with
saturation coverage. Control of information is a a must, people must see and they must know
only things of your choosing.
For example, back in the 4th Century AD (which is incidentally an abbreviation of the Latin
'Anno Domini', which means 'in the year of our Lord'), the church became centralised and
established under the patronage of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Part of this centralising
mission was the creation of a uniform belief system. Those that 'chose' to believe something
else were branded 'heretics'. The word 'heresy' coming from the Greek
'αἵρεσις' for 'choice'. Thus to choose to have your
own opinions was therefore deemed to be a bad thing.
As a quick aside, 'Pagan' comes from the Latin 'paganus' which means 'rural dweller'. I.e.
those beyond the remit of the urban Christian elites. 'Heathen' on the other hand is Old
English (hæðen). It simply means 'not Christian or Jewish.
When you have complete control over the flow of information, as the Church did by the 5th
Century, then you can write practically anything. This doesn't mean just writing good things
about yourself and bad things about your enemies. Rather it means that you can frame the
debate anyway you wish.
In modern times, I would argue that you can see similar things happen here. As the author
suggests, terms like 'Wealth Creator', 'Scrounger', 'Sponger', 'living on welfare', 'Growth',
'progress' and my personal favourite, 'reform', take on a whole new meaning.
Their definition of the word 'reform' and what we would see it to mean are two totally
different things, Yet since it is they that has access to the wider world and not us, then it
is their definition that gets heard. The same could be said for all the other words and their
latter day connotations.
Thus when you hear the news and you hear what passes for debate, you hear things on their
terms. Using their language with their meanings. A very sad state of affairs indeed.
Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that
proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial
freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private
property rights, free markets, and free trade.
You'll notice I've highlighted the word freedoms. Freedom is a word they hijacked right
from the start of the process and how they hijacked the Republican party in the USA.
For any way of thought to become dominant, a conceptual apparatus has to be advanced that
appeals to our intuitions and instincts, to our values and our desires, as well as to the
possibilities inherent in the social world we inhabit. If successful, this conceptual
apparatus becomes so embedded in common sense as to be taken for granted and not open to
question. The founding figures of neoliberal thought took political ideals of human
dignity and individual freedom as fundamental.
Concepts of dignity and individual freedom are powerful and appealing in their own right.
Such ideals empowered the dissident movements in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union before
the end of the Cold War as well as the students in Tiananmen Square. The student movements
that swept the world in 1968––from Paris and Chicago to Bangkok and Mexico
City––were in part animated by the quest for greater freedoms of speech and of
personal choice.
More generally, these ideals appeal to anyone who values the ability to make decisions for
themselves.
The idea of freedom, long embedded in the US tradition, has played a conspicuous role in
the US in recent years. '9/11' was immediately interpreted by many as an attack on it. 'A
peaceful world of growing freedom', wrote President Bush on the first anniversary of
that awful day, 'serves American long-term interests, reflects enduring American ideals
and unites America's allies.' 'Humanity', he concluded, 'holds in its hands the opportunity
to
offer freedom's triumph over all its age-old foes', and 'the United States welcomes its
responsibilities to lead in this great mission'. This language was incorporated into the US
National Defense Strategy document issued shortly thereafter. 'Freedom is the Almighty's gift
to every man and woman in this world', he later said, adding that 'as the greatest power on
earth we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom'.
When all of the other reasons for engaging in a pre-emptive war against Iraq were proven
wanting, the president appealed to the idea that the freedom conferred on Iraq was in and of
itself an adequate justification for the war. The Iraqis were free, and that was all
that really mattered. But what sort of 'freedom' is envisaged here, since, as the cultural
critic Matthew Arnold long ago thoughtfully observed, 'freedom is a very good horse to ride,
but to
ride somewhere'.To what destination, then, are the Iraqi people expected to ride the horse of
freedom donated to them by force of arms?
As Hayek quoted....
Planning and control are being attacked as a denial of freedom. Free
enterprise and private ownership are declared to be essentials of freedom.
No society built on other foundations is said to deserve to be called free.
The freedom that regulation creates is denounced as unfreedom; the justice, liberty and
welfare it offers are decried as a camouflage of slavery.
The Neoliberal idea of freedom 'thus degenerates into a mere advocacy of free
enterprise. It helps explain why neoliberalism has turned so authoritarian, forceful, and
anti-democratic at the very moment when 'humanity holds in its hands the opportunity to
offer freedom's triumph over all its age-old foes'. It makes us focus on how so many
corporations have profiteered from withholding the benefits of their
technologies, famine, and environmental disaster. It raises the worry as to whether or not
many of these calamities or
near calamities (arms races and the need to confront both real and
imagined enemies) have been secretly engineered for corporate advantage.
Political slogans can be invoked that mask specific strategies beneath vague
rhetorical devices. The word 'freedom' resonates so widely within the common-sense
understanding of Americans that it becomes 'a button that elites can press to open the door
to the masses' to justify almost anything.
Appeals to traditions and cultural values bulked large in all of this. An open project
around the restoration of economic power to a small elite would probably not gain much
popular support. But a programmatic attempt to advance the cause of individual freedoms could
appeal to a mass base and so disguise the drive to restore class power.
Fascinating article, thanks for publishing. It goes some way to explaining, not only the
tenacity of neo-liberalism, but also its ability to consolidate its power, even at the moment
when it seemed weakest. Its ability to rearticulate language and to present as natural law
what is socially constructed, shows the depth of its hold on society, economics, politics,
culture and even science.
There is a neat cross-over here between neo-liberal discourses and the use of language by
the military. Not only does this extend to the general diffusion of certain key phrases, but
I think it also runs deeper. Just as the elision of meaning in the language of war
facilitates the perpetuation of abuses and war crimes, so the neo-lib discourse permits the
perpetuation of questionable economic activity, even as this presents itself in the
unquestionable guise of "common sense".
@gyges1 - The idea of language is very important in the production of a way of thinking which
closes down other alternatives and futures. One which leaves neoliberal globalisation as 'the
only game in town'.
I worry that the very term 'neoliberalism' is one not used by the political classes and
much of the media, I don't think I've ever heard the world 'neoliberalism' used on the
BBC.
This unwillingness to even call a spade a spade has political consequences . For
example, I had an online discussion with someone over Thatchers death a little while ago. He
called me 'comrade' and then questioned the very existence of the term Neo-liberalism. At the
time I thought this was a bit of a cheap shot, but if you can quite cheerfully label someone
a 'socialist' and then refuse to accept that neo-liberalism exists, you are well on your way
to making people believe that the current set of social relations are indeed completely
normal and that there are few, if any, alternative ways of rewiring the world which can
create a better world.
"... I was, of course, referring to the families of the disappeared in Chile. They are, of course, relevant and should not be excluded from any arguments about neoliberalism and its effects. Nor should the families of the disappeared in Argentina, though it is less well known, the junta was entrusted with the introduction of neoliberal policies in Argentina. ..."
"... The Argentinian military coup, like those in Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Nicaragua, was sponsored by the US to protect and further its interests during the Cold War. By the 1970s neoliberalism was very much part of the menu; paramilitary governments were actively encouraged to practice neoliberal politics; neoliberalism was at this stage, what communism was to the Soviet Union; the ideological wing of the Cold War. You may be familiar with Operation Condor? ..."
"... It has been pretty firmly established that the Allende regime was victim of US sponsored military coup and that said coup was sponsored to protect US interests. The Chicago boys then flew into Chile to use the nation as a laboratory for the more outlandish (at the time) neoliberal policies they were unable to practice at home. ..."
"... The political class, with the aid of their subservient corporate media quislings, have taken our language apart and used it against us. We have been backed into a corner, we are told, by both Labour and Tories, that there is no choice, either rabid profiteering or penury and we have, to our everlasting shame, lapped up every word of it. ..."
"... We have become so embedded in the language of individuals, choice, contracts and competition that we cannot see any alternative. Even Adam Smith understood the difference between "economy" and "society" when he argued that labor is directly connected to public interest while business is connected to self-interest. If business took over the public sphere, Smith argued, this would be quite destructive. ..."
@finnkn - Apologies. I was, of course, referring to the families of the disappeared in Chile. They are, of course, relevant
and should not be excluded from any arguments about neoliberalism and its effects. Nor should the families of the disappeared
in Argentina, though it is less well known, the junta was entrusted with the introduction of neoliberal policies in Argentina.
The Argentinian military coup, like those in Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Nicaragua, was sponsored
by the US to protect and further its interests during the Cold War. By the 1970s neoliberalism was very much part of the menu;
paramilitary governments were actively encouraged to practice neoliberal politics; neoliberalism was at this stage, what communism
was to the Soviet Union; the ideological wing of the Cold War. You may be familiar with Operation Condor?
To be clear: I am arguing that the direct effects of 'actually existing neoliberalism' are very far from benign. I do not argue
that the militarisation of Central and South America are the direct consequence neoliberal theory.
@finnkn - Well I think many would. It has been pretty firmly established that the Allende regime was victim of US sponsored
military coup and that said coup was sponsored to protect US interests. The Chicago boys then flew into Chile to use the nation
as a laboratory for the more outlandish (at the time) neoliberal policies they were unable to practice at home.
Neoliberalism was first practiced in authoritarian states; the states in which neoliberalism is most deeply embedded are (surprise,
surprise) increasingly authoritarian, and neoliberalism solutions are regularly imposed on client/vulnerable states by suprastructures
such as the IMF, the EU, and the World Bank. Friedrich Hayek and Adam Smith were very clear that the potential for degeneracy
existed. We have now reached that potential; increasingly centralised authority, states within states, the denuding of democratic
institutions and crony capitalism. Neoliberalism in practice is very different to neoliberalism in practice. Rather like 'really
existing socialism' and Marxism.
works best in authoritarian states because (in practice, if not in theory
As the statistics on that link show, there are certain countries (notably Russia and the Ukraine) where the +65 age group disapprove
of the change to democracy and capitalism. In the majority, however, people of all ages remain in favour.
For 'job' read 'bribe' (keep your mouth shut or lose it), for 'management' read 'take most of the interest out of the job
for everybody else and put them on a lower scale', etc. I guess you get my drift.
It's sad that you have such a negative, self-hating attitude towards your work.
Work is usually – and certainly should be – a central source of meaning and fulfilment in human lives. And it has – or could
have – moral and creative (or aesthetic) values at its core
Spoken like a true champagne socialist in a creative industry. How do you find meaning and fulfillment, or creative values, in
emptying bins, cleaning offices, sweeping the streets and a whole load of other work which needs doing but which is repetitive,
menial and not particularly pleasant?
There are two ways to get people to do work that needs doing but wouldn't be done voluntarily: coercion or payment. I think
the second is a more healthy way to run a society.
I've thought pretty much the same myself. Democracies can be good or bad (as the Greeks knew well)...but in our politic-speak
it is used to denounce and make good; as in "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East"...it is intended to make us feel
something good about Israel, as it humiliates the Palestinians and steals their land.
In ancient Greece....'tyrant' simply meant
'usurper' without any neccessary negative association....simply someone who had usurped political power...they recognized that
tyrannies could be good, bad or indifferent.
In Rome, dictator simply meant the cahp that took over fpr periods of six months at a time, during times of crisis.
I used to vacation in Yugoslavia in Marshall Tito's time....it was a wonderful place, beautiful, inexpensive and safe...very
very safe. What came into the power vacuum after he died in 1980...what happened to the country? I'd argue that his was a good
dictatorship or tyranny....
I'm also not too sure what the 90% of people unaffected by and uninterested in power politics in any given country feel about
the 'liberation' of Libya and Iraq from their prior dictatorships...I'm sure that plenty of people whose previously steady lives
have been wrecked, are all that thrilled.
I have recently been exercised by the right's adoption of "Social Justice". In the past it was the left and churches who talked
of social justice as a phenomenon to empower the poor and dispossessed, whether in this country or the developing world. Social
Justice was a touchstone of Faith in the City, for example, but it seems now to be the smoke screen behind which benefits are
stipped from the "undeserving poor".
Most of this crap comes from America. Crappy middle-management bureaucrats spouting "free-market" bollocks.
The efficiency of the private sector - some nob with a name badge timing how long you've been on the toilet.
Freedommm!!!!
It is not just neoliberalism. Everyone is at it - sucking the meaning out of words. Corporate bullshit, public sector bullshit.
Being customers of your own government is a crime that everyone is guilty of. This is what Orwell railed against decades ago,
and it has got worse.
Case in point; just look at the way in which the Cameron set about co-opting words and phrases justifiably applied to his own
regime and repurposed them against his detractors.
For example, people who took a stand against the stealth privatisation of the NHS were branded as "vested interests", quite
unlike the wholesome MPs who voted for the NHS bill who, despite the huge sums of money they received from the private healthcare
lobby, we are encouraged to believe were acting in our best interests by selling our health service to their corporate paymasters.
Or the farcical attempt to rebrand female Tory MPs as "feminists" despite their anti-social mobility, anti-equality, anti-human
rights and anti-abortion views.
The political class, with the aid of their subservient corporate media quislings, have taken our language apart and used
it against us. We have been backed into a corner, we are told, by both Labour and Tories, that there is no choice, either rabid
profiteering or penury and we have, to our everlasting shame, lapped up every word of it.
@Obelisk1 - You have single-handedly proven Massey's argument. We have become so embedded in the language of individuals,
choice, contracts and competition that we cannot see any alternative. Even Adam Smith understood the difference between "economy"
and "society" when he argued that labor is directly connected to public interest while business is connected to self-interest.
If business took over the public sphere, Smith argued, this would be quite destructive.
Our whole conversation seemed somehow reduced, my experience of it belittled into one of commercial transaction. My relation
to the gallery and to this engaging person had become one of instrumental market exchange.
But in the eyes of the economic right, that is precisely the case. Adjectives like altruistic, caring, selfless, empathy and
sympathy are simply not in their vocabulary. They are only ever any of those things provided they can see some sort of beneficial
payback at the end.
maxfisher -> Venebles 11 Jun 2013 06:20
@Venebles - I was simply joining many commentators in the mire. Those that dispute the neoliberal worldview are routinely dismissed
as marxists. I thought I'd save you all the energy, duck.
I'm not sure that the families of the disappeared of Chile and Argentina would concur with you benign view of neoliberalism
and its effects.
Fascinating article, thanks for publishing. It goes some way to explaining, not only the
tenacity of neo-liberalism, but also its ability to consolidate its power, even at the moment
when it seemed weakest. Its ability to rearticulate language and to present as natural law
what is socially constructed, shows the depth of its hold on society, economics, politics,
culture and even science.
There is a neat cross-over here between neo-liberal discourses and the use of language by
the military. Not only does this extend to the general diffusion of certain key phrases, but
I think it also runs deeper. Just as the elision of meaning in the language of war
facilitates the perpetuation of abuses and war crimes, so the neo-lib discourse permits the
perpetuation of questionable economic activity, even as this presents itself in the
unquestionable guise of "common sense".
"... In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has collected 5.4m "adverse event" reports over the past decade, some from manufacturers reporting problems in other parts of the world. ..."
"... Interviews with patients and doctors have revealed flaws in how the medical devices industry is regulated. ..."
Patients around the world are suffering pain and many have died as a result of faulty
medical devices that have been allowed on to the market by a system dogged by poor regulation,
lax rules on testing and a lack of transparency, an investigation has found.
Pacemakers, artificial hips, contraceptives and breast implants are among the devices that
have caused injuries and resulted in patients having to undergo follow-up operations or in some
cases losing their lives.
In some cases, the implants had not been tested in patients before being allowed on to the
market.
In the UK alone, regulators received 62,000 "adverse incident" reports linked to medical
devices between 2015 and 2018. A third of the incidents had serious repercussions for the
patient, and 1,004 resulted in death.
In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has collected 5.4m "adverse event"
reports over the past decade, some from manufacturers reporting problems in other parts of the
world.
These included 1.7m reports of injuries and almost 83,000 deaths. Nearly 500,000 mentioned
an explant – surgery to remove a device.
The figures come from research by 252 journalists from 59 media organisations in 36
countries, which has uncovered a litany of problems in the global $400bn (£310bn)
industry.
Examples of failure in the market include:
Replacement hips and vaginal mesh products sold to
hospitals without any clinical trials. Patients relying on faulty pacemakers when manufacturers
were aware of problems. Complications with hernia mesh that ruled one of Britain's top athletes
out of competing for years. Regulators approving spinal disc
replacements that later disintegrated and migrated in patients. Surgeons admitting they were
unable to tell patients about the risks posed by implants because of a lack of central
registers. Patients in Australia being given devices that the regulator has approved on the
basis they have been approved in Europe.
The findings raise concerns about the level of scrutiny devices undergo before and after
they go on the market, and whether regulators detect and act upon findings quickly enough.
Information about problems with devices is, in many countries, kept under wraps, making it
difficult for patients to research procedures that have been recommended to
them.
Interviews with patients and doctors have revealed flaws in how the medical
devices industry is regulated.
Prof Derek Alderson, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said there had been
enough incidents involving flawed devices to "underline the need for drastic regulatory
changes", including the introduction of mandatory national registries for all implantable
devices.
"In contrast to drugs, many surgical innovations are introduced without clinical trial data
or centrally held evidence," he said. "This is a risk to patient safety and public
confidence."
The Guardian and organisations including the BBC , Le Monde and Süddeutsche Zeitung,
coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), have trawled
through thousands of documents, many obtained through freedom of information (FoI) requests, to
unearth some of the biggest problems.
Alongside interviews with patients and doctors, these have revealed flaws in the way the
industry is regulated that are unlikely to be fixed by rules due to come into force in
Europe.
Among the concerns raised by the Implant Files project are that manufacturers are in
charge of testing their own products after faults have developed – and are allowed to
shop around for approval to market their products, without declaring any refusals.
The Guardian has also heard about doctors who have close industry ties or seem eager to be
early adopters of the latest devices to enhance their professional standing.
Plans for tougher EU rules have been watered down after industry lobbying, according to a
huge trove of documents uncovered by the project.
She thought the investigation might have about six months left, although if Trump refuses a
face-to-face meeting, Mueller could seek a subpoena to put him before the grand jury. That
could be fought all the way to the supreme court.
There is a precedent, US v Nixon, when the justices ruled that the president must deliver
subpoenaed materials to a district court. Sixteen days later, Nixon resigned.
If Mueller decides not to have that fight, he could write a report saying he believed the
president obstructed justice. If he does not reach that conclusion, the Democratic-led House
could issue its own subpoenas.
"It is a chess match," said Milgram. "We'll have to see how it plays out in the next
year."
Russia to UK: Prove Your Spies Did Not Poison Our Citizens or Face Consequences
What a great Russian response! Finally!
RI
Staff
Thu, Mar
29, 2018
|
300 words
17,686
225
YOLO Lavrov
What is good for the goose is good for the gander. At least Russia seems to think so. There may not be conclusive
evidence Britain poisoned Sergei Skripal and his visiting daughter Yulia. But then neither is there evidence
Moscow did it and that did not prevent London from demanding Russia proves its innocent (in 24 hours). Moreover
the British are keeping Russians away from evidence, not the other way around.
So why wouldn't Russia now demand
Britain instead proves its own innocence? Well, Lavrov's Ministry of External Affairs
can't think of a reason
why not.
It
better be something good!
Russia as demanded that London provide proof that
British spies did not carry out the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that their analysis of the assassination attempt has them
to believe in 'a possible involvement in it of the British intelligence services'.
The Ministry says that in the absence of proof of British innocence, Moscow will regard the incident as an
attempt on the lives of Russian citizens on foreign soil.
'An analysis of all the circumstances ... leads us to think of the possible involvement in it (the
poisoning) of the British intelligence services,' the foreign ministry said in a statement.
'If convincing evidence to the contrary is not presented to the Russian side we will consider that
we are dealing with an attempt on the lives of our citizens as a result of a massive political provocation.'
Excellent! 'Do what you demand of us and prove your innocence to us, or we will regard it was a state-sponsored
attempt at murder of our citizens.'
Lavrov has truly outdone himself here. And yet all he has done is responded in kind. So simple and yet so
brilliant.
UK had the verdict ,before the trial on poisoning.No evidence? If May cannot explain the
poisonings of Russians on their soil,Russia would be justifyed in a token bombing of London.
The Muslim Empire will forever be (gratefully) indebted to the Russian spirit and all it's
peoples for saving our posteriors in the Middle East ; if the people being saved are the
creators of the numbers everybody is using : what does that say about the brilliance of those
strong enough to protect our villagers from thieves!? *bows before the great Russian
homeland* :)
The idiots in our leadership outplayed and outmanoeuvred themselves within 48 hours; the
whole thing is farcical and an embarrassment to my Country. I know it, millions of other
Brits know it, the World knows it.
PS Call it the British establishment not low-brow Brits,
who are the people from the South and Scotland.
Agreed. A lot of commentators have difficulty separating the people from their
governments, don't realize that most 'leaders' are in their positions due to corruption
of one type or another.
by allowing your political class to do these types of things, just like
americans, you are complicit in the crimes. therefore ghartwells point is
well delivered
I am a B1 / A2 citizen of the UK that owns a Company and has been a
follower of the Conservatives for most of my political life (changing
my life as paid member of UKIP for 4 years). Do not question or
accuse me on my beliefs nor intelligence - our government has fallen
and sold its soul.
LOL. That`s the establishment, of which the many governments are only small
parts... People just get used... as always, and everywhere...
Gorbachev was given a Nobel Peace Prize (when it still meant something, I think),
but he is considered a traitor by people in Russia and not so much because of
what he has done, but how he went about doing it...
Rev 1 - it was the Red Indians or whatever they are called now that called / said
...... the US dark blue army and in general the white man or invaders "'speak
with forked tongue.'
We in the US sympathize with your condition. Both our countries suffer from the same
entropic political/financial methods and it is time to put an end to it. From GHW Bush
and Margaret Thatcher to GW Bush and Tony Blair, Obama and Cameron, we have all seen
nothing but unjustified wars and suffering. Now Theresa May is trying to trap Trump
into a war with Putin. So all of this is more about continuing the effort to remove
Trump than it is against Putin.
Thank you. But (sorry) my good Maggie made many mistakes but I didn't realise it
then, but for the UK, she was the last to defend our Country or so I thought, I
do not want to think about that.
Since Blair, the UK is a shadow of itself.
Regards "Now Theresa May is trying to trap Trump into a war with Putin", I
disagree, in that, this is thoroughly orchestrated between all the vermin. It is
like watching a B rated spy movie, but thankfully many Countries are waking up to
the goings on.
We need a revolution as do you guys ..we have gotten to that stage
unfortunately .......and yes, it is sad to say.
Your "Maggie" is the one who brokered the El Yamamah deal with the Saudis
that unleashed the the Saudi 9/11/01 attacks years later. She also provoked
the Malvinas War. Did good? C'mon that is like saying Benedict Arnold was a
hero. Yes, May is pulling Trump into war with Russia, why? Because the
British Empire is finally finished and it sees the Belt Road Initiative and
the American System a threat. We in the USA already had our revolution and
won the military victory. Now we will win the political victory over
imperialism. England should do the same.
Irish hate themselves? I think not : those people not only appreciate life but
they stand up for Palestine #WW3 ignorant slave of money sheeple cries trying to
defame their betters?
http://biblehub.com/1_samue...
shekel whores are promised to be left with
NOTHING ... they just donkeys to anybody with a spine after all hehe
View
Hide
As I remember having read:
- The proud people of Ireland are the only country really aligning with the
Palestinian people.
- The Irish are the only country in the world really boycotting the Invader
and Oppressor and Racist, Israel.
- The Irish have a lot of experience with "what is right and what is
wrong".
- The Irish have a lot of years, 800 years, experience what it is to be
oppressed by an oppressor and BTW it is their neigbor who is their
oppressor.
- The Irish are sometimes not quite clear in their stance for now they are
joining the warmonger Britian, the same oppressor who is trying to oppress
Russia which country have done nothing wrong to nobody nor at all to the
Irish.
Remarkable.
Britain does not comprise an entity called Ireland, hence Irish are not 'Brits',
as intimated by the statement above. Yes, Britain still colonises six counties on
the island of Ireland which they call Northern Ireland, a consequence of planting
their subjects over generations in a foreign land. Yes, Britain has caused much
damage to the entire world and its peoples. Its governing classes, and probably
the vast majority of its peoples (out of loyalty and poor education), are of
course blind to, and unaccepting of, such facts. Britain as it has operated over
the centuries, and now a fully engaged neoliberal stooge, can not survive in a
multi-polar world. Non-neoliberal, non-empire vassal Irish people would be fully
behind Russia and its cultural philosophy.
Just to point out an assumption that we have all jumped on, the poisoning; we do not actually know
if there was any poisoning done at all, all I have seen was on day one of this fiasco, a picture of
the two fast asleep on a park bench. I have seen no proof, jut the opposite in fact.
We have a letter to the Times from Steven Davies, the consultant in emergency medicine at
Salisbury hospital, stating that no [sic] patients had been treated for nerve-agent
poisoning, and only three had been treated for poisoning of any kind. [Type not stated]
Discussed here, with full text of the letter:
Oh no, sorry but, the letter has been published or a last the intention of it, in most
UK MSM, comments section blocked, interpretation watered down.....SSDD.
Damn I cannot edit it....as half my comment disappeared.
The letter was
published but the connation given to the context of it was totally reversed in
that millions will continue believing the government and media's BS.
I wondered too. Their phones were turned off before the incident, and who knows if the
Brutish (sic) authorities had arranged a deal with Skripal who is now a British citizen.
Perhaps Yulia will conveniently die now that she has apparently recovered a lot and may
decide to speak out. Imagine if she tried to contradict the May/Boris/EU/NATO line how long
she would survive.
I didn't now about the phones, Unless Skripal has duel Nationality he is a resident NOT
citizen, but it is intriguing how the UK government will get out of this hole they have
dug for themselves. "HOSPITAL HIT BY MSRN combined with EBOLA, AIDS and MARS
!!!?".......it is all a total crock of s..t and those Bsta.rds have seriously
embarrassed my country.
PS I still have a terrible feeling that it is about stopping
BREXIT.
She has no chance and no way back now. UK will never let her speak the truth. Two
options: speak what May wants or dissapear under "witness protection programm." Skripal
relatives (Ylia's step sister) was denied of UK visa now.
The Upper Class is going to loose the Plot.
Be vigilant.
The British Rotschild might give it another try, a chemical attack (4th time) in Syria.
Just to keep the game against Russia going.
Remind you that Jacob Rothschild. bought the "gaspipes" in Ukraine AND
Jacob R. is also taking part in a cooperative "alleged stealing" of the Syrian resources of
the Golan Heights with his Zionist Friends. Oil and Gas is there to have.
Mr. Assad of
Syria promised the world, all foreign forces will be driven from the land of the Syrian
people. I assume together with Hezbollah, Iran and of course the famous Syrian Tiger Brigade.
About time.
The Khazarians are left some time to move to their new country Ukraine. With hands off the
independent Republics of Luhansk and Donbass.
And, finally the Palestinian and Israelian people will have peace.
...'s pretty 'asymmetric' and rather 'subtle', ...ain't it?
NNNAAAAHAAA! ...Russia isn't being
offended WITHOUT consequences!
Not only are the Pomm's going to very silently 'divert' the attention fom this alleged
'poisoning', and let it 'slip', but are going to make OVERT 're-approachments' to Russia, come next
winter, and they get low on Natural Gas!
I don t want Russia to politely let them OFF . this is tge time ..because they chose to throw
theur "politicsl..media..world kangaroo court accuse ..no need for rvidence" GAME ..TO be
CONOKETELY MASSIVELY DESTROYED by Russia in a grand Historical sense this time aroubd ..i
want Russia to HANG THEM ALL politically by very intensely going on a diplomatic media
political campaignmit only takes nothing more than the resources russia ALREADY HAS...WORLD
PUBLIC OPINION GRAVITATING AROUND RUSSIA ..because these people are only continuing what all
started from CENTURIES AGO WITH JOHN MILTON thecplayright in elizabethan england ...HE was
one of the original creators of these caricaturish ..demonizing RACIST Pattern that hss been
unbroken sjnce then ....i am talking about his long ago appointment as FIRST ambassadir to
russia to open rekations in St petersburg but brought with him that SUPERIORITY complex snd
went back to england making his "reports" about how Russians were inferior oluncouth
..eatingveithout forks..drew the early cartoons we know TODAY reflected in these demonizing
of russia..NOW IS THE TIME FOR RUSSIA ..before the shots are fired...to FIRST DESTROY RVERY
LAST SHRED of that fake credibility from the west. So that in the afyermath of WHATEVER
transpires next ..the LYING Western
Atlantic Empire can NEVER EVER SLEAZE its way in lies NOR in "letting it slide away quietly "
as if nothing was the matter. Well..DUH
The denial of the economic ideology of Neo-liberalism is nothing more than a cheap debating point. If you pretend something
doesn't exist then you make it difficult to attack.
Notable quotes:
"... Strange then, that you can buy a book called: "Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics. By Daniel Stedman Jones. Princeton University Press". ..."
"... What were Friedrich Heyek and Milton Friedman: lollypop salesmen? ..."
"... All one needs to know is that English language is being manipulated just as it always has been by those that have the power to do it. Today the main manipulators are, Madison Avenue, agencies and departments the United States government, Wall Street, US television media. Most people don't realize that the language is being manipulated, when they hear or see in print words being used in unusual ways they just go along with it. ..."
"... Advertising frequently refers to things being "better" with no explanation of what it is better than. ..."
"... "Underpriviliged" to describe people living in poverty but no explanation of the privileges that people have who are not poor. ..."
"... I could go on and on, but I am sure that you scribblers who do not indulge in "confuse speak" know exactly what I am trying to explain. Best example I can give is "The free world" which by latest check includes Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and sundry other brutal regimes and one time actually included outright fascist countries. ..."
"... Yes - the person who said language was mankind's first technology were absolutely correct. I expect language was invented by those who invent all technology to be just out of reach of the general public until the inventers decide they can do business for themselves out of it. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is the final stage of liberal democracy which has been around for 60-70 years, the most destructive form of government the world has ever seen, based on deregulation for the wealthy oligarchs and debt and debauchery for the poor .............. which is rapidly taking us back to feudal times. ..."
"... I prescribe a course of Orwell, Start, perhaps, with short stories...... Politics and the English Language, Why I Write, Notes on Nationalism, for example. And then a full dose of Nineteen Eighty-Four. That should do the trick! ..."
"... Nothing has been learnt from the crash of 2008 beyond "get rich even quicker", or as its more commonly known, economic and ecological suicide. ..."
Term abuse didn't arrive with neoliberalism; it's been around since forever. Also, the fact
that most of our daily transactions might be commercial is a reflection of our own habits as
much as the changing use of language.
If a person is employed by a commercial gallery, they are effectively working in a shop,
and the people who visit these galleries are potentially customers. No surprise there. Just
like a person who uses transport can be a customer. Of course, there are public services
where commercial terms such as customer make little sense.
Sure, it isn't that important who is making the point, even if the point is made by
reference to questionable and contentious examples.
I also think that any even bigger influence on meaning / lack of meaning / interchangeable
meaning etc.has been postmodernity far more than neoliberalism.
All true but the left is just as bad as coining its Orwellisms. Witness the way nobody has to use an approved vocabulary to talk about every and any group
on fear of moral ridicule or worse. Language is a mental battlefield.
@RClayton - Can I suggest resurrecting William Morris's distinction between "work" (ie labour
that is moral, creative, aesthetic or, at least, hygienic - ie intrinsically worth doing) and
"toil" which is work done only because of the necessity to earn money to buy the means of
existence?
Having words that distinguish between these two ideas is useful. The 'work' you talk about
is 'toil' and most of it is done simply to service the money/capitalist system.
As an example, I have in front of me a rubber 'stress reliever' in the shape of PacMan. It
was given to me as a gift.
Presumably, somewhere in the world there is a factory full of people turning out this
rubbish. It adds nothing to the world's beauty, nor its ability to support the people living
on it. Its only uses are in providing paid 'toil' to support the factory workers and to
enable someone to give me something I don't need as a token of their friendship, probably
paid for from the fruits of their own toil.
Changing the words we use will not change this, but it does give us a framework in which
to think about how it might be changed.
Strange then, that you can buy a book called: "Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman,
and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics. By Daniel Stedman Jones. Princeton University
Press".
What were Friedrich Heyek and Milton Friedman: lollypop salesmen?
If I can repeat what I said at the top of this thread - The denial of the economic
ideology of Neo-liberalism is nothing more than a cheap debating point. If you pretend
something doesn't exist then you make it difficult to attack.
The biggest problem isn't so much that people use the language of commercial business and are
free and easy with their abuse of terms (there's a new one), but that people treat government
and politics as a service, and see their relationship with governance as akin to a
client/customer relationship, to that end we elect politicians who tell us what we want to
hear, even if what we hear can be, all to often, somewhat meaningless or trite.
@TheRealCmdrGravy - There's nothing vague about it, It represents the whole of UK and US
government economic policy for the last thirty years with the happy outcomes that we enjoy
today.
But now you know what a neoliberal is, perhaps you can reread the excellent article above
with added relish and understanding. Glad to be of assistance. If you want anything else
looking up I suggest using a search engine before posting here that a particular word is too
difficult for you.
According to Bradford DeLong, a Berkeley economic historian, neoliberalism has two main
tenets:
"The first is that close economic contact between the industrial core and the developing
periphery is the best way to accelerate the transfer of technology which is the sine qua
non for making poor economies rich (hence all barriers to international trade should be
eliminated as fast as possible).
The second is that governments in general lack the
capacity to run large industrial and commercial enterprises. Hence, [except] for core
missions of income distribution, public-good infrastructure, administration of justice, and
a few others, governments should shrink and privatize)."
All one needs to know is that English language is being manipulated just as it always has been by
those that have the power to do it.
Today the main manipulators are, Madison Avenue, agencies and departments the United States
government, Wall Street, US television media.
Most people don't realize that the language is being manipulated, when they hear or see in
print words being used in unusual ways they just go along with it.
Example:
A couple of years back a motormouth U.S TV show host used the word "impact" in place of the
word "affect". He did so simply because "impact" seemed more dramatic. Now it is almost
impossible to hear or see the word "affect" used anywhere.
Now there are some of you that will say that language and usage of words change over time,
and I would agree with you, but when you see a word used in a context that is completely
inappropriate and that use is adopted in general you have to ask yourself questions like who
benefits from this.
Remember when Bush wanted to increase troop levels, he refered to the increase as a "surge".
"Surge" until then had a distinct meaning it was not associated with any meaning of
permanence, and that is why it was used.
Advertising frequently refers to things being "better" with no explanation of what it is
better than.
"Underpriviliged" to describe people living in poverty but no explanation of the privileges
that people have who are not poor.
I could go on and on, but I am sure that you scribblers who do not indulge in "confuse speak"
know exactly what I am trying to explain.
Best example I can give is "The free world" which by latest check includes Saudi Arabia,
Yemen, and sundry other brutal regimes and one time actually included outright fascist
countries.
Now all London Underground passengers are 'customers', which implies you are buying the
travel experience rather than paying for transportation. When misused it suggests to me lack
of strength and self-belief from the organization concerned.
@callaspodeaspode - Gosh - an excellent example of how to get things completely wrong. Just because a firm has the government for a customer does not mean it is a public sector
business.
Note the word 'customer'. In the case of the FE college, who is the customer - the
government or the students? Are the students just incidental fodder?
Your contract with the government will be for a certain job done in a certain for a
certain sum of money. In FE, the government has a sum of money which gets paid out
irrespective of the outcome. Indeed, how do you measure the 'outcome' of an FE college? In
your case, it's easy - either the software works or it doesn't.
Your company no doubt is either owned by an individual, or has shareholders. Those people
live on the profits of the company, or lose their money if it goes bust.
What is the profit made by an FE college? Who are the shareholders? Who goes broke if the
college folds? Still think an FE college is the same as private company?
@TheRealCmdrGravy - No definition is a distinct improvement on your deliberate distortion. I
was assuming you had the sense to find a definition on the internet for yourself, since you
managed to find your way here.
I do not consider alternative viewpoints brainless, i consider a refusal to even engage in
debate brainless, pretending that a word is undefined when there's reams of literature as
well as concise definitions freely available from any number of sources. That might
reasonably be construed as brainless.
Here, fill your boots, then if you have an actual argument instead of a crude attempt to
derail the debate it can be considered.
Neoliberalism is a political philosophy whose advocates support economic
liberalization, free trade and open markets, privatization, deregulation, and decreasing the
size of the public sector while increasing the role of the private sector in modern society.
(From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism)
I'm convinced you had the brains to look it up yourself, that's why I suspect your agenda.
Now please stop wasting everyone's time unless you have something to contribute. I even
looked it up for you.
And I can give a further example. I used to work in a Private Equity-owned firm, which
happened to have some contracts to provide software support to the government.
Thus, in your conceptual framework, it was a public sector business. Indeed, by your reasoning, Lockheed Martin is a state-owned company as well.
I agree that 'Neoliberalism' has hijacked our vocabulary, but that is about the limit of our
agreement. People fling the word 'neoliberalism' around these days as a synonym for 'anything
I and my friends have decided is politically-economically objectionable' ('have decided', not
'think'). In the old days, 'fascist' served the same purpose in all those late-night student
flat discussions. I assume, until proven otherwise, that people who talk about
'neoliberalism', fall into the same category as those people who had so much difficulty
distinguishing between 'liberal democracy' and 'fascism'.
I can actually think of liberal left-leaning intellectuals who I can recall having
self-described as neoliberal. They, however, are distinctive for the sort of nuanced
understanding of political economy you are unlikely to find represented around the candles in
the kitchen on a Friday night when the world's problems are being discussed and solved.
First of all I am impressed by the psychic ability which enables you to deduce my
"closed political agenda", very impressive
Not really. It is transparently obvious when you declare that neo-liberalism is "vague
stuff which I don't like" when there are cogent definitions of it, to which you have been
referred in the past.
this is not the kind of liberalism we needed it needed to be socially liberal but not
economically liberal. How dare people become entrepenurial or take the thatcherite tax cuts,
or buy goods made from slave labour. Some seriously sick yuppies out there.
Yes - the person who said language was mankind's first technology were absolutely correct.
I expect language was invented by those who invent all technology to be just out of reach
of the general public until the inventers decide they can do business for themselves out of
it.
She says that we need to look at the language as it says a lot about how we think. Sounds
about right to me. It's hardly arguing white means black, just that the words we choose say
something about what we mean.
Then she says that what we talk about isn't the stuff we need to concentrate on. That's a
matter of debate and opinion.
Except that preference theory does not take into account causality. In any event we have
the evidence, there are those who are perfectly happy to cast others to the wall just so long
as they do OK and even benefit from it.
@makingtime - Really ? Some very interesting points you've made there ...
your closed political agenda may make it impossible for you to understand without a
brain transplant.
First of all I am impressed by the psychic ability which enables you to deduce my "closed
political agenda", very impressive. Secondly though it's interesting that you think a "closed
political agenda", which I am taking to mean a concrete political viewpoint, can only be
remedied with a "brain transplant" rather than through discussion. It's almos as though
you're saying "those with political views different to mine are brainless" which is quite a
bigoted point of view.
No definition from you regarding the word neo-liberal though so all in all not a very
helpful or insightful post. Disappointing.
..the word "neo-liberal" which, so far as I can see, simply means "vague stuff which I
don't like".
Is it possible that you can't see very far because you're deliberately not looking? There
are perfectly adequate and precise definitions. I quite liked 'A Brief History of
Neoliberalism' by Prof D.Harvey as a long form definition, but since it's rather critical of
'vague stuff which I don't like', your closed political agenda may make it impossible for you
to understand without a brain transplant.
It is exasperating when political discussion is reduced to which foghorn can generate the
loudest interference. I suppose it's a mistake to waste time on correcting this rubbish
Doreen Massey is an academic. It shows in the way she writes. It's good that she raises
fundamental questions about society and the way it is managed. It has traditionally been the
role of academics to play that role.
The disappointing feature of the debate however is the absence of input from our
politicians. All our leading politicians have essentially the same view of our society and
economy. One in which, as Ms Massey indicates, choice exercised through market based
mechanisms is the key principal. There is no view of progress towards a good society. There
is no view of co-operation rather than competition. The only option is for us to measure
ourselves by what we consume.
Our political system and its parties have failed us. In particular it is the left that has
failed. It has accepted the social and economic arguments of the right and contented itself
with suggesting minor variations on the same theme. Activists on the left need to re-gather
their strength and more forcefully put forward a better alternative.
@retarius - Any government is only as good as the human rights it upholds.
Neoliberalism is the final stage of liberal democracy which has been around for 60-70 years,
the most destructive form of government the world has ever seen, based on deregulation for
the wealthy oligarchs and debt and debauchery for the poor .............. which is rapidly
taking us back to feudal times.
This is a view that misunderstands where pleasure and fulfilment in human lives are
found. Work is usually – and certainly should be – a central source of meaning
and fulfilment in human lives.
Wishful and naive thinking. Most work is very unfulfilling and even in cases where it is
meaningful the day to day grind and intensity required by a job is making it a chore. There
are very few people who have a job that is really a pleasure. There are many people though
who have empty lives and were brainwashed into believing that their job is the most important
part of their existence.
@gyges1 - " This is playground level debating. You are just saying the meaning you give to
words is to be preferred to that of your opponents."
Ah, I see the problem - a narrow mind with a broad-brush tendency.
I prescribe a course of Orwell, Start, perhaps, with short stories...... Politics and the
English Language, Why I Write, Notes on Nationalism, for example. And then a full dose of
Nineteen Eighty-Four. That should do the trick!
@RClayton - But if we start to think about work differently - which then gets its expression
with the words we use - maybe it can change. Your Bangladeshi example is interesting because
it assumes they need to work in that way to exist. Should we not try and change the system so
a Bangladeshi can harness his or her creativity to connect their creative ideas to a global
market and earn money in this way, rather than selling their physical labour to connect
someone else's t-shirt to a global market?
It's not just vocabulary, its demeanor, etiquette and peoples entire self perception that has
been usurped by the skewed modern logic of markets and the service industry.
People are preempting the technological singularity by rendering themselves robotic in a
quite tragic struggle to perpetually remain relevant and employable in the form that the
whims of the dictatorship of the market see fit to determine.
Some nationalities even have an intrinsic advantage, their national character tending rather
to the robotic from the outset. What remains of human expression, of impulsivity, of
spontaneity, of charisma, of originality is up for question, but the paucity of modern life,
of human expression and interaction, will increase in direct relation to the increases in
efficiency and productivity that will be demanded of citizens. And this despite the fact that
we are suffering under the weight of massive over production, and the excessive demand on
resources that this entails.
Nothing has been learnt from the crash of 2008 beyond "get rich even quicker", or as its more
commonly known, economic and ecological suicide.
@BaronessHawHaw - Working class pride in their jobs came from being highly skilled –
for example riveting in shipyards was difficult and you really were adding value there, so
was assembling a car and so on. Also, didn't most of their 'meaning and fulfilment' come from
the community, not really the work they were doing, except in so far as most of the people in
the community would be doing the same work so it gave them something to talk about?
I've never heard a modern person saying how much any of the jobs I listed give them
meaning or fulfilment. The kind of jobs that gave working class people a meaningful identity
have pretty much all gone.
Just looking at the Governments of Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Hungary as an
example seems to indicate centrist and centre-right parties in power.
As I'm reading the annual report of my old sixth form college - which also operate adult
learning courses - and they're an exempt charity and therefore not liable for corporation
tax. They have an operating surplus (read: profit) on which no tax is paid, quite unlike a
private sector company.
"... Neoliberalism is bankrupt, it isn't even a philiosophy its simple social nihilism. The proof is in the get rich quick, or short term profit mentality of those at the top. Get rich quick is tantamount to jumping the ship, its the economic equivalent of deserting a sinking vessel. Until people recognise the destructive cynical nature of the current economic philosophy and cast out those that are steering the ship, we are all doomed. ..."
"... Strange then, that you can buy a book called: "Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics. By Daniel Stedman Jones. Princeton University Press". ..."
"... What were Friedrich Heyek and Milton Friedman: lollypop salesmen? ..."
"... Well it could be argued that postmodernism is the necessary condition for neoliberalism. ..."
'Customer'; 'growth'; 'investment'. We should scrutinise the everyday language that shapes how we think about the
economy
'We need to question that familiar categorisation of the economy as a space into which people enter in order to
reluctantly undertake unwelcome and unpleasing "work''.'
A
t a recent art exhibition I engaged in an
interesting conversation with one of the young people employed by the gallery. As she turned to walk off I saw she
had on the back of her T-shirt "customer liaison". I felt flat. Our whole conversation seemed somehow reduced, my
experience of it belittled into one of commercial transaction. My relation to the gallery and to this engaging
person had become one of instrumental market exchange.
The message underlying this use of the term customer for so
many different kinds of human activity is that in all almost all our daily activities we are operating as consumers
in a market – and this truth has been brought in not by chance but through managerial instruction and the
thoroughgoing renaming of institutional practices. The mandatory exercise of "free choice" – of a GP, of a hospital,
of schools for one's children – then becomes also a lesson in social identity, affirming on each occasion our
consumer identity.
This is a crucial part of the way that neoliberalism has become part of our commonsense understanding of life.
The vocabulary we use to talk about the economy is in fact a political construction, as Stuart Hall, Michael Rustin
and I have argued in our
Soundings manifesto
.
Another word that reinforces neoliberal common sense is "growth", currently deemed to be the entire aim of our
economy. To produce growth and then (maybe) to redistribute some of it, has been a goal shared by both neoliberalism
and social democracy. In its crudest formulation this entails providing the conditions for the market sector to
produce growth, and accepting that this will result in inequality, and then relying on the redistribution of some
portion of this growth to help repair the inequality that has resulted from its production.
This of course does nothing to question the inequality-producing mechanisms of market exchange itself, and it has
also meant that the main lines of struggle have too often been focused solely on distributional issues. What's more,
today we are living with a backlash to even the limited redistributional gains made by labour under social
democracy. In spite of all this, growth is still seen as providing the solution to our problems.
The second reason our current notion of wealth creation, and our commitment to its growth, must be questioned is
to do with our relationship with the planet. The environmental damage brought about by the pursuit of growth
threatens to cause a catastrophe of which we are already witnessing intimations. And a third – and perhaps most
important – defect of this approach is that increased wealth, especially as measured in the standard monetary terms
of today, has few actual consequences for people's feelings of wellbeing once there is a sufficiency to meet basic
needs, as there is in Britain. In pursuing "growth" in these terms, as a means to realise people's life goals and
desires, economies are pursuing a chimera.
Instead of an unrelenting quest for growth, might we not ask the question, in the end: "What is an economy for?",
"What do we want it to provide?"
Our current imaginings endow the market and its associated forms with a special status. We think of "the economy"
in terms of natural forces, into which we occasionally intervene, rather than in terms of a whole variety of social
relations that need some kind of co-ordination.
Thus "work", for example, is understood in a very narrow and instrumental way. Where only transactions for money
are recognised as belonging to "the economy", the vast amount of unpaid labour – as conducted for instance in
families and local areas – goes uncounted and unvalued. We need to question that familiar categorisation of the
economy as a space into which people enter in order to reluctantly undertake unwelcome and unpleasing "work", in
return for material rewards which they can use for consuming.
This is a view that misunderstands where pleasure and fulfilment in human lives are found. Work is usually – and
certainly should be – a central source of meaning and fulfilment in human lives. And it has – or could have – moral
and creative (or aesthetic) values at its core. A rethinking of work could lead us to address more creatively both
the social relations of work and the division of labour within society (including a better sharing of the tedious
work, and of the skills).
There are loads of other examples of rarely scrutinised terms in our economic vocabulary, for instance that
bundle of terms clustered around investment and expenditure – terms that carry with them implicit moral
connotations. Investment implies an action, even a sacrifice, undertaken for a better future. It evokes a future
positive outcome. Expenditure, on the other hand, seems merely an outgoing, a cost, a burden.
Above all, we need to bring economic vocabulary back into political contention, and to question the very way we
think about the economy in the first place. For something new to be imagined, let alone to be born, our current
economic "common sense" needs to be challenged root and branch.
•
Doreen Massey will be discussing Vocabularies of the Economy at a
Soundings seminar
on 13 June, 6.30-8.30pm, at the Marx Memorial Library, London. More information [email protected]
@Yorkied24 - Well, I just don't accept that. I agree that monetarism is a major part
of Friedman's legacy (as incorporated into neo-liberal doctrine). But, neo-liberalism
is what is says on the tin. It is a 'new' version of the liberalist free trade agenda
of the past, modified to take into account the welfare state.
I guess what I'm most
interested in is how you can disentangle and separate politics from economics, since
they are two sides of the same coin (where does 'science' fit in, by the way).
it seems that the political side of Neo-liberalism (or liberal democracy) has come up
with a new definition of the word "Catholic".
The Irish Prime-minster stated with a straight face in the Irish parliament today
........ that he is a "Catholic" outside parliament but when he enters parliament he
is not a "Catholic"........ in relation to a bill allowing for abortion to be
legalized in Ireland.
@NeverMindTheBollocks - when you criticise the author of "nonsensical thinking", this
suggests to me that you are uncomfortable with ideas that question "common sense".
Rather than engaging with the arguments, you are simply dismissing them as somebody's
arbitrary opinion. You seem to be suggesting that Massey is forcing her opinion on you
- but surely, like any good academic, she is really asking critical questions, rather
than providing answers and solutions. That's what academia is for. Why does that seem
to make you so angry?
@Pumplechook - Enterprise culture is a fine emboldening phrase to describe the sinking
of society casting citizens adrift with nothing but what nature gave them to keep them
afloat. Some might suggest we need to concentrate on mono platform non deliverables
going backwards. Or on a fleet of very cheap rubber dinghies.
Ms Massey clearly fails to see importance of remaining customer/client-focused in our
modern enterprise culture. It is crucial in terms of achieving outcomes-based win-win
solutions, as well as assisting in the interation of leading-edge opportunities and
leveraging cross-platform deliverables going forward.
@KingOfNothing - No, what I said was that neoliberalism is not an economic theory. For
a start, Milton Friedman's work has its own name in economics, which is monetarism.
Neoliberalism is a made up political word only used by those who are more interested
in politics and rhetoric than economics and science.
Neoliberalism is bankrupt, it isn't even a philiosophy its simple social nihilism. The
proof is in the get rich quick, or short term profit mentality of those at the top.
Get rich quick is tantamount to jumping the ship, its the economic equivalent of
deserting a sinking vessel. Until people recognise the destructive cynical nature of
the current economic philosophy and cast out those that are steering the ship, we are
all doomed.
@bill4me - 'Sweet smell of success'?
No, it's just that your shit-detector is so absent or degraded that you can no longer
smell the stink of 'filthy lucre'.
@Yorkied24 - I disagree. There is only one writer that deserves volleys of ad hominem
attacks and cheap insults and thats Julie Burchill. I know she's about as relevant as
a horse drawn carriage but nevertheless I think we need to keep criticism of
journalists in proportion.
@bill4me - The US under the aegis of freedom and capitalism sponsored paramilitary
regimes in Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Chile and
Argentina. Not to mention Greece and Iran. It continues to sponsor repressive regimes
in the middle east and is about to make peace with the Taliban.
You mistake capitalism
as it exists in theory, or in your head with 'actually existing capitalism' which is
often red in tooth and claw. The bloody history of the 20th century (particularly
world war one, without which no world war two) was in many ways a consequence of
imperialism which was a consequence of capitalism.
Theories are all very well, but
they run into problems called people. This applies equally to Marx, Smith and Hayek.
@Yorkied24 - But they don't do they? They don't engage in cowardly and anonymous ad
hominem attacks. They are professional journalists. The Guardian pays them to write
articles. They then put their name to said articles. It's a transparent process. They
are infinitely better than people who anonymously insult them without engaging in
debate.
@bill4me - No, but it rather skews the data doesn't it? The Soviet Union lifted more
people out of extreme poverty than perhaps any society before or since. But I wouldn't
advocate Stalinism. I'm sure Pinochet's supporters could point to a growth in
prosperity during his reign, but I shouldn't imagine many Chileans would favour a
return to authoritarian rule.
Headline date is often meaningless, for example George
Osborne may be able to argue that more people are employed than ever before, whilst
the opposition may be able to argue that more people are unemployed than ever before.
Bo
Both statements my be true, but what do they tell us in isolation?
Does it not occur to you that appalling governance may be a consequence of the form
capitalism takes right now?
Strange then, that you can buy a book called: "Masters of the Universe: Hayek,
Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics. By Daniel Stedman Jones. Princeton
University Press".
What were Friedrich Heyek and Milton Friedman: lollypop salesmen?
So, someone writes a book calling two economists 'neoliberals', so that makes it
so? By that argument, it also calls them Masters of the Universe, so they're fucking
He-Man too.
If you think capitalism is all winners and no losers you're either
tremendously naive or a bit thick.
I wouldn't rely on headline figures on Wikipedia to
support your argument. Drill down a little, find the data, look at individual
countries, see what type of regimes operate in said countries. And imagine, for a
second, that the stats are meaningful, then imagine what responsible capitalism could
achieve.
@Justthefactsman - Slightly off topic, but I hanker for obliged rather than obligated.
Also, most of the time I just feel ok, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Fair to middlin'
you might say. I seldom feel awesome.
No definition from you regarding the word neo-liberal though so all in all not a
very helpful or insightful post. Disappointing.
It's sometimes worth having a debate about what particular words mean, but all
debate rests on certain presumptions, a foundation on which the argument is built, and
in this case, Massey counts on her audience sharing her understanding of the term
'neoliberal', which many of us do. Anyone who doesn't can very easily look it up
online and quickly find a definition which sits well with Massey's points.
Your and others' approach to rejecting her argument is ungracious cavilling. It's
easy to do this in response to any argument, and make no mistake - anyone with
intelligence and an open mind can recognise it very clearly.
@Ken Terry - Chomsky is right, ("The Manufacturing of Consent") 'At the head of it is
the Military\Industrial Complex, coining the euphemisms of war to make the unthinkable
palatable.
On a localised scale, consider the Coalition who have done a similar job on the word,
"Reform". If you look at history's most accurate and honorific incidences of political
and parliamentary Reform look at the two Reform Acts which extended the franchise to
adult male suffrage, 1832 and 1867, under Peel and Disraeli, Tories FFS, opposed to
the Liberal's merciless free market obsessions.
What is "reforming" about stripping poor, ill and vulnerable people of their material
support?
Pure Deformation.
I'm not a Tory, (Lifelong Socialist) but I think it's important to reconnect the
Conservative Party with some of its avowed traditional self-definitions. "Maintaining
continuity with past institutions, and a 'gradualism', if change is necessary." (Henry
Cecil, I think).
Where has been the 'gradualism' in this Govt's' sudden and relentless pace of forcing
change on the mass of its people by Bill after Bill restricting our aspirations and
well-being?
We are governed by political liars who see this state of affairs as a triumph for
their expertise. Any criticism is dismissed as not being able to accept the world 'as
it is.'
The irony, of course, is that neoliberalism has *always* been coupled by high state
spending. I know they say different, but that doesn't make it a reality. Stop showing
your ignorance of the subject and go and delve in to some of the vast literature on
the subject.
@joseph1832 - I think this misses the point though. You're trying to claim there can
be words that are neutral, a language without a political dimension. This is besides
the point, it's certainly not feasible in a society constructed as it is now.
The
real point is that language is itself a field of struggle. It's a terrain on which
neoliberalism must be fought. In doing so we need not pretend to be doing anything
less than entering a political fight. In combating neoliberalism no claim to be
'neutral' is necessary, that would be precisely to do what it does from the opposite
direction - claim universality, eternalisation etc. The left does need to assert
interrogate the language of neoliberalism and assert its own. Not becuase this is less
political (I think "manipulation" is too strong a word here, the matter is somewhat
more complex than that) but becuase it can offer a better future.
@DemocracyNever - I should think the first two responses illustrate how and why debate
is increasingly meaningless. Neither of you engage with the argument or posit an
alternative; hence no debate.
That debate should be meaningful is given, that it should be an art form is,
frankly, silly.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum
of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
Noam Chomsky
"... The Private Contractors Using Vault 7 Tools for US Gov: Testimony Shows US Intel Needs a Ground-Up Rebuild Part 1... https://www.opednews.com/ar... ..."
"... Why Vault 7 Tools Used by Private Contractors Shows US Intel Needs a Ground-Up Rebuild- It's the News- Part 2... https://www.opednews.com/ar... ..."
"... Or is it owing to MI5/MI6 desperation, with how Trump will handle their involvement in the US Presidential Campaign. James Bond never had those types of problems, in the days when UK intelligence was not run by social media outlets. ..."
Not forgetting the US have their battalions of cyber trolls, together with the EU.
Then look into the media branches of cyber trolls. Ironic, when the UK Government is so
focused on Russia Today and the few funds they receive from the Russian Government.
Good point, with regards 'news' via social; media.
I do like the George Eliason articles, which explain intelligence agencies reliance on
social media. Including the US outsourcing 80% of it's intelligence to the social media.
Not just the US, when you look at the similarities with UK Media.
The Private Contractors Using Vault 7 Tools for US Gov: Testimony Shows US Intel
Needs a Ground-Up Rebuild Part 1...
https://www.opednews.com/ar...
Why Vault 7 Tools Used by Private Contractors Shows US Intel Needs a Ground-Up
Rebuild- It's the News- Part 2...
https://www.opednews.com/ar...
..........................
So what is with the timing? Is it to take attention away from BREXIT?
Or is it owing to MI5/MI6 desperation, with how Trump will handle their
involvement in the US Presidential Campaign. James Bond never had those types of
problems, in the days when UK intelligence was not run by social media outlets.
I have never managed fully to understand the mechanism by which the media and political
class decide when to leave a fact, a glaringly obvious and vital fact, completely excluded from
public debate. That process of exclusion is a psychological, not an organisational, phenomenon
but extremely effective.
Brexit continues to dominate mainstream political discussion, and the Northern Ireland
border issue remains at the centre of current negotiations, forced there by the London
government's reneging on the agreement it signed almost a year ago. But there is a secret here,
hidden in plain sight, the glaring fact driving the entire process, but which the media somehow
never mention.
"... The Telegraph adds that the UK's dispute with the Trump administration is so politically sensitive that staff within the British Embassy in D.C. have been barred from discussing it with journalists. Theresa May has also "been kept at arms-length and is understood to have not raised the issue directly with the US president ." ..."
"... In September , we reported that the British government "expressed grave concerns" over the material in question after President Trump issued an order to the DOJ to release a wide swath of materials, "immediately" and "without redaction." ..."
"... Trump walked that order back days later after the UK begged him not to release them. ..."
"... MI6 agents have a reputation for writing fiction. Ian Fleming comes to mind. Its is interesting to reflect on the similarities of fiction and so called intelligence. ..."
"... Six U.S. agencies created a stealth task force, spearhead by CIA's Brennan, to run domestic surveillance on Trump associates and possibly Trump himself. ..."
"... To feign ignorance and to seemingly operate within U.S. laws, the agencies freelanced the wiretapping of Trump associates to the British spy agency GCHQ ..."
"... The decision to insert GCHQ as a back door to eavesdrop was sparked by the denial of two FISA Court warrant applications filed by the FBI to seek wiretaps of Trump associates. ..."
"... GCHQ did not work from London or the UK. In fact the spy agency worked from NSA's headquarters in Fort Meade, MD with direct NSA supervision and guidance to conduct sweeping surveillance on Trump associates. ..."
"... The illegal wiretaps were initiated months before the controversial Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. ..."
"... The Justice Department and FBI set up the meeting at Trump Tower between Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner with controversial Russian officials to make Trump's associates appear compromised. ..."
"... Following the Trump Tower sit down, GCHQ began digitally wiretapping Manafort, Trump Jr., and Kushner. ..."
"... After the concocted meeting by the Deep State, the British spy agency could officially justify wiretapping Trump associates as an intelligence front for NSA because the Russian lawyer at the meeting Natalia Veselnitskaya was considered an international security risk and prior to the June sit down was not even allowed entry into the United States or the UK, federal sources said. ..."
"... By using GCHQ, the NSA and its intelligence partners had carved out a loophole to wiretap Trump without a warrant. While it is illegal for U.S. agencies to monitor phones and emails of U.S. citizens inside the United States absent a warrant, it is not illegal for British intelligence to do so. Even if the GCHQ was tapping Trump on U.S. soil at Fort Meade. ..."
"... The wiretaps, secured through illicit scheming, have been used by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 election, even though the evidence is considered "poisoned fruit. ..."
"... Add: GCHQ (UK NSA) was in agreement with HilBarry Inc to block the US 2016 election for U.K. candidate Hillary aka Clinton 'Rhodes scholar' Brit colonial agent. Study who 'Rhodes' was. CIA and MI6 are UK siblings. Note nickname for CIA is "Langley" = 'The English' in French L'Anglai. Trump Tower - Russkie atty Natalia met with Simpson GPS Fusion to debrief before & after meeting. Natalia was granted US entry by Mueller Spec Counsel teamster Preet Baharara (conflict in that Preet is compromised witness and also SC "investigator"). Russkie Ahkmedishin met with Obama WH in prep for meeting (see Jan 2016 WH log). The 'translator' at meeting was Obama WH translator. ..."
"... The evidence for false Trump Russkie bank connections is a phony server set up by CIA agent McMullen that robo scammed Russian Alfa Bank to robo talk to the phony server the CIA named with miss-spell Trump OrGAINization. See godaddy domain registration. Hillary slandered Trump with this scam on Twitter Oct 31, 2016 - her witchy day. ..."
"... Obama used the intelligence agencies to spy on all political opponents, not just the Trump campaign and eventually the administration. NSA databases were being queried by Democrat contractors with content feed to Obama's National Security staff where communications were "unmasked" by Rice and others. Rodgers shut down the scheme. So much Marxist criminality and fraud left unpunished. ..."
"... George Papadopoulos was not the reason the FBI opened their 2016 Counterintelligence Investigation into the Trump Campaign. John Brennan was the reason. ..."
"... Brennan was the man pushing the entire Russian Narrative that consumed Washington D.C. – and ultimately led to the Mueller Investigation. He did this based on little or no evidence. The Electronic Communication should prove interesting. John Brennan's Role in the FBI's Trump-Russia Investigation ..."
"... In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, head of Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with then-CIA Head John Brennan regarding alleged communications between the Trump Campaign and Moscow. ..."
"... The Trump Team was being surveiled the entire time by Breanan via the GCHQ. The CIA are Analysts. That's it. They had to involve the FBI to begin the Surveillance & Criminal Investigation into the Counter Intelligence Operation. Thus, Criminal at Large Breanan's trip up to Capital Hill to meet with Harry Reid to brief him on Steele. Brennan the "Puppet Master" has been quarter backing the entire Deep State Intelligence Psychological Operation & Parallel Construction Surveillance from the very start. ..."
"... They've been reverse engineering their lies ever since they lost the election to cover their tracks and use the excuse of "Plausible Deniability" as the Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious Psychopaths at the CIA always claim. ..."
"... Why get a FISA warrant for Cater Paige after he left the Trump Team? Because folks, the FISA Warrant is RETROACTIVE. ..."
The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent
President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling
investigation, according to
The Telegraph , stating that any disclosure would "undermine intelligence gathering if he
releases pages of an FBI application to wiretap one of his former campaign advisers."
Trump's allies, however, are fighting back - demanding transparency and suggesting that the
UK wouldn't want the documents withheld unless it had something to hide.
The Telegraph has talked to more than a dozen UK and US officials, including in American
intelligence, who have revealed details about the row.
British spy chiefs have "genuine concern" about sources being exposed if classified parts
of the wiretap request were made public, according to figures familiar with discussions.
" It boils down to the exposure of people ", said one US intelligence official, adding: "
We don't want to reveal sources and methods ." US intelligence shares the concerns of the
UK.
Another said Britain feared setting a dangerous "precedent" which could make people less
likely to share information, knowing that it could one day become public. -
The Telegraph
The Telegraph adds that the UK's dispute with the Trump administration is so politically
sensitive that staff within the British Embassy in D.C. have been barred from discussing it
with journalists. Theresa May has also "been kept at arms-length and is understood to have not
raised the issue directly with the US president ."
In September , we reported that the British government "expressed grave concerns" over the
material in question after President Trump issued an order to the DOJ to release a wide swath
of materials, "immediately" and "without redaction."
Mr Trump wants to declassify 21 pages from one of the applications. He announced the move
in September, then backtracked, then this month said he was "very seriously" considering it
again. Both Britain and Australia are understood to be opposing the move.
The New
York Times reported at the time that the UK's concern was over material which " includes
direct references to conversations between American law enforcement officials and Christopher
Steele ," the former MI6 agent who compiled the infamous "Steele Dossier." The UK's objection,
according to former US and British officials, was over revealing Steele's identity in an
official document, "regardless of whether he had been named in press reports."
We noted in September, however, that Steele's name was contained within the Nunes Memo
- the House Intelligence Committee's majority opinion in the Trump-Russia case.
Steele also had
extensive contacts with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie , who - along with
Steele - was paid by opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the anti-Trump campaign. Trump
called for the declassification of FBI notes of interviews with Ohr, which would ostensibly
reveal more about his relationship with Steele. Ohr was demoted twice within the Department of
Justice for
lying about his contacts with Fusion GPS.
Perhaps the Brits are also concerned since much of the espionage performed on the Trump
campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016 . Recall that Trump aid George Papadopoulos
was lured to London in March, 2016, where Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud fed him the rumor
that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. It was later at a London bar that Papadopoulos would
drunkenly pass the rumor to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer (who Strzok flew to London to
meet with).
Also recall that CIA/FBI "informant" (spy) Stefan Halper met with both Carter Page
and Papadopoulos in
London.
Halper, a veteran of four Republican administrations, reached out to Trump aide George
Papadopoulos in September 2016 with an offer to fly to London to write an academic paper on
energy exploration in the Mediterranean Sea.
Papadopoulos accepted a flight to London and a $3,000 honorarium. He claims that during a
meeting in London, Halper asked him whether he knew anything about Russian hacking of
Democrats' emails.
Papadopoulos had other contacts on British soil that he now believes were part of a
government-sanctioned surveillance operation. - Daily Caller
In total, Halper received
over $1 million from the Obama Pentagon for "research," over $400,000 of which was granted
before and during the 2016 election season.
Papadopoulos, who was sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying about his conversations with
a shadowy Maltese professor and self-professed member of the
Clinton Foundation , has publicly claimed he was targeted by UK spies, and told The
Telegraph that he demands transparency. Trump's allies in Washington, meanwhile, have suggested
that the facts laid out before us mean that the ongoing Russia investigation was invalid from
the start .
In short, it's understandable that the UK would prefer to hide their involvement in the
"witch hunt" of Donald Trump since much of the counterintelligence investigation was conducted
on UK soil. And if the Brits had knowledge of the operation, it will bolster claims that they
meddled in the 2016 US election by assisting what appears to have been a
set-up from the start .
Steele's ham-handed dossier is a mere embarrassment, as virtually none of the claims
asserted by the former MI6 agent have been proven true.
Steele, a former MI6 agent, is the author of the infamous and unverified anti-Trump
dossier. He worked as a confidential human source for the FBI for years before the
relationship was severed just before the election because of Steele's unauthorized contacts
with the press.
He shared results of his investigation into Trump's links to Russia with the FBI beginning
in early July 2016.
The FBI relied heavily on the unverified Steele dossier to fill out applications for four
FISA warrants against Page. Page has denied the dossier's claims, which include that he was
the Trump campaign's back channel to the Kremlin. - Daily Caller
That said, Steele hasn't worked for the British government since 2009, so for their excuse
focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which occurred on UK
soil, is curious.
Trump talks the talk but so far no walking of the walk. Not falling for it anymore, Tyler. No Swamp Draining from Pres. Cheeto anymore than we got Hope or Change from Superfly
When fraud is coming to light, the cockroaches scramble. The so-called intelligence
agencies have run amuck for way too long and leave a trail of lies, murder and deception.
That is the reason Obama and Clinton went to New Zealand and Australia. They have access
to the Five Eyes network in New Zealand and Australia without their requests being recorded
whereas if they had asked in the US their requests and all documents given to them would have
been recorded. . They are both traitors to not only the sitting President and the US people
but also to the United States.
That said, Steele hasn't worked for the British government since 2009, so for their
excuse focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which
occurred on UK soil, is curious.
MI6 agents have a reputation for writing fiction. Ian Fleming comes to mind. Its is
interesting to reflect on the similarities of fiction and so called intelligence.
I think we all know now that the UK not Russia was the dirtbags working for Obama/HRC to
trap Trump. Release the declass Trump and let's start cleaning up the swamp. Let the SHTF those Brits
have never been friends to freedom.
If they released audio-video evidence of public officials indulging in cannibalistic
pedophilia at their state desks, they would still get off the hook.
Their MSM fiends oops I meant friends would scramble to the rescue and create another AV
to counter the actual one, and their idiot Democrat audiences would fall for it.
No matter what is exposed on 5 December the perps will get off the hook.
Six U.S. agencies created a stealth task force, spearhead by CIA's Brennan, to run
domestic surveillance on Trump associates and possibly Trump himself.
To feign ignorance and to seemingly operate within U.S. laws, the agencies freelanced
the wiretapping of Trump associates to the British spy agency GCHQ.
The decision to insert GCHQ as a back door to eavesdrop was sparked by the denial of
two FISA Court warrant applications filed by the FBI to seek wiretaps of Trump
associates.
GCHQ did not work from London or the UK. In fact the spy agency worked from NSA's
headquarters in Fort Meade, MD with direct NSA supervision and guidance to conduct sweeping
surveillance on Trump associates.
The illegal wiretaps were initiated months before the controversial Trump dossier
compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
The Justice Department and FBI set up the meeting at Trump Tower between Trump Jr.,
Manafort and Kushner with controversial Russian officials to make Trump's associates appear
compromised.
Following the Trump Tower sit down, GCHQ began digitally wiretapping Manafort, Trump
Jr., and Kushner.
After the concocted meeting by the Deep State, the British spy agency could officially
justify wiretapping Trump associates as an intelligence front for NSA because the Russian
lawyer at the meeting Natalia Veselnitskaya was considered an international security risk
and prior to the June sit down was not even allowed entry into the United States or the UK,
federal sources said.
By using GCHQ, the NSA and its intelligence partners had carved out a loophole to
wiretap Trump without a warrant. While it is illegal for U.S. agencies to monitor phones
and emails of U.S. citizens inside the United States absent a warrant, it is not illegal
for British intelligence to do so. Even if the GCHQ was tapping Trump on U.S. soil at Fort
Meade.
The wiretaps, secured through illicit scheming, have been used by U.S. Special Counsel
Robert Mueller's probe of alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 election, even though the
evidence is considered "poisoned fruit."
Add: GCHQ (UK NSA) was in agreement with HilBarry Inc to block the US 2016 election for U.K.
candidate Hillary aka Clinton 'Rhodes scholar' Brit colonial agent. Study who 'Rhodes'
was. CIA and MI6 are UK siblings. Note nickname for CIA is "Langley" = 'The English' in French
L'Anglai. Trump Tower - Russkie atty Natalia met with Simpson GPS Fusion to debrief before &
after meeting. Natalia was granted US entry by Mueller Spec Counsel teamster Preet Baharara
(conflict in that Preet is compromised witness and also SC "investigator"). Russkie
Ahkmedishin met with Obama WH in prep for meeting (see Jan 2016 WH log). The 'translator' at
meeting was Obama WH translator.
GPS Fusion wrote the Dossier with UK spy Steele and was paid by Hillary/DNC.
The evidence for false Trump Russkie bank connections is a phony server set up by CIA
agent McMullen that robo scammed Russian Alfa Bank to robo talk to the phony server the CIA
named with miss-spell Trump OrGAINization. See godaddy domain registration. Hillary slandered
Trump with this scam on Twitter Oct 31, 2016 - her witchy day.
Obama used the intelligence agencies to spy on all political opponents, not just the Trump
campaign and eventually the administration. NSA databases were being queried by Democrat
contractors with content feed to Obama's National Security staff where communications were
"unmasked" by Rice and others. Rodgers shut down the scheme. So much Marxist criminality and
fraud left unpunished.
George Papadopoulos was not the reason the FBI opened their 2016 Counterintelligence
Investigation into the Trump Campaign. John Brennan was the reason.
Brennan was the man pushing the entire Russian Narrative that consumed Washington D.C.
– and ultimately led to the Mueller Investigation. He did this based on little or no
evidence. The Electronic Communication should prove interesting. John Brennan's Role in the FBI's Trump-Russia Investigation
April 9, 2018 by Jeff Carlson, CFA
In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, head of Britain's Government Communications
Headquarters (GCHQ) traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with then-CIA Head John Brennan
regarding alleged communications between the Trump Campaign and Moscow.
That summer, GCHQ's then head, Robert Hannigan, flew to the US to personally brief CIA
chief John Brennan. The matter was deemed so important that it was handled at "director
level", face-to-face between the two agency chiefs. The meeting between Hannigan and Brennan appears somewhat unusual.
The US and the UK are two of the so-called Five Eyes -- along with Canada, Australia and
New Zealand -- that share a broad range of intelligence through a formalized alliance.
The GCHQ is responsible for Britain's Signals Intelligence. The NSA is responsible for the United States' Signals Intelligence. Hannigan's U.S. counterpart was not CIA Director Brennan. Hannigan's U.S. counterpart was NSA Director Mike Rogers. Luke Harding of the Guardian originally reported the meeting in an April 13, 2017 article
on Britain's spy agencies early role in the Trump-Russia investigation:
GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious "interactions" between figures
connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents. This intelligence was passed to the
US as part of a routine exchange of information
Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further
information on contacts between Trump's inner circle and Russians.
See above about phony robot "suspicious communications" set up by CIA McMullen to smear
Trump with Trump Tower falsely named server and data created in robo call response with
Russian Alfa bank.
Russian "communications" was e-data of the Russkie Bank and the non-Trump server named
"Trump OrGAINization". It was just two robo-computers pinging back and forth.
The Trump Team was being surveiled the entire time by Breanan via the GCHQ. The CIA are
Analysts. That's it. They had to involve the FBI to begin the Surveillance & Criminal
Investigation into the Counter Intelligence Operation. Thus, Criminal at Large Breanan's trip
up to Capital Hill to meet with Harry Reid to brief him on Steele. Brennan the "Puppet
Master" has been quarter backing the entire Deep State Intelligence Psychological Operation
& Parallel Construction Surveillance from the very start.
They've been reverse engineering their lies ever since they lost the election to cover
their tracks and use the excuse of "Plausible Deniability" as the Pure Evil War Criminal
Treasonous Seditious Psychopaths at the CIA always claim.
Feb 13th, Don Bongino Podcast.
"I'll include an article from NPR. NPR, not a by any stretch a right Wing outlet. Ok? But
it's actually a decent piece. Now, it describes the three hop rule. It's from 2013, but it describes it very shortly
& ce scintillating in about 400 words. And it's done well so I'll include it in todays
show notes.
Remember, It's now the "Two Hop Rule" but you just have to know what a "Hop" is to
understand how dangerous this is.
Here's how they explain it.
It says, "testimony before Congress on Wednesday, remember this is written in 2013 Joe.
Showed how easy it is for Americans, with no connection to Terrorism to unwittingly have
their calling patterns analyzed by the Government." This is really wacko stuff. It hinges on
what is known as a "Hop."
Or chain analysis. When the NSA identifies a suspect, it can look not just at his phone
records Joe, but also the records of everyone he calls, everyone who calls those people and
everyone who calls those people." Chain Migration.
You ain't kidding! Right!? Chain spying!
It goes on...though....this is good.
"If the average person Joe, called 40 unique people. "Three Hop Analysts" would allow the
Government to mine the records....this is a staggering number...of 2.5 Million Americans when
investigating one suspected terrorist."
"Holy Moly!" Holly Moly is right.
Why get a FISA warrant for Cater Paige after he left the Trump Team? Because folks, the
FISA Warrant is RETROACTIVE.
All the the emails he sent in the past to Trump Team members, combine that with "Two Hops"
you basically have everybody in the known universe that could of ever contacted the Trump
Team.
Paige sends an email, whatever to Kushner. I don't know who he sends emails to. He
probably didn't. But you get the point. Then you go to another "Hop." Kushner, who'd he send
an email to? Now you got the while Trump Team.
That's the whole point. That's why I constantly say to you that they were trying to put a
legal face on this thing after they realized the election was coming up and they could
lose.
They were like. Man, we've been spying on these people the whole time. We already got most
of their emails and their communications. How do we legally do it now?
Oh, we get a FISA Warrant, we use couple of "Hops" and we're Golden."
"... Operating on a budget of Ł1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity Initiative consists of "clusters" of local politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics. The team is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian interference in European affairs , while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes, the documents claim. ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative "clusters" currently operate out of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Norway, Lithuania and the netherlands. According to the leak by Anonymous, the Integrity Initiative is working to aggressively expand its sphere of influence throughout eastern Europe, as well as the US, Canada and the MENA region ..."
"... The work done by the Initiative - which claims it is not a government body, is done under "absolute secrecy via concealed contacts embedded throughout British embassies," according to the leak. It does, however, admit to working with unnamed British "government agencies." ..."
The hacking collective known as "Anonymous" published a
trove of documents on November 5 which it claims exposes a UK-based psyop to create a " large-scale information secret service
" in Europe in order to combat "Russian propaganda" - which has been blamed for everything from
Brexit to US President Trump winning the 2016 US election.
The primary objective of the " Integrity Initiative " - established
in 2015 by the Institute for Statecraft - is "to provide a coordinated
Western response to Russian disinformation and other elements of hybrid warfare."
And while the notion of Russian disinformation has become the West's favorite new bogeyman to excuse things such as Hillary Clinton's
historic loss to Donald Trump, we note that "Anonymous" was called out by WikiLeaks in October 2016 as an FBI cutout, while the report
on the Integrity Initiative that Anonymous exposed comes from Russian state-owned network
RT - so it's anyone's guess whose 400lb
hackers are at work here.
Operating on a budget
of Ł1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity Initiative consists of "clusters" of local politicians, journalists,
military personnel, scientists and academics. The team is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian interference
in European affairs , while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes, the documents claim.
The UK establishment appears to be conducting the very activities of which it and its allies have long-accused the Kremlin,
with little or no corroborating evidence. The program also aims to "change attitudes in Russia itself" as well as influencing
Russian speakers in the EU and North America, one of the leaked
documents states. -
RT
The Integrity Initiative "clusters" currently operate out of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Norway,
Lithuania and the netherlands. According to the leak by Anonymous, the Integrity Initiative is working to aggressively expand its
sphere of influence throughout eastern Europe, as well as the US, Canada and the MENA region .
The work done by the Initiative - which claims it is not a government body, is done under "absolute secrecy via concealed contacts
embedded throughout British embassies," according to the leak. It does, however, admit to working with unnamed British "government
agencies."
The initiative has received Ł168,000 in funding from HQ NATO Public Diplomacy and Ł250,000 from the
US State Department , the
documents allege.
Some of its purported members include British MPs and high-profile " independent" journalists with a penchant for anti-Russian
sentiment in their collective online oeuvre, as showcased by a brief glance at their Twitter feeds. -
RT
Noted examples of "inedependent" anti-Russia journalists:
Spanish "Op"
In one example of the group's activities, a "Moncloa Campaign" was successfully conducted by the group's Spanish cluster to block
the appointment of Colonel Pedro Banos as the director of Spain's Department of Homeland Security. It took just seven-and-a-half
hours to accomplish, brags the group in the
documents .
"The [Spanish] government is preparing to appoint Colonel Banos, known for his pro-Russian and pro-Putin positions in the Syrian
and Ukrainian conflicts, as Director of the Department of Homeland Security, a key body located at the Moncloa," begins Nacho Torreblanca
in a seven-part tweetstorm describing what happened.
Others joined in. Among them – according to the leaks – academic Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz, who wrote that "Mr. Banos is to
geopolitics as a homeopath is to medicine." Appointing such a figure would be "a shame." -
RT
The operation was reported in Spanish media, while Banos was labeled "pro-Putin" by UK MP Bob Seely.
In short, expect anything counter to predominant "open-border" narratives to be the Kremlin's fault - and not a natural populist
reflex to the destruction of borders, language and culture.
"... It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as "partner organisations" ..."
"... "The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016." ..."
"... "Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele dossier..." ..."
"... this movement in the west by gov'ts to pay for generating lies, hate and propaganda towards russia is really sick... it is perfect for the military industrial complex corporations though and they seem to be calling the shots in the west, much more so then the voice of the ordinary person who is not interested in war ..."
"... Seems to me that this shows the primacy of the City of London, with its offshore network of illicit capital accumulation, within Britain. It is a state within a state or even a financial empire within a state, which, for deep historical reasons isn't subject to the same laws as the rest of the UK. ..."
"... The UK's pathological obsession with Russia only makes sense to me as the city's insistence on continued 90s style appropriation of Russia's wealth ..."
"... British hypocrisy publicly called out. How this all unravels is one to watch. Extra large popcorn and soda for me ..."
"... It seems to me that the UK has far more to lose from doxxing than Russia does. The interference in sovereign allied states to 'manage' who the UK thinks they should appoint does not bode well for such relations ..."
"... A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times and Neil Buckley from the FT." Subcluster. Love it. Just how crap do you have to be to fail to make it to membership of a full cluster of smear merchants? ..."
"... I doubt very seriously that the British launched this operation without the CIA's implicit and explicit support. This has all the markings of a John Brennan operation that has been launched stealthily to prevent anyone from knowing its real origins. ..."
"... The Brits don't act alone, and a project of this magnitude did not begin without Langley's explicit approval. ..."
"... Now check out the wording in the above document: "Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow." Think about that. What would have blocked the flow of USG support for this project?? Why, the allegations of collusion against Trump, of course. Naturally, the Republicans are not going to provide money to an operation that threatens to destroy the head of their own party. So, there has been no bipartisan agreement on funding for anti-Russia propaganda ..."
"... This mob was created in the autumn of 2015, according to their site. That would have been about the time -- probably just after -- the Russians intervened in Syria. The Brits had plans for an invasion of Syria in 2009, according to their fave Guardian fish wrap. ..."
"... Pat Lang posted a report that strongly implies that charges of Russian influence on Trump are a deliberate falsification ..."
"... It seems quite possible that what is alleged as "Russian meddling" is actually CIA-MI6 meddling ..."
"... As I have said before, MAGA is a POLICY RESPONSE to the challenge from Russia and China. The election of a Republican faux populist was necessary and Trump, despite his many flaws, was the best candidate for the job. ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative's goal is to defend democracy against the truth about Russia. All this is so Orwellian. When will we get the Ministry of Love? ..."
"... They shot at an elephant and failed to kill it. So yes, out of the combo of frustration, resentment, and fear they hate the resurgent Russia and prefer Cold War II, and if necessary WWIII, to peaceful co-existence. Of course the usual corporate imperative (in this case weapons profiteering) reinforces the mass psychological pathology among the elites. ..."
"... The ironic thing is that Putin doesn't prefer to challenge the neoliberal globalist "order" at all, but would happily see Russia take a prominent place within it. It's the US and its UK poodle who are insisting on confrontation. ..."
"... Great article! It reminded me of what I read in George Orwell's novella "1984." He summed it all up brilliantly in nine words: "War is Peace"; "Freedom is Slavery"; "Ignorance is Strength." The three pillars of political power. ..."
"... Since UK has always blocked the "European Intelligence" initiative, on the basis of his pertenence to the "Five Eyes", and as UK is leaving the European Union, where it has always been the Troyan Horse of the US, one would think that all these people belonging to the so called "clusters" should register themselves as "foreign agents" working for UK government. ..."
British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear CampaignsSteveg , Nov 24,
2018 11:43:44 AM |
link
In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia
propaganda into the western media stream.
We have already seen
many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who
does not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The 'Russian collusion' smear campaign
against Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but
seems to be part of a different project.
The ' Integrity
Initiative ' builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military
personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via
social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.
On June 7 it took the the Spanish cluster only a few hours to derail the appointment of
Perto Banos as the Director of the National Security Department in Spain. The cluster
determined that he had a too positive view of Russia and launched a coordinated social media
smear
campaign (pdf) against him.
The Initiative and its operations were unveiled when someone liberated some of its
documents, including its budget applications to the British Foreign Office, and
posted them under the 'Anonymous' label at cyberguerrilla.org .
The Integrity Initiative was set up in autumn 2015 by The Institute for Statecraft in
cooperation with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to bring to the attention of
politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties the threat posed
by Russia to democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, across Europe and North
America.
It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as "partner organisations" and
promises that:
Cluster members will be sent to educational sessions abroad to improve the technical
competence of the cluster to deal with disinformation and strengthen bonds in the cluster
community. [...] (Events with DFR Digital Sherlocks, Bellingcat, EuVsDisinfo, Buzzfeed,
Irex, Detector Media, Stopfake, LT MOD Stratcom – add more names and propose cluster
participants as you desire).
The Initiatives Orwellian slogan is 'Defending Democracy Against Disinformation'. It
covers European countries, the UK, the U.S. and Canada and seems to want to expand to the
Middle East.
On its About page
it claims: "We are not a government body but we do work with government departments and
agencies who share our aims." The now published budget plans show that more than 95% of the
Initiative's funding is coming directly from the British government, NATO and the U.S. State
Department. All the 'contact persons' for creating 'clusters' in foreign countries are
British embassy officers. It amounts to a foreign influence campaign by the British
government that hides behind a 'civil society' NGO.
The organisation is led by one Chris N. Donnelly who
receives (pdf) £8,100 per month for creating the smear campaign network.
To counter Russian disinformation and malign influence in Europe by: expanding the
knowledge base; harnessing existing expertise, and; establishing a network of networks of
experts, opinion formers and policy makers, to educate national audiences in the threat and
to help build national capacities to counter it .
The Initiative has a black and white view that is based on a "we are the good ones"
illusion. When "we" 'educate the public' it is legitimate work. When others do similar, it
its disinformation. That is of course not the reality. The Initiative's existence itself,
created to secretly manipulate the public, is proof that such a view is wrong.
If its work were as legit as it wants to be seen, why would the Foreign Office run it from
behind the curtain as an NGO? The Initiative is not the only such operation. It's
applications seek funding from a larger "Russian Language Strategic Communication Programme"
run by the Foreign Office.
The 2017/18 budget application sought FCO funding of £480,635. It received
£102,000 in co-funding from NATO and the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense. The 2018/19
budget application shows a
planned spending (pdf) of £1,961,000.00. The co-sponsors this year are again NATO
and the Lithuanian MoD, but
also include (pdf) the U.S. State Department with £250,000 and Facebook with
£100,000. The budget lays out a strong cooperation with the local military of each
country. It notes that NATO is also generous in financing the local clusters.
One of the liberated papers of the Initiative is a talking points memo labeled
Top 3 Deliverable for FCO (pdf):
Developing and proving the cluster concept and methodology, setting up clusters in a
range of countries with different circumstances
Making people (in Government, think tanks, military, journalists) see the big
picture, making people acknowledge that we are under concerted, deliberate hybrid attack
by Russia
Increasing the speed of response, mobilising the network to activism in pursuit of
the "golden minute"
Under top 1, setting up clusters, a subitem reads:
- Connects media with academia with policy makers with practitioners in a country to impact
on policy and society: ( Jelena Milic silencing pro-kremlin voices on Serbian TV )
Defending Democracy by silencing certain voices on public TV seems to be a
self-contradicting concept.
Another subitem notes how the Initiative secretly influences foreign governments:
We engage only very discreetly with governments, based entirely on trusted personal
contacts, specifically to ensure that they do not come to see our work as a problem, and to
try to influence them gently, as befits an independent NGO operation like ours, viz;
- Germany, via the Zentrum Liberale Moderne to the Chancellor's Office and MOD
- Netherlands, via the HCSS to the MOD
- Poland and Romania, at desk level into their MFAs via their NATO Reps
- Spain, via special advisers, into the MOD and PM's office (NB this may change very soon
with the new Government)
- Norway, via personal contacts into the MOD
- HQ NATO, via the Policy Planning Unit into the Sec Gen's office.
We have latent contacts into other governments which we will activate as needs be as the
clusters develop.
A look at the 'clusters' set up in U.S. and UK shows some prominent names.
Members of the Atlantic Council, which has a contract to
censor Facebook posts , appear on several cluster lists. The UK core cluster also
includes some prominent names like tax fraudster William Browder , the daft Atlantic Council
shill Ben Nimmo and the neo-conservative Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum. One person
of interest is Andrew Wood who
handed the Steele 'dirty dossier' to Senator John McCain to smear Donald Trump over
alleged relations with Russia. A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah
Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times, Neil Buckley from the FT and Jonathan Marcus
of the BBC.
A ' Cluster
Roundup ' (pdf) from July 2018 details its activities in at least 35 countries. Another
file reveals (pdf) the local
partnering institutions and individuals involved in the programs.
The Initiatives Guide
to Countering Russian Information (pdf) is a rather funny read. It lists the downing of
flight MH 17 by a Ukranian BUK missile, the fake chemical incident in Khan Sheikhoun and the
Skripal Affair as examples for "Russian disinformation". But at least two of these events,
Khan Sheikun via the UK run White Helmets and the Skripal affair, are evidently products of
British intelligence disinformation operations.
The probably most interesting papers of the whole stash is the 'Project Plan' laid out at
pages 7-40 of the
2018 budget application v2 (pdf). Under 'Sustainability' it notes:
The programme is proposed to run until at least March 2019, to ensure that the clusters
established in each country have sufficient time to take root, find funding, and
demonstrate their effectiveness. FCO funding for Phase 2 will enable the activities to be
expanded in scale, reach and scope. As clusters have established themselves, they have
begun to access local sources of funding. But this is a slow process and harder in some
countries than others. HQ NATO PDD [Public Diplomacy Division] has proved a reliable source
of funding for national clusters. The ATA [Atlantic Treaty Association] promises to be the
same, giving access to other pots of money within NATO and member nations. Funding from
institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal
disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been
resolved and funding should now flow.
The programme has begun to create a critical mass of individuals from a cross society
(think tanks, academia, politics, the media, government and the military) whose work is
proving to be mutually reinforcing . Creating the network of networks has given each
national group local coherence, credibility and reach, as well as good international
access. Together, these conditions, plus the growing awareness within governments of the
need for this work, should guarantee the continuity of the work under various auspices and
in various forms.
The
third part of the budget application (pdf) list the various activities, their output and
outcome. The budget plan includes a section that describes 'Risks' to the initiative. These
include hacking of the Initiatives IT as well as:
Adverse publicity generated by Russia or by supporters of Russia in target countries, or by
political and interest groups affected by the work of the programme, aimed at discrediting
the programme or its participants, or to create political embarrassment.
We hope that this piece contributes to such embarrassment.
Posted by b on November 24, 2018 at 11:24 AM |
Permalink
"The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to
prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election
meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil
throughout 2016."
"Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that
Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In
Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling
custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele
dossier..."
For M16 to expose this level of stupidity is stunning.
this movement in the west by gov'ts to pay for generating lies, hate and
propaganda towards russia is really sick... it is perfect for the military industrial complex
corporations though and they seem to be calling the shots in the west, much more so then the
voice of the ordinary person who is not interested in war.. i guess the idea is to get the
ordinary people to think in terms of hating another country based on lies and that this would
be a good thing... it is very sad what uk / usa leadership in the past century has come down
to here.... i can only hope that info releases like this will hasten it's demise...
Seems to me that this shows the primacy of the City of London, with its offshore network of
illicit capital accumulation, within Britain. It is a state within a state or even a
financial empire within a state, which, for deep historical reasons isn't subject to the same
laws as the rest of the UK.
The UK's pathological obsession with Russia only makes sense to
me as the city's insistence on continued 90s style appropriation of Russia's wealth
@6 ingrian... things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of Russia after the fall of
the Soviet Union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit Russia
fully, as they'd intended...
Let the Doxx wars begin! Sure, Anonymous is not Russian but it will surely now be targeted
and smeared as such which would show that it has hit a nerve. British hypocrisy publicly
called out. How this all unravels is one to watch. Extra large popcorn and soda for me.
I think we've all noticed the euro-asslantic press (and friends) on behalf of, willingly
and in cooperation with the British intelligence et al 'calling out' numerous Russians as
G(R)U/spies/whatever for a while now yet providing less than a shred of credible
evidence.
It seems to me that the UK has far more to lose from doxxing than Russia does. The
interference in sovereign allied states to 'manage' who the UK thinks they should appoint
does not bode well for such relations.
Meanwhile in Brussels they are having their cake and eating it, i.e. bemoaning Europe's
'weak response' to Russian propaganda:
"A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of
the London Times and Neil Buckley from the FT." Subcluster. Love it. Just how crap do you
have to be to fail to make it to membership of a full cluster of smear merchants?
Yet another example of the pot calling the kettle black when in fact the kettle may not be
black at all; it's just the pot making up things. "These Russian criminals are using
propaganda to show (truths) like the fact the DNC and Clinton campaigns colluded to prevent
Sanders from being nominated, so we need to establish a clandestine propaganda network to
establish that the Russians are running propaganda!"
"In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia
propaganda into the western media stream."
I doubt very seriously that the British launched this operation without the CIA's implicit
and explicit support. This has all the markings of a John Brennan operation that has been
launched stealthily to prevent anyone from knowing its real origins.
The Brits don't act alone, and a project of this magnitude did not begin without Langley's
explicit approval.
Now check out the wording in the above document: "Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed
by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to
have been resolved and funding should now flow." Think about that. What would have blocked the flow of USG support for this project?? Why, the allegations of collusion against Trump, of course. Naturally, the Republicans are
not going to provide money to an operation that threatens to destroy the head of their own
party. So, there has been no bipartisan agreement on funding for anti-Russia propaganda
BUT...the author assures us that the "deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding
should now flow" Huh?? In other words, the fix is in. Mueller will pardon Trump on collusion charges but the
propaganda campaign against Russia will continue...with the full support of both parties. I could be wrong, but that's how I see it...
This mob was created in the autumn of 2015, according to their site. That would have been
about the time -- probably just after -- the Russians intervened in Syria. The Brits had
plans for an invasion of Syria in 2009, according to their fave Guardian fish wrap.
A lot of
sour grapes with this so-called 'integrity initiative', IMO. BP was behind a lot of this, I
would also think. When Assad pulled the plug on the pipeline through the Levant in 2009, the
Brits hacked up a fur ball. It's gone downhill for them ever since. Couldn't happen to a
nicer lot. If you can't invade or beat them with proxies, you can at least call them names.
If Trump was taking dirty money or engaged in criminal activity with Russians then he
was doing it with Felix Sater, who was under the control of the FBI... And who was in
charge of the FBI during all of the time that Sater was a signed up FBI snitch? You got it
-- Robert Mueller (2001 thru 2013) ...
It seems quite possible that what is alleged as "Russian meddling" is actually CIA-MI6
meddling, including:
Steele dossier: To create suspicion in government, media, and later the public
Leaking of DNC emails to Wikileaks (but calling it a "hack"):
To help with election of Trump and link Wikileaks (as agent) to Russian election
meddling
Cambridge Analytica: To provide necessary reasoning for Trump's (certain) win of the electoral college.
Note: We later found that dozens of firms had undue access to Facebook data. Why did the
campaign turn to a British firm instead of an American firm? Well, it had to be a British
firm if MI6 was running the (supposed) Facebook targeting for CIA.
As I have said before, MAGA is a POLICY RESPONSE to the challenge from Russia and China. The
election of a Republican faux populist was necessary and Trump, despite his many flaws, was
the best candidate for the job.
The Integrity Initiative's goal is to defend democracy against the truth about Russia. All this is so Orwellian. When will we get the Ministry of Love?
"things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of russia after the fall of the soviet
union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit russia fully, as
they'd intended..."
They shot at an elephant and failed to kill it. So yes, out of the combo of frustration, resentment, and fear they hate the resurgent
Russia and prefer Cold War II, and if necessary WWIII, to peaceful co-existence. Of course
the usual corporate imperative (in this case weapons profiteering) reinforces the mass
psychological pathology among the elites.
The ironic thing is that Putin doesn't prefer to challenge the neoliberal globalist
"order" at all, but would happily see Russia take a prominent place within it. It's the US
and its UK poodle who are insisting on confrontation.
Great article! It reminded me of what I read in George Orwell's novella "1984." He summed it
all up brilliantly in nine words: "War is Peace"; "Freedom is Slavery"; "Ignorance is
Strength." The three pillars of political power.
Since UK has always blocked the "European Intelligence" initiative, on the basis of his
pertenence to the "Five Eyes", and as UK is leaving the European Union, where it has always
been the Troyan Horse of the US, one would think that all these people belonging to the so
called "clusters" should register themselves as "foreign agents" working for UK
government...and in this context, new empowerished sovereign governemts into the EU should
consider the possibility expelling these traitors as spies of the UK....
Country list of agents of influence according to the leak:
Germany: Harold Elletson ,Klaus NaumannWolf-Ruediger Bengs, Ex Amb Killian, Gebhardt v Moltke, Roland
Freudenstein, Hubertus Hoffmann, Bertil Wenger, Beate Wedekind, Klaus Wittmann, Florian
Schmidt, Norris v Schirach
Sweden, Norway, Finland: Martin Kragh , Jardar Ostbo, Chris Prebensen, Kate Hansen Bundt, Tor Bukkvoll, Henning-Andre
Sogaard, Kristen Ven Bruusgard, Henrik O Breitenbauch, Niels Poulsen, Jeppe Plenge, Claus
Mathiesen, Katri Pynnoniemi, Ian Robertson, Pauli Jarvenpaa, Andras Racz
Netherlands: Dr Sijbren de Jong, Ida Eklund-Lindwall, Yevhen Fedchenko, Rianne Siebenga, Jerry Sullivan,
Hunter B Treseder, Chris Quick
Spain: Nico de Pedro, Ricardo Blanco Tarno, Eduardo Serra Rexach, Dionisio Urteaga Todo, Dimitri
Barua, Fernando Valenzuela Marzo, Marta Garcia, Abraham Sanz, Fernando Maura, Jose Ignacio
Sanchez Amor, Jesus Ramon-Laca Clausen, Frances Ghiles, Carmen Claudin, Nika Prislan, Luis
Simon, Charles Powell, Mira Milosevich, Daniel Iriarte, Anna Bosch, Mira Milosevich-Juaristi,
Tito, Frances Ghiles, Borja Lasheras, Jordi Bacaria, Alvaro Imbernon-Sainz, Nacho Samor
US, Canada:
Mary Ellen Connell, Anders Aslund, Elizabeth Braw, Paul Goble, David Ziegler
Evelyn Farkas, Glen Howard, Stephen Blank, Ian Brzezinski, Thomas Mahnken, John Nevado,
Robert Nurick, Jeff McCausland
Todd Leventhal
UK: Chris Donnelly
Amalyah Hart William Browder John Ardis
Roderick Collins, Patrick Mileham Deborah Haynes
Dan Lafayeedney Chris Hernon Mungo Melvin
Rob Dover Julian Moore Agnes Josa David Aaronovitch Stephen Dalziel Raheem Shapi Ben
Nimmo
Robert Hall Alexander Hoare Steve Jermy Dominic Kennedy
Victor Madeira Ed Lucas Dr David Ryall
Graham Geale Steve Tatham Natalie Nougayrede Alan Riley [email protected]Anne Applebaum Neil Logan Brown James Wilson
Primavera Quantrill
Bruce Jones David Clark Charles Dick
Ahmed Dassu Sir Adam Thompson Lorna Fitzsimons Neil Buckley Richard Titley Euan Grant
Alastair Aitken Yusuf Desai Bobo Lo Duncan Allen Chris Bell
Peter Mason John Lough Catherine Crozier
Robin Ashcroft Johanna Moehring Vadim Kleiner David Fields Alistair Wood Ben Robinson Drew
Foxall Alex Finnen
Orsyia Lutsevych Charlie Hatton Vladimir Ashurkov
Giles Harris Ben Bradshaw
Chris Scheurweghs James Nixey
Charlie Hornick Baiba Braze J Lindley-French
Craig Oliphant Paul Kitching Nick Childs Celia Szusterman
James Sherr Alan Parfitt Alzbeta Chmelarova Keir Giles
Andy Pryce Zach Harkenrider
Kadri Liik Arron Rahaman David Nicholas Igor Sutyagin Rob Sandford Maya Parmar Andrew Wood
Richard Slack Ellie Scarnell
Nick Smith Asta Skaigiryte Ian Bond Joanna Szostek Gintaras Stonys Nina Jancowicz
Nick Washer Ian Williams Joe Green Carl Miller Adrian Bradshaw
Clement Daudy Jeremy Blackham Gabriel Daudy Andrew Lucy Stafford Diane Allen Alexandros
Papaioannou
Paddy Nicoll
In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia
propaganda into the western media stream.
We have already seen
many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who does
not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The 'Russian collusion' smear campaign against
Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but seems to be
part of a different project.
The ' Integrity
Initiative ' builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military personal,
academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via social media to
take action when the British center perceives a need.
"... When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots "psyops", you tend to come up with plots for "psyops". The word "entrapment" comes to mind. Probably "self-serving" also. ..."
"... Anti-Russian is just a code word for Globalist, Internationalist. ..."
"... This is such BS. Since when does Russia have the resources to pull all this off? They have such a complex program that they need the coordinated efforts of all the resources of the WEST? This is nuts. ..."
One of the documents lists a series of propaganda weapons to be used against Russia. One is
use of the church as a weapon. That has already been started in Ukraine with Poroshenko
buying off regligious leader to split Ukraine Orthodoxy from Russian Orthodoxy. It also
explicitly states that the Skripal incident is a 'Dirty Trick' against Russia.
The British political system is on the verge of collapse. BREXIT has finally demonstrated
that the Government/ Opposition parties are clearly aligned against the interests of the
people. The EU is nothing more than an arm of the Globalist agenda of world domination.
The US has shown its true colours - sanctioning every country that stands for independent
sovereignty is not a good foreign policy, and is destined to turn the tide of public opinion
firmly against global hegemony, endless wars, and wealth inequity.
The old Empire is in its death throes. A new paradigm awaits which will exclude all those
who have exploited the many, in order to sit at the top of the pyramid. They cannot escape
Karma.
The Western world needs to come to terms with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its
aftermath. Today, Russia is led by Putin and he obviously has objectives as any national
leader has.
Western "leaders" need to decide whether Putin:
Is trying to create Soviet Union 2.0, to have a 2nd attempt at ruling the world thru
communism and to do this by holding the world to ransom over oil/gas supplies. OR
Is wanting Russia to become a member of the family of nations and of a multi-polar world to improve the lives of
Russian people, but is being blocked at every twist and turn by manufactured events like Russia-gate and the Skripal affair
and now this latest revelation of anti-Russian propaganda campaigns being coordinated and run out of London.
Both of the above cannot be true because there are too many contradictions. Which is it??
Yes because imagine that that we lived in 1940 without any means to inform ourselves and
that media was still in control over the information that reaches us. We would already be in
a fullblown war with Russia because of it but now with the Internet and information going
around freely only a whimpy 10% of we the people stand behind their desperately wanted war.
Imagine that, an informed sheople.
Can't have that, they cannot do their usual stuff anymore.... good riddance.
"250,000 from the US State
Department , the documents allege."....... Interesting.
"During the third
Democratic debate on Saturday night, Hillary Clinton called for a "Manhattan-like
project" to break encrypted terrorist communications. The project would "bring the government and the tech communities together" to find a way
to give law enforcement access to encrypted messages, she said. It's something that some
politicians and intelligence officials have wanted for awhile,"........
***wasn't the Manhatten project a secret venture?????? Hummmmm"
Hillary Clinton has all of our encryption keys, including the FBI's . "Encryption keys" is
a general reference to several encryption functions hijacked by Hillary and her surrogate
ENTRUST. They include hash functions (used to indicate whether the contents have been altered
in transit), PKI public/private key infrastructure, SSL (secure socket layer), TLS (transport
layer security), the Dual_EC_DRBG
NSA algorithm and certificate authorities.
The convoluted structure managed by the "Federal Common Policy" group has ceded to
companies like ENTRUST INC the ability to sublicense their authority to third parties who in
turn manage entire other networks in a Gordian knot of relationships clearly designed to fool
the public to hide their devilish criminality. All roads lead back to Hillary and the Rose
Law Firm."- patriots4truth
When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots "psyops", you tend to come up with
plots for "psyops". The word "entrapment" comes to mind. Probably "self-serving" also.
FBI/Anonymous can use this story to support a narrative that social media bots posting
memes is a problem for everybody, and it's not a partisan issue. The idea is that fake news
and unrestricted social media are inherently dangerous, and both the West and Russia are
exploiting that, so governments need to agree to restrict the ability to use those platforms
for political speech, especially without using True Names.
Oilygawkies in the UK and USSA seem to be letting their spooks have a good-humored (rating
here on the absurd transparency of these ops) contest to see who can come up with the most
surreal propaganda psy-ops.
But they probably also serve as LHO distractions from something genuinely sleazy.
Anti-Russian is just a code word for Globalist, Internationalist. Anything that is
remotely like Nationalism is the true enemy of these Globalist/Internationalists, which is
what the Top-Ape Bolshevik promoted: see Vladimir Lenin and his quotes on how he believed
fully in "internationalism" for a world without borders. Ironic how they Love the butchers of
the Soviet Union but hate Russia. It is ALL ABOUT IDEOLOGY to these people and "the means
justify the ends".
Basically, if one acquires factual information from an internet source, which leads to
overturning the propaganda to which we're all subjected, then it MUST have come from Putin.
This is the direction they're headed. Anyone speaking out against the official story is
obviously a Russian spy.
Better to call it the Anti-Integrity Initiative. UK cretins up to their usual dirty tricks - let them choke on their poison. The judgement of history will eventually catch up with them.
A good 'ole economic collapse will give western countries a chance to purge their crazy
leaders before they involve us all in a thermonuclear war. Short everything with your entire
accounts.
This is such BS. Since when does Russia have the resources to pull all this off? They have
such a complex program that they need the coordinated efforts of all the resources of the
WEST? This is nuts.
Isn't it just as likely someone in the WEST planted this cache, intending Anonymous to
find it?
Any propaganda coming from the UK or US is strictly zionist. EVERYTHING they put out is to
the benefit of Israel and the "lobby". Russia isn't perfect, but if they're an enemy of the
latter, then they should NOT be considered a foe to all thinking and conscientious
people.
Yesterday, the BBC had a thing on Thai workers in Israel, and how they keep dying of
accidents, their general level of slavery etc. Very odd to have a negative Israel story, so I
wonder who upset whom, and what the ongoing status will be.
Thai labourers in Israel tell of harrowing conditions
A year-long BBC investigation has discovered widespread abuse of Thai nationals living
and working in Israel - under a scheme organized by the two governments.
Many are subjected to unsafe working practices and squalid, unsanitary living
conditions. Some are overworked, others underpaid and there are dozens of unexplained
deaths.
England and the U.S. don't like their very poor and rotten social conditions put out for
the public to see. Both countries have severely deteriorating problems on their streets
because of bankrupt governments printing money for foreign wars.
More of the same fraudulent duality while alleged so called but not money etc continues to
flow (everything is criminal) and the cesspool of a hierarchy pretends it's business as
usual.
This isn't about maintaining balance in a lie this is about disclosing the truth and
agendas (Agenda 21 now Agenda 2030 = The New Age Religion is Never Going To Be Saturnism).
The layers of the hierarchy are a lie so unless the alleged so called leaders of those layers
are publicly providing testimony and confession then everything that is being spoon fed to
the pablum puking public through all sources is a lie.
Operating on a budget of £1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity
Initiative consists of "clusters" of (((local politicians, journalists, military personnel,
scientists and academics))).
The (((team))) is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian
interference in European affairs, while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes,
the documents claim.
Bellingcat (not Belingcat) is a [intelligence aenies] front, financed by amongst other
orgs, the Atlantic Council which in turn is financed by, well it's a long list!
Anonymous have leaked some documents relating to a secretive (and Orwellian) UK Government
'Integrity Initiative' project launched in 2017. There are numerous PDF files detailing
members, organizational structure, budgets, 'mission statements', etc. The backup documents
are held at pdf-archive. The project has members from the FCO, MOD, journalists, academics,
the usual thinktanks - Chatham House, Atlantic Council, Hermitage Foundation - and the usual
suspects - Browder, Applebaum, Aaronovitch.
One document contains an interesting reference the the Skripal incident. The project team
describe it as a 'Dirty Trick'. Given these documents all pass through the FCO for funding
and overall project approval, that must also be the FCO view. That suggests that the
government is fully aware that Skripal wasn't poisoned by the Russians. If the Russians
really had attempted to murder Skripal, it would be referred to as attempted murder, use of
CW, act of war, etc. and not a 'dirty trick'.
Embarrassing yellow paper journalism: attempt to connect the deal with Skripals false flag
operation by British intelligence agencies. The Daily Mail story preudo-analyst from Bellingcat
as a serious source, but provides no source at all for the alleged Russian quotes.
This actually a quite interesting article ( [written] by the 5 eyes intelligence
agencies)
Hot on the heels of proven Saudi state sanctioned murder under diplomatic immunity we have
a completely UNFOUNDED accusation that Russia has essentially committed the same crime.
Saudi bad guy.....Russia bad guy. Two negatives equals a positive (kind of thing). See
what I just did there? LMAO
The US spent $824.6 billion in 2018 compared to Russia's budget of $46 billion (18 times
the difference). Nevertheless, Congress recently declared, that in the event of a war with
Russia, the US could lose! So, if a President (Obama, Trump, whoever) really wanted to "Make
America Great Again" he would have to begin by firing 90% of the Military Industrial
Complex.
and Daily Mail knows this detail of how he emerged after the meeting because ...
more to come from BS factory ...
janus 1 day ago
Daily Mail will report that he died trying to slaughter a convention of journalists at
Putin's behest.
So ******* sick of britain's ruling class i want to wretch, if we need to break Britain to
get rid of them, so be it. They're all a bunch of decadent pedos and foppish fags
matriculated on globalism. they're disgusting, and even though we'll never get to see the
details, they actively tried to undermine our democracy (along with Tel Aviv).
And so it goes with our 'special relationships', special indeed, with friends like
these...
janus
Shemp 4 Victory 1 day ago
And Daily Mail knows this detail of how he emerged after the meeting because. Because they
read it from a script provided by a branch of MI6 known as OSF (Office of Substandard
Fiction).
No, you're right; Magnitsky was a tax accountant employed by Firestone Duncan, the auditing
firm in its turn employed by Hermitage Capital Management. I don't know if the 'Duncan' is
still part of the outfit, but Firestone Duncan was headed by Jamison Firestone. He's an
American lawyer, born in Los Angeles and a member of the New York state bar.
I and others have hazarded a guess that Magnitsky was persistently referred to as a lawyer
because testimony between a lawyer and his/her client is protected by attorney-client
privilege; thus, much of what the Russian state might want to know from Magnitsky might fall
under this protection. But of course Russia would not be fooled into thinking he was a lawyer
– the device was likely just for western consumption, so Browder could scream that
Russia was suborning testimony illegally from Magnitsky.
Browder, however, had no real reason to believe Magnitsky was a lawyer, as he admitted
when questioned under oath.
" In a 2015 deposition regarding Prevezon, Browder again described Magnitsky as his
lawyer. He was quickly questioned by opposing counsel. This time, Browder was under oath
(page 25):
Q: Mr. Magnitsky is an attorney; you think that's accurate?
BROWDER: He was my attorney.
Q: I see. And he had a law degree in Russia?
BROWDER: I'm not aware that he did.
Q: I see. And he went to law school?
BROWDER: No.
Magnitsky had been granted power of attorney on several occasions, but he was not a
lawyer. As Browder would detail in his deposition, when there was a 2002 challenge regarding
tax payments, Magnitsky represented Hermitage in court."
That's a very useful source, incidentally; it discusses that Magnitsky never once
mentioned in his testimony the tax fraud which the Russian government supposedly perpetrated
to steal millions, and Hermitage did not lose anything thereby; the Russian treasury absorbed
the loss. And the fraud was discovered by testimony delivered by Rimma Starova, who worked
for one of the shell companies accused. But Magnitsky is regularly and stubbornly credited
with having discovered the theft, and his alleged stubborn investigation is in turn credited
with his arrest, to get him out of the way.
Browder agreed to be deposed in 2015, in an action he initiated against Prevezon, which
firm he accused of using the profits from the alleged tax rebate scheme to purchase New York
real estate. Prevezon was represented in this action by Natalia Veselnitskaya. I'm sure you
will recognize her name.
Here are a couple of my old posts, one of them an excellent one by kovane which drew on
some Russian sources and which demonstrated that Browder – in collusion with Magnitsky
– claimed tax deductions for hiring handicapped employees who either did not perform
the jobs for which they had been hired or did no work at all. Magnitsky signed their
employment books, and Browder himself signed off on the tax deduction application. They
pertain directly to the Magnitsky deception and to Browder's slippery background.
"... Browder is chuffed to pieces, because it is a big victory for him and his pal Khodorkovsky. ..."
"... Pretty soon it will be every country for itself, with ad-hoc coalitions forming for short-term situations, and the whole international system of justice and law will just fall apart. For which you can thank ruthless crooks like Bill Browder and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. So Browder might as well have said thanks for being the saps I always knew you were. ..."
People should remember, when international institutions continue to falter and crumble after
all the decades of effort to build them, that they were doing what makes Michael McFaul
happy. I hope that's enough.
Oh well, whatever tickles these pathetic people's fantasies Michael McFawl going
buuuuk-buk-buk and Bill Brawder ('cos he's full of electrolytes) must not have very much to
do these days except think about what Vladimir Putin does every early morning.
Realistically, this IS a tactical defeat for Russia. The votes had already been counted, and
Prokopchuk was pretty much a shoo-in. Then the U.S. launched a campaign to stop this, and
must have intimidated a lot of the countries into changing their vote.
Russophiles should just admit that it was a tactical defeat, shrug it off, and continue
the war Because it IS a war. One battle lost Realistically.
As I keep saying, it is a tactical defeat for international institutions. They are exposed as
merely fronts for American influence, with no genuine objectivity. Prokopchuk is already a
Deputy Head of Interpol, and will remain one. Browder was simply exercising self-preservation
disguised as the usual progressive activism, but when people who were in a position to cast
votes see that they are being personally thanked by Michael Mcfaul, then by God any one of
them who does not realize he or she has been had is thicker than most people are who are
allowed out unsupervised.
Russia – and Putin – was never going to 'run' Interpol; in fact, if Prokopchuk
had won, the USA would be tying itself in knots trying to impede every Interpol investigation
after that, just to spite Russia. Washington simply did not want a Russian to win, and it was
successful in scaring enough people to prevent it from happening. But Prokopchuk hasn't gone
away, and will still be as influential as he was before. Nothing has really changed very much
at Interpol, but the USA just publicly turned on a huge influence campaign to change the
decision. Does that mean Interpol is just another political western tool? It surely does. Who
can't see that now? Anyone?
Browder is chuffed to pieces, because it is a big victory for him and his pal
Khodorkovsky. They were the two 'high-profile dissidents' who were cited in a
flood-the-English-speaking newspapers campaign that said Putin was about to get control of
Interpol. They pointed out that the Nazis had control over it in the 1930's, but apparently
that was not as bad as Putin running it. Of course they managed to panic enough voters that
the Russian who had been the favourite was repudiated. But the whole thing is just too
childish for words, because the net effect is to showcase how political international
institutions have become, and undermine confidence in them.
Pretty soon it will be every country for itself, with ad-hoc coalitions forming for
short-term situations, and the whole international system of justice and law will just fall
apart. For which you can thank ruthless crooks like Bill Browder and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. So
Browder might as well have said thanks for being the saps I always knew you were.
Prosecutor General: Magnitsky chemically poisoned as a diversion on Browder's
orders
You dirty Russian rats can't pin that goddam rap on me!!!
A new criminal case has been opened in the Russian Federation against William
Browder, founder of the Hermitage Capital Foundation, international financial speculator,
lobbyist for anti-Russian sanctions and a sponsor of a significant part of the Russian
liberal opposition.
Details revealed at a special briefing organized by the Office of the Prosecutor
General of the Russian Federation.
Browder has been accused of creating a criminal organization (part 1 of article 210 of
the criminal code), which had been operating since 1999, which was formed for "committing
serious economic crimes on Russian territory and that of other countries". Nikolay Atmon'ev,
advisor to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, said that companies in Cyprus,
Latvia and Switzerland had ben established in Browder's interests and had cashed and
laundered hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Office of the Prosecutor General believes it "very likely" that the auditor Sergei
Magnitsky and several other of his accomplices were killed on Browder's direct orders because
they were undesirable witnesses: "Initially, the deaths of Gasanov, Kurochkin and Magnitsky
were considered to have been through natural causes, because of sicknesses that they had; the
death of Korobyeinikov seemed to have been accidental. However, further data was obtained,
indicating the violent nature of the deaths of these persons". The Investigative Committee
opened a murder inquiry into Browder's business partners Oktai Gasanov, Valeriy Kurochkin and
Sergei Korobyenikov. Browder is a suspect as regards the elimination of financier Alexander
Perepelichny, who died in 2012 in the British town of Weybridge (in the Russian immigrant's
stomach were found traces of Asian poisonous plant Gelsemium elegans). According to Atmen'ev,
the Prosecutor's office sent to the Investigative Committee notification of its decision that
an inquiry be opened as regards making a criminal case against Browder because of the
suspicion that he had been involved in the murder of Perepelichny. As for Magnitsky, who died
in 2009 at the hospital of the "Matrosskaya Tishina" remand centre, the Office of the
Prosecutor General believes that he was poisoned "as a diversion and by a chemical substance
consisting of aluminium compounds", which brought about the development of his cardio-hepatic
failure. "What Browder was especially interested in was that Sergei Magnitsky die so as to
avoid his being exposed", said Atmon'ev.
"Amongst the chemicals that pose a hidden threat to humans, there is a group of toxic
aluminium compounds. In Russia, there has not been an investigation targeted at these
substances. Detailed analysis of scientific information shows that for several decades
toxicological studies of aluminium compounds have been carried out previously and there
continues exclusive research into them by organizations in the the United States, France and
Italy. There has been studied particularly closely the acute and chronic toxicity of a number
of hazardous aluminium compounds that are ingested orally or inhaled and their effects on the
human body Analysis of substances obtained from the bodies of Kurochkin, Korobyenikov,
Gasanov and Magnitsky has led to the conclusion that the deceased persons had signs of
chronic poisoning with a toxic water-soluble aluminium compound that had been administered
orally", said a representative of the Office of the Russian Prosecutor, Mikhail
Alexandrov.
In the very near future, the Russian Federation will announce that Browder is on the
international wanted list under the UN Convention against transnational crime. "There is the
possibility of extradition provided for in the Convention, even in cases when between the
countries that decide the issue of extradition,there is no bilateral extradition Treaty",
said Atmon'ev.
They gotta be joking! Trust me! I'm as straight as they come!
RT keeps stating that Magnitsky was employed by Browder. I'm pretty sure he wasn't. He was
employed by an audit company, Firestone Duncan, that advised Browder in his shady,
tax-dodging operations.
Browder has always tried to make out that he was a pal of Magnitsky and how he grieved for
his fate.
Browder not once visited his "friend" Magnitsky when he was held on remand.
At least they have stopped calling Magnitsky a "lawyer".
Browder persisently called him a lawyer, though, in numerous interviews, when he must have
known damned well he was no such thing.
You'd think the British would have tried to sort out the taxation implications of Markly
Meg's marriage to Prince Harry BEFORE they got married. It's not as if this is the first time
someone in the British political establishment has been hit with this issue of being a US
citizen and therefore liable to pay tax to the IRS on income earned outside the US as well as
within the country.
Well, she could always do what Mr. Capitalism Bill Browder did, and renounce her American
citizenship. The US government has demonstrated on more than one occasion that, in his case,
it does not hold that against him although he plainly did it for tax reasons.
" Persons who wish to renounce U.S. citizenship should be aware of the fact that
renunciation of U.S. citizenship may have no effect on their U.S. tax or military service
obligations (contact the Internal Revenue Service or U.S. Selective Service for more
information). In addition, the act of renouncing U.S. citizenship does not allow persons to
avoid possible prosecution for crimes which they may have committed or may commit in the
future which violate United States law, or escape the repayment of financial obligations,
including child support payments, previously incurred in the United States or incurred as
United States citizens abroad "
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/us-citizenship/Renunciation-US-Nationality-Abroad.html
They still get you even when you're no longer an American citizen.
Oh, bullshit. If a former American like, say, Bill Browder, murders somebody in England, the
USA is going to get nowhere demanding his extradition to be tried as a previous American
citizen for murder. What would be the use of renouncing one's citizenship as an American if
all American rules still apply to you?
I can see the US authorities going after you if you renounced your citizenship just to
escape child support or alimony, providing you have a job in your new country. But I don't
see how the USA could just access your bank account – in another country – and
drain off payments; doesn't sovereignty count for anything?
Presumably, as well, the USA is not going to get into a pissing contest with the British
Royal Family over what it claims as its share of Markle's newfound wealth.
Buffoon Boris of Bullingdon Club notoriety and British Foreign and Commonwealth Office
risability got whacked with a US tax bill because he too was a US citizen. He huffed and
puffed and said he would not pay and would renounce his being one of the Exceptional Nation.
In the end, he coughed up what he owed, but he still renounced his US citizenship.
I assume the passage I quoted is basically saying that renouncing US citizenship will not
automatically wipe out previous or outstanding unpaid tax liabilities, crimes committed in
the past in territories under US jurisdiction or future crimes in the same territories. So
even if the Markly One does renounce US citizenship, any income she receives individually or
jointly with her husband, including gifts, can still be subjected to taxation if she still
owes unpaid tax to the authorities.
Then that's probably reasonable – the United States could recover income from her up to
the amount she has outstanding in US taxes. Unless she has one of those
invisible-but-building student loans, such a sum would probably not amount to much. But the
way the law is worded suggests US citizenship is far more a curse than a gift, in that
renouncing it frees you from none of the responsibilities. It implies that American law
follows you around like a bridal train.
As part of their hissy fit over a Russian in charge of Interpol (a Russian whose brother is a
Ukrainian diplomat lol), Senators wants it so anyone whose name is put on a red notice by
Russia cannot be denied entry or asylum.
Reminds me of when Castro sent all the trash from Cuba to the United States once they made
a similar law.
That'd be awesome. Get the bunting and the confetti ready at O'Hare for the arrival of a
couple of hundred Pavlenskys, who will promptly nail their sacks to the parking lot of the 35
East Wacker Building, a Chicago landmark. Most appropriate. I think you will agree.
Just this morning (Monday 19 Nov) the Russian prosecutor's office opened a criminal case
against William Browder. He is accused of (1) organizing a criminal gang, (2) poisoning his
gang member Sergei Magnitsky, and (3) also killing several other members of the gang. It is
alleged that Browder used military-level "diversionary chemical substances" [whatever that
is] mixed to aluminium, to form the poison.
Browder denies the charges, and also points the finger at Major-General Alexander
Prokopchuk of the Russian Federation police. Prokopchuk is in the running to become head of
Interpol. Which, if he does, he said he will pursue Bill Browder to the ends of the earth,
and nowhere on this planet will it be safe for him any more.
Which is why Browder is worried about Prokopchuk's nomination.
Now we know why the UK staged the Skripal farce. It is a redirection attempt to make Browder
look like a victim. The fallout of Browder being convicted of using chemical weapons from
criminal purposes would make NATzO look bad since NATzO invested itself in his "victimhood"
and elevated the corrupt accountant Magnitsky into a human rights martyr saint.
I imagine they mean the poison was mixed with other substances to conceal the presence of the
poison itself, since he would certainly be autopsied if he died. And poisoning would
certainly explain his very sudden and rapid turn for the worse. But Browder never visited him
– neither did anyone from Hermitage Capital Management or Firestone Duncan, to the best
of my knowledge. Browder's story was always that Magnitsky was the sole employee left behind,
because he – Browder – had pulled everyone else out, for their safety. Who
administered the poison? And in what circumstances – Browder's story also was that
Magnitsky died from beatings and neglect, in that the prison authorities would not let anyone
bring him the medicine he needed for a known condition. In medicine would be the perfect way
to deliver a poison, but Browder's story was that he was denied medicine, and he'd surely be
suspicious of anything else, wouldn't he? Here, Sergey; brought you a nice meat pie, old man.
quite apart from the likelihood that prison authorities would not let non-family visitors
give him any food, since he was the prosecution's star witness.
Of all the fuckers who simply make up scurrilous crap about Russia and Russians, Browder
is the one I'd most like to see them get. My dream is that he would go to prison in Russia,
but we mustn't be greedy, and I think we all know that will never happen.
Could aluminium phosphide have been put into Magnitsky's cell in the form of tablets or
pellets mixed with water, supposedly to get rid of an insect or rat infestation?
Inhaling the compound is as dangerous as consuming it and inhalation could have caused his
fatal heart attack. Water would be an ideal way to transport the poison especially if it is
colourless in that medium.
Come to think of it, my earlier comment was unnecessarily complicated: the poison, if it had
been aluminium phosphide, only had to be given to Magnitsky in a glass of water when he got
thirsty.
Don't need exotic "made only in Russia" chemicals. AlP is not going to leave a trail back to
its source. And both Al and P are found in the body so forensic identification is not
trivial.
Anything is possible, but visitors to the state's star witness would be viewed with the
greatest suspicion if they were not family, you would think, as doubtless the state would
have stressed what a valuable prisoner he potentially was. I would imagine they would be
subjected to a pretty thorough scan and search. And there would be a record of all visits and
visitors. Anyone who was Russian and still living in Russia would doubtless be investigated.
"... "He [Browder] is afraid of the Russian probe that has conclusive evidence of his financial crimes and proof that his theory of Magnitsky's death is an absolute fake. That's why Browder is ready to stage any provocation," ..."
"... "influenced by the fact that the entire network of offshore companies that make up his organized criminal group is located on the territory of Cyprus." ..."
"... "the Cypriot government is actively assisting the Russian government in furthering human rights violations through assistance with politically motivated prosecutions, in contravention of its obligations under European conventions," ..."
A group of MEPs have urged Cyprian authorities not to cooperate with Russia on an inquiry
against the man behind the Magnitsky Act, William Browder. Now, a Russian lawyer claims that
Browder himself arranged this petition to hide data on his operations.
Browder, a US-born British investor and the founder of Hermitage Capital Management, fears
that his fraudulent investment schemes involving offshore assets in Cyprus would be revealed to
European authorities if Cyprus continues to cooperate with Moscow on its probe against him,
Natalya Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who conducted her own investigation into Browder's
operations, told RT. She added that Browder is actively trying to paint the investigation
against him as politically motivated.
"He [Browder] is afraid of the Russian probe that has conclusive evidence of his
financial crimes and proof that his theory of Magnitsky's death is an absolute fake. That's why
Browder is ready to stage any provocation," Veselnitskaya said. She went on to say that
the investor's decision to intervene was particularly "influenced by the fact that the
entire network of offshore companies that make up his organized criminal group is located on
the territory of Cyprus."
The incident that Veselnitskaya was referring to took place in late October 2017. At that
time, 17 members of the European Parliament appealed to Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiades in
an open letter, in which they called on him to stop assisting Russia in its investigation
against Browder.
The MEPs particularly expressed their concerns over the fact that "the Cypriot
government is actively assisting the Russian government in furthering human rights violations
through assistance with politically motivated prosecutions, in contravention of its obligations
under European conventions," as reported
by the local Cyprus Mail daily.
"... "The prosecutors identified four people who were suspects in the Browder case, all of whom died over the course of less than two years as the investigation against him unfolded. ..."
"... Considering that the three individuals, with the exception of Magnitsky, died within months of each other while being investigated as part of Browder's case, "it is highly likely that they were killed to get rid of accomplices who could give an incriminating testimony against Browder," a senior official with the Russian General Prosecutor's office told journalists. The same may be true for Magnitsky The prosecutors claim that Browder was the party who benefited most from the death of Magnitsky." ..."
"... This is not some funny Skripal affair. This is a real case of several murders (see four cold bodies) ordered by the known scoundrel. ..."
"The prosecutors identified four people who were suspects in the Browder case, all
of whom died over the course of less than two years as the investigation against him
unfolded.
The Russian prosecutors believe all four of them may have been killed with a rare
water-soluble compound of aluminum. Each of the men showed symptoms consistent with being
poisoned by the toxin prior to their deaths An investigation into four possible murders has
been opened.
Considering that the three individuals, with the exception of Magnitsky, died within
months of each other while being investigated as part of Browder's case, "it is highly likely
that they were killed to get rid of accomplices who could give an incriminating testimony
against Browder," a senior official with the Russian General Prosecutor's office told
journalists. The same may be true for Magnitsky The prosecutors claim that Browder was the
party who benefited most from the death of Magnitsky."
– This is not some funny Skripal affair. This is a real case of several murders
(see four cold bodies) ordered by the known scoundrel.
That Browder (a liar and cheat that made a huge fortune in Russia) has "benefited most
from the death of Magnitsky" is undoubtedly true.
This critique is pretty superficial. The truth is that Ukraine drifted to Baltic model (not without help from Western Europe
and the USA) for a long time. And the process started in 2001 not in 2014. That means that February 2014 coup d'état by far right
nationalist forces was just quantity turned into quality. With the dissolution of the USSR, it is clear that the result of WWII
and Yalta conference will be revised.
While it is true that it was the greatest geopolitical victory of Barack Obama and the USA against Russia, it made
the world more dangerous. The fact that it saws the teeth of dragon escaped those great US neocon strategists, like
Victoria Nuland. She looks pretty medictre person to me, judging from her public appearances. Far below the level of
position she occupied. Out of depth. Kind of early variation of Nikki Haley theme.
The USA established itself as a world power at the end of WWI, and the No.1 nation after WWII. So apparance of the USA on
world scene happened a century ago and the period of the USA primacy started around 1945 or 72 year ago. But after
dissolution of the USSR the US elite lost the countervailing power that kept it in check (and Sober) and now neocons which came to
power after the crash fo the USSR are destroying the USA pretty fast. They are real national cancer. So sad...
Neocons policy of fighting and challenging the rest of the world essentially guarantee that its dominant position will not last
more one century.
In
March 23rd, Gallup headlined
"South Sudan, Haiti and Ukraine Lead World in Suffering" , and the Ukrainian part of that
can unquestionably be laid at the feet of U.S. President Barack Obama, who in February 2014
imposed upon Ukraine a very bloody coup (see above), which he and his press misrepresented (and
still misrepresent) as being (and still represent as having been) a 'democratic revolution',
but was nothing of the sort, and actually was instead the start of the Ukrainian dictatorship
and the hell that has since destroyed that country, and brought the people there into such
misery, it's now by far the worst in Europe, and nearly tied with the worst in the entire
world.
America's criminal 'news' media never even reported the coup, nor that in 2011 the Obama
regime began planning
for a coup in Ukraine . And that by 1 March 2013 they started organizing it inside
the U.S. Embassy there . And that they hired members of Ukraine's two racist-fascist, or
nazi, political parties, Right Sector and Svoboda (which latter had been called the Social
Nationalist Party of Ukraine until the CIA advised them to change it to Freedom Party, or
"Svoboda" instead). And that in February 2014 they did it (and here's the 4 February 2014 phone call instructing
the U.S. Ambassador whom to place in charge of the new regime when the coup will be completed),
under the cover of authentic anti-corruption demonstrations that the Embassy organized on the
Maidan Square in Kiev, demonstrations that the criminal U.S. 'news' media misrepresented as
'democracy demonstrations,' though Ukraine already had democracy (but still lots of corruption,
even more than today's U.S. does, and the pontificating Obama said he was trying to end
Ukraine's corruption -- which instead actually soared after his coup there).
The head of the 'private CIA' firm Stratfor said it was
"the most blatant coup in history" but he couldn't say that to Americans, because he knows
that our press is just a mouthpiece for the regime (just like it was during the lead-up to
George W. Bush's equally unprovoked invasion of
Iraq -- for which America's 'news' media suffered likewise no penalties).
When subsequently accused by neocons for his having said this, his response was "I told the
business journal Kommersant that if the US were behind a coup in Kiev, it would have been the
most blatant coup in history," but he was lying to say this, because, as I
pointed out when writing about that rejoinder of his, he had, in fact, made quite clear in
his Kommersant interview, that it was, in his view "the most blatant coup in history," no
conditionals on that.
Everybody knows what Obama, and Clinton , and Sarkozy, did to Libya -- in
their zeal to eliminate yet another nation's leader who was friendly toward Russia (Muammar
Gaddafi), they turned one of the highest-living-standard nations in Africa into a failed state
and huge source of refugees (as well as of weapons that the
Clinton State Department transferred to the jihadists in Syria to bring down Bashar
al-Assad, another ally of Russia) -- but the 'news' media have continued to hide what Obama
(assisted by America's European allies, especially Poland and Netherlands, and also by
America's apartheid Middle Eastern ally, Israel) did to Ukraine.
I voted for Obama, partly because the insane McCain ("bomb, bomb, bomb Iran") and the creepy
Romney ("Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe") were denounced by
the (duplicitous) Obama for saying such evil things, their aggressive international positions,
which continued old Cold-War-era hostilities into the present, even after the Cold War had
ended long ago (in 1991) (
but only on the Russian side ). I since have learned that in today's American political
system, the same aristocracy controls both of our rotten political Parties, and American
democracy no longer exists. (And the
only scientific study of whether America between the years 1981 and 2002 was democratic
found that it was not, and it already confirmed what Jimmy
Carter later said on 28 July 2015 :
Now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting
the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to
governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members."
But yet our Presidents continue the line, now demonstrably become a myth, of 'American
democracy', and use it as a sledgehammer against other governments, to 'justify' invading (or,
in Ukraine's case, overthrowing via a 'democratic revolution') their lands (allies of Russia)
such as in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and maybe even soon, Iran.
Here are some of the events and important historical details along the way to Ukraine's
plunge into a worse condition than most African nations:
Please send this article to every friend who is part of the majority that, as a Quinnipiac
University poll published on March 22nd reported, "A total of 51 percent of voters say they
can trust U.S. intelligence agencies to do what is right 'almost all of the time' or 'most of
the time'" (and that level of trust was far higher than for the rotten press and for the rotten
politicians), even after the CIA's rubber-stamping Bush's lies to invade Iraq, and after the
FBI's shameless performance on Hillary Clinton's privatized State Department emails even after
her
smashing their cell-phones with hammers , etc., and all the other official cover-ups, with
no American officials even so much as being charged for their rampant crimes against the
American public. Besides: ever since the CIA's founding, it has had an "Operation Gladio" that specializes in
organizing terrorist acts so as for them to be blamed on, first, communist countries when they
existed; and, then, after the end of communism, on allies of Russia. Did the American
dictatorship begin right after FDR died in 1945? How much longer will these lies succeed?
For the people of
Iraq , and of Syria
, and of Ukraine, and many such countries, this dictatorship has destroyed their lives.
Trusting the 'intelligence' services of a dictatorship doesn't make any sense at all. They're
all working for the aristocracy, the billionaires -- not for any public, anywhere; not here,
not there, just nowhere. Should the cattle trust the feedlot-operator? Only ignorance can
produce trust, under the conditions that actually exist.
So, unless the idea is that ignorance is bliss, pass along the truth, when you find it,
because it is very rare -- and the system operates to keep it that way.
Overthrowing Ukraine was an attempt to end Russia being the major power on the Black Sea and
establish it as a NATO lake to stop Russia from using the sea to aid Syria or Iran. That was
ruined when Putin seized Crimea, keeping the Russian naval base.
In fact, the destabilization of the Ukraine occurred at the dawn of the new century in 2004.
The Presidential election of that year between Victor Yuschenko and Victor Yanukovich
resulted initially in the victory of Yanukovich. However serious allegations regarding
electoral fraud were raised. This resulted in mass demonstrations in Kiev and other cities
throughout Ukraine.
A re-run was ordered and the second time around Yushchenko took the Presidency with 52% of
the vote to Yanukovich's 44%. Suffice it to say that prior to the re-run a number of shadowy
foreign NGOs – including the National Endowment for Democracy – were active in
promoting civic disobedience in a number of Ukrainian cities in west and central Ukraine.
Independence Square in the middle of Kiev was occupied after the first election which was
declared invalid. These events became known as the 'Orange Revolution'.
It would be misleading to assume that significant numbers of the protestors did not have a
valid case against Yanukovich in terms of corruption and self-serving. However, it was
equally true that many of the demonstrators' motives were somewhat less noble. Prior to the
election Yushchenko had promised his running mate Yulia Tymoshenko the position of Prime
Minister should he win the election. Thus throughout, the disturbances were a struggle
between the eastern and western oligarchs.
On the crucial question of the nature of these events, 'Peoples power' or 'revolutionary
coup' the issue remains undecided.
This notwithstanding the British historian David Lane of Emmanuel College Cambridge argued
that
"The 'Orange Revolution' in Ukraine was widely considered to be an instance of the
'coloured revolutions' of 1989 engendered by democratic values and nascent civil societies in
the process of nation building. The extent to which the 'Orange Revolution' could be
considered a revolutionary event stimulated by civil society, or a different type of
political activity (a putsch, coup d'état), legitimated by elite-sponsored 'soft'
political power. Based on public opinion poll data and responses from focus groups, the
author contends that what began as an orchestrated protest election fraud developed into a
novel type of political activity -- a revolutionary coup d'état. It is contended that
the movement was divisive rather than integrative and did not enjoy widespread popular
support."
Which is about the nearest we will get to an authentic answer.
What followed, however, was a complete and corrupt shamble of opportunism, corruption and
self-serving misrule of Yuschenko and Tymoshenko who, after becoming involved in some dubious
energy deals was to become known as the 'Gas Princess'. These two paragons of democracy
eventually became bitter enemies and saw the return of Yanukovich after the Presidential
contest between her and Yanukovich in 2010 which Yanukovich narrowly won.
It's long been a truth that democracy in the US died a long time ago and the wealth and
power behind the POTUS, irrespective of who that might be, are mere puppets. Obama won his
presidency on outright lies and the crooked Clintons and Sarkozys of the US corrupt elite
serve no-one's interests but their own at the cost of the lives of Ukrainian Russian ethnics
and the Libyan, Iraqi and Syrian people. "Saving Syria's children" would require the removal
of the source of their suffering, which can be firmly laid at the door of murderous
Washington War Hawks, rent-a-gobs like Samantha Powers and Victoria Nuland(nee Kagan)and
corrupt MSM supporting the rogue state that is the USA.
"... Union Jackboot: What Your Media and Professors Don't Tell You About British Foreign Policy ..."
"... There seems to be a consensus that we need a strong military because Russia is on the rise. What do you think about that rationale? ..."
"... What about military threats? ..."
"... So we've extended NATO to pretty much the Russian border? But there's a hard border there. Everyone knows we're never going to attack Russia, both for reasons of morality and self-preservation. So maybe this situation is safer than you imply. ..."
"... Brexit White Paper ..."
"... T. J. Coles is a postdoctoral researcher at Plymouth University's Cognition Institute and the author of several books. ..."
"... Matthew Alford teaches at Bath University in the UK and has also written several books. Their latest is ..."
"... The Rise and Fall of the British Empire ..."
"... Bolshevism and Imperial Sedition ..."
"... Power without Responsibility ..."
"... Russian Roulette: A Deadly Game: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Global Plot ..."
"... Statement for the Record: Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community ..."
"... Vision for 2020 ..."
"... Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future ..."
"... The New Atlanticist ..."
"... The United Kingdom's relations with Russia ..."
Alford: There seems to be a consensus that we need a strong military because Russia is on the rise. What do you think about
that rationale?
Coles: There's no consensus, except among European and American elites. Europe and America are not the world.
There are a lot of issues to consider with regards to Russia. Is it a threat? If so to whom? What kind of threat is Russia? So
let's consider these questions carefully. As far as the British establishment is concerned, Russia is an ideological threat because
it is a major power with a substantial population. It's also self-reliant where oil and gas is concerned, unlike Britain. So there's
lots of potential for Russian political ideology to undermine Britain's status. In fact, there are European Council on Foreign Relations
papers saying that Putin's Russia presents an "ideological alternative" to the EU.
[i] And that's dangerous.
Britain, or more accurately its policymaking elites, have considered Russia a significant enemy for over a century. Under the
Tsar, the so-called Great Game was a battle for strategic resources, trading routes, and so on. The historian Lawrence James calls
this period the first Cold War, which went "hot" with the Crimean War (1853-56).
[ii] Britain had a mixed relationship with
the Tsars because, on the one hand, theirs' were repressive regimes and Britain tended to favour repressive regimes, hence their
brief alliance with Russia's enemy, the Ottomans. On the other hand, Russia was a strategic threat to Britain's imperial interests,
and thus the Crimean War (1853-56).
When the Bolsheviks took over Russia, beginning 1917, the relationship became much less ambiguous – Russians, and especially Bolsheviks,
were clearly the enemy. Their ideology posed a threat internally. So Winston Churchill, who began as a Liberal and became a Conservative,
considered the Labour Party, which was formed in 1900, as basically a front for Bolsheviks.
[iii] That shows the level of paranoia among
elites. The Labour Party, at least at the beginning, was a genuine, working man's political organisation – women couldn't vote then,
remember. So by associating this progressive, grassroots party representing the working classes as an ideological ally or even puppet
of the brutal Bolshevik regime, the Tories had an excuse to undermine the power of organised, working people. So you had the Zinoviev
letter in 1924, which we now know was a literal conspiracy between the secret services and elements of the Tory party to fabricate
a link between Labour and Moscow. And it famously cost Labour the general election, since the right-wing, privately-owned media ran
with the story as though it was real. It's an early example of fake news.
[iv]
That's the ideological threat that Russia has posed, historically. But where there's a threat, there's an opportunity. The British
elites exploited the "threat" then and as they do today by associating organised labour with evil Bolshevism and, in doing so, alienate
the lower classes from their own political interests. Suddenly, we've all got to be scared of Russia, just like in 1917. And let's
not forget that Britain used chemical weapons – M-Devices, which induced vomiting – against the Bolsheviks. Chemical weapons were
"the right medicine for the Bolshevist," in Churchill's words. This was in 1919, as part of the Allied invasion of Russia in support
of the White Army. [v]
So if we're talking about the historical balance of forces and cause and effect, Britain not Russia initiated the use of chemical
weapons against others. But this history is typically inverted to say that Russia poses a threat to the West, hence all the talk
about Novichok, the Skripals, and Dawn Sturgess, the civilian who supposedly came into contact with Novichok and died in hospital
a few days later.
The next question: What sort of threat is Russia? According to the US Army War College, since the collapse of the Soviet
Union and since pro-US, pro-"free market" President Boris Yeltsin resigned in 1999, Russia has pursued so-called economic nationalism.
And the US doesn't like this because markets suddenly get closed and taxes are raised against US corporations.
[vi] That's the real threat. But you can't
tell the public that: that we hate Russia because they aren't doing what we say. If you look through the military documents, you
can find almost nothing about security threats against the US in terms of Russian
expansion, except in the sense that "security" means operational freedom. You can find references to Russia's nuclear weapons,
though, which are described as defensive, designed "to counter US forces and weapons systems."
[vii] Try finding that on the BBC. I should
mention that even "defensive" nukes can be launched accidentally.
The real goal with regards to Russia is maintaining US economic hegemony and the culture of open "free markets" that goes with
it, while at the same time being protectionist in real life. (US protectionism didn't start under Trump, by the way.) Liberal media
like the New York Times run sarcastic articles about Russian state oil and gas being a front for Putin and his cronies.
And yes, that may be true. But what threat is Russia to the US if it has a corrupt government? The threat is closing its markets
to the US. The US is committed to what its military calls Full Spectrum Dominance. So the world needs to be run in a US-led neoliberal
order, in the words of the US military, "to protect US interests and investment."
[viii] But this cannot be done if you have
"economic nationalism," like China had until the "reforms" of the '70s and '80s, and still has today to some extent. Russia and China
aren't military threats. The global population on the whole knows this, even though the domestic US and British media say the opposite.
Alford: What about military threats?
Coles: The best sources you can get are the US military records. Straight from the horse's mouth. The military plans for war and
defence. They have contingencies for when political situations change. So they know what they're talking about. There's a massive
divide between reality, as understood from the military records, and media and political rhetoric. Assessments by the US Army War
College, for instance, said years ago that any moves by NATO to support a Western-backed government in Ukraine would provoke Russia
into annexing Crimea. They don't talk about Russia spontaneously invading Ukraine and annexing it, which is the image we get from
the media. The documents talk about Russia reacting to NATO provocation.
[ix]
If you look at a map, you see Russia surrounded by hostile NATO forces. The media don't discuss this dangerous and provocative
situation, except the occasional mention of, say, US-British-Polish war-gaming on the border with Russia. When they do mention it,
they say it's for "containment," the containment of Russia. But to contain something, the given thing has to be expanding. But the
US military – like the annual threat assessments to Congress – say that Russia's not expanding, except when provoked. So at the moment
as part of its NATO mission, the UK is training Polish and Ukrainian armed forces, has deployed troops in Poland and Estonia, and
is conducting military exercises with them.
[x]
Imagine if Scotland ceded from the UK and the Russians were on our border conducting military exercises, supposedly to deter a
British invasion of Scotland. That's what we're doing in Ukraine. Britain's moves are extremely dangerous. In the 1980s, the UK as
part of NATO conducted the exercise, Operation Able Archer, which envisaged troop build-ups between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries.
Now-declassified records show that the Russians briefly mistook this exercise for a real-world scenario. That could have escalated
into nuclear war. This is very serious. [xi]
But the biggest player is the USA. It's using the threat of force and a global architecture of hi-tech militarism to shape a neoliberal
order. Britain is slavishly following its lead. I doubt that Britain would position forces near Russia were it not for the USA. Successive
US administrations have or are building a missile system in Europe and Turkey. They say it's to deter Iran from firing Scud missiles
at Europe. But it's pointed at Russia. It's a radar system based in Romania and Turkey, with a battery of Patriot missiles based
in Poland. The stationing of missiles there provoked Russia into moving its mobile nuclear weapons up to the border in its Kaliningrad
exclave, as it warned it would do in 2008.
[xii] Try to find any coverage of that in the media, except for a few articles in the print media here or there. If Western media
were interested in survival, there would be regular headlines: "NATO provoking Russia."
But the situation in Ukraine is really the tipping point. Consider the equivalent. Imagine if Russia was conducting military exercises
with Canada or Mexico, and building bases there. How would the US react? It would be considered an extreme threat, a violation of
the UN Charter, which prohibits threats against sovereign states.
Alford: So we've extended NATO to pretty much the Russian border? But there's a hard border there. Everyone knows we're never
going to attack Russia, both for reasons of morality and self-preservation. So maybe this situation is safer than you imply.
Coles: There's no morality involved. States are abstract, amorphous entities comprised of dominant minorities and subjugated majorities
who are conditioned to believe that they are relatively free and prosperous. The elites of those states act both in their self-interests
– career, peer-pressure, kickbacks, and so on – and in the interests of their class, which is of course tied to international relations
because their class thrives on profiting from resource exploitation. So you can't talk about morality in this context. Only individuals
can behave morally. The state is made up of individuals, of course, but they're acting against the interests of the majority. As
we speak, they are acting immorally – or at least amorally – but creating the geopolitical conditions that imperil each
and every one of us.
As for invasion, we're not going to invade Russia. This isn't 1918. Russia has nuclear weapons and can deter an invasion. But
that's not the point. Do we want to de-escalate an already tense geopolitical situation or make it worse to the point where an accident
happens? So while it's not about invading Russia directly, the issue is about attacking what are called Russia's "national interests."
Russia's "national interests" are the same as the elites' of the UK. National interest doesn't mean the interests of the public.
It means the interests of the policymaking establishment and the corporations. For example, the Theresa May government sacrificed
its own credibility to ensure that its Brexit White Paper (2018) appeased both the interests of the food and manufacturing
industries that want a soft Brexit – easy trade with the EU – and the financial services sector which wants a hard Brexit – freedom
from EU regulation. Everyone else be damned. That's the "national interest."
So for its real "national interest," Russia wants to keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence because its oil and gas to Europe
pass through Ukraine. About 80% of Russia's export economy is in the oil and gas sector. It's already had serious political tensions
with Ukraine, which on several occasions hasn't paid its energy bills, so Russia has cut supplies. If Europe can bump Ukraine into
its own sphere of influence it has more leverage over Russia. This is practically admitted in Parliamentary discussions by Foreign
Office ministers, and so forth. [xiii]
Again, omitted by the media. Also, remember that plenty of ethnic Russians live in eastern Ukraine. In addition, Russia has a naval
base in Crimea. That's not to excuse its illegal action in annexing Ukraine, it's to highlight the realpolitik missing in
the media's coverage of the situation.
T. J. Coles is a postdoctoral researcher at Plymouth University's Cognition Institute and the author of several books.
Matthew Alford teaches at Bath University in the UK and has also written several books. Their latest is
Union Jackboot(Até Books).
[ii] 'Anglo-Russian relations were severely
strained; what was in effect a cold war lasted from the late 1820s to the beginning of the next century'. The Crimean War seems to
have set a precedent for today. James writes:
[It] was an imperial war, the only one fought by Britain against a European power during the nineteenth century, although some
would have regarded Russia as essentially an Asiatic power. No territory was at stake; the war was undertaken solely to guarantee
British naval supremacy in the Mediterranean and, indirectly, to forestall any threat to India which might have followed Russia
replacing Britain as the dominant power in the Middle East.
Lawrence James (1997) The Rise and Fall of the British Empire London: Abacus, pp. 180-82.
All these strikes and rumours of strikes and threats of strikes and loss and suffering caused by them; all this talk of revolution
and "direct action" have deeply offended most of the British people. There is a growing feeling that a considerable section of
organized Labour is trying to tyrannize over the whole public and to bully them into submission, not by argument, not by recognized
political measures, but by brute force
But if we can do little for Russia [under the Bolsheviks], we can do much for Britain. We do not want any of these experiments
here
Whether it is the Irish murder gang or the Egyptian vengeance society, or the seditious extremists in India, or the arch-traitors
we have at home, they will feel the weight of the British arm.
A settlement of relations between the two countries [UK and Russia] will assist in the revolutionising of the international
and British proletariat, [and] make it possible for us to extend and develop the propaganda and ideas of Leninism in England and
the colonies.
It also says that 'British workmen' have 'inclinations to compromise' and that rapprochement will eventually lead to domestic
'[a]rmed warfare'. It was leaked by the services to the Conservative party and then to the media. Richard Norton-Taylor (1999) 'Zinoviev
letter was dirty trick by MI6' Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/1999/feb/04/uk.politicalnews6
and Louise Jury (1999) 'Official Zinoviev letter was forged' Independenthttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/official-zinoviev-letter-was-forged-1068600.html
. For media coverage at the time, see James Curran and Jean Seaton (1997) Power without Responsibility London: Routledge,
p. 52.
[v] Paul F. Walker (2017) 'A Century
of Chemical Warfare: Building a World Free of Chemical Weapons' Conference: One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment,
Consequences pp. 379-400 and Giles Milton (2013) Russian Roulette: A Deadly Game: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Global Plot
London: Hodder, eBook.
[vi] 'The Russian Federation has shown
repeatedly that common values play almost no role in its consideration of its trading partners', meaning the US and EU. 'It often
builds relationships with countries that most openly thwart Western values of free markets and democracy', notably Iran and Venezuela.
'In this regard, the Russian Federation behaves like "Russia Incorporated." It uses its re-nationalized industries to further its
wealth and influence, the latter often at the expense of the EU and the U.S.'. Colonel Richard J. Anderson (2008) 'A History of President
Putin's Campaign to Re-Nationalize Industry and the Implications for Russian Reform and Foreign Policy' Senior Service College, US
Army War College, Pennsylvania: Carlisle Barracks, p. 52.
[vii] Daniel R. Coats (2017) Statement
for the Record: Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington,
DC: Office of the Director of
[ix] The document also says: 'a replay
of the West-sponsored coup against pro-Russian elites could result in a split, or indeed multiple splits, of the failed Ukraine,
which would open a door for NATO intervention'.Pavel K. Baev (2011) 'Russia's security relations with the United States: Futures
planned and unplanned' in Stephen J. Blank (ed.) Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future Strategic Studies Institute
Pennsylvania: Carlisle Barracks, p. 170, www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1087.pdf.
[xi] For example, Nate Jones, Thomas
Blanton and Christian F. Ostermann (2016) 'Able Archer 83: The Secret History' Nuclear Proliferation International History Project
Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/able-archer-83-the-secret-history
.
[xii] It was reported in the ultra-right,
neo-con press at the time that:
[Russian] President Dmitri Medvedev announced in his first state-of-the-nation address plans to deploy the short-range SS-26
("Iskander") missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad if the U.S. goes ahead with its European Ballistic Missile Defense
System (BMDS). Medvedev told parliament that the deployment would "neutralize" U.S. plans for a missile defense shield based in
Poland and the Czech Republic [now in Romania), which the U.S. claims as vital in defending against missile attacks from 'rogue
states' such as Iran.
Neil Leslie (2008) 'The Kaliningrad Missile Crisis' The New Atlanticist , available at http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-kaliningrad-missile-crisis.
[xiii] For example, a Parliamentary
inquiry into British-Russian relations says of the newly-imposed US-British ally in Ukraine:
President Poroshenko's Government is more openly committed to economic reform and anti-corruption than any previous Ukrainian
Administration. The reform agenda has made considerable progress and has enjoyed some successes including police reform, liberalisation
of the energy market and the launch of an online platform for government procurement
The annexation of Crimea also resulted in a ban on importing products from Crimea, on investing in or providing services linked
to tourism and on exporting certain goods for use in the transport, telecoms and energy sectors.
https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2018/08/285043.htm
"Following the use of a "Novichok" nerve agent in an attempt to assassinate UK citizen
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal, the United States, on August 6, 2018,
determined under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of
1991 (CBW Act) that the Government of the Russian Federation has used chemical or
biological weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or
biological weapons against its own nationals.
Following a 15-day Congressional notification period, these sanctions will take effect
upon publication of a notice in the Federal Register, expected on or around August 22,
2018"
.....
Under the law, Russia had to end the use of the nerve agent Novichok, which was used in
the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March, commit to not using
chemical weapons against its own people, and allow on-site inspections by agencies like the
United Nations.
"Today, the department informed Congress we could not certify that the Russian
Federation met the conditions," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a
statement."
"... "I am more than happy to deliver the $10,000 in cash I received, as part of what I believe was a sting operation to frame me in summer 2017, to your committee to examine for marked bills. This is in the interest of me being fully transparent," he wrote last week on Twitter to North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows and Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe. ..."
"... Afraid he might be killed if he didn't accept the money, Papadopoulos took the funds and later contacted Tawil - who allegedly told Papadopoulos he didn't want it back. From there, Papadopoulos gave the cash to his attorney in Greece. Upon his return to the United States several days later, Papadopoulos was arrested on July 28, 2017 at Dulles International Airport in Washington D.C., by agents who he believes were looking for the cash. ..."
"... And then when Papadopoulos landed back in America, he was arrested at Dulles International Airport on July 27th. Strangely, he wasn't shown the warrant for his arrest when arrested, and didn't know the reason why until the next day. The $10,000 that Tawil paid Papadopoulos in cash is interesting in this context, as it would be the exact amount of money one would be required to declare at customs. Papadopoulos didn't recall if he was arrested before or after he filled out a customs slip (but didn't have the money on him). - Bongino.com ..."
George Papadopoulos - a central figure and self-admitted dupe in the Obama administration's targeted spying on the Trump campaign,
gave a wide-ranging interview to Dan Bongino on Friday, detailing what he claims to have been a setup by deep state operatives across
the world in order to ultimately infiltrate the Trump campaign.
In March 2016
, Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud told Papadopoulos - an energy consultant who had recently joined the Trump campaign - that
Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, a claim which Papadopoulos repeated in May 2016 to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer in
a
London bar . Of note, former FBI Assistant Director of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap, reportedly
traveled to London directly before Downer
met with Papadopoulos, while a few months later former FBI agent Peter Strzok met with Downer in London directly before the DOJ officially
launched their investigation into the Trump campaign.
The alleged admission about Clinton's emails officially sparked the Obama administration's counterintelligence operation on Trump
on July 31, 2016 - dubbed Operation Crossfire Hurricane. In September 2016, the FBI would send spy Stefan Halper to further probe
Papadopoulos on the Clinton email allegation, and - according to his interview with Dan Bongino, Papadoplous says Halper angrily
accused him of working with Russia before storming out of a meeting.
Halper essentially began interrogating Papadopoulos, saying that it's "obviously in your interest to be working with the Russians"
and to "hack emails." " You're complicit with Russia in this, isn't that right George " Halper told him. Halper also inquired
about Hillary's hacked emails, insinuating that Papadopoulos possessed them. Papadopoulos denied knowing anything about this and
asked to be left alone. -
Bongino.com
There are two schools of thought on Papadopoulos and his relationship with Mifsud - the first link in the chain regarding the
Clinton email rumor. Notably, Mifsud claimed
last November to be a member of the Clinton Foundation, and has
donated to the charity.
The first theory is that Mifsud and Papadopoulos are Russian agents, and that Papadopoulos was used to try and establish a backchannel
to Putin.
Papadopoulos admits he tried to set up a Trump-Putin meeting - which was flatly rejected by the Trump campaign. Papadopoulos,
however, claims the Putin connection was a woman Mifsud introduced him to claiming to be Putin's niece, who was present at a March
24, 2016 meeting.
The second theory regarding Mifsud is that he was a deep state plant working with the FBI; convincing Papadopoulos that he could
arrange a meeting with members of the Russian government and then seeding Papadopoulos with the Clinton email rumor. From there,
as the theory goes, the "deep state" attempted to pump Papadopoulos for information and set up a case against him - beginning with
Alexander Downer and the "drunken" confession in London.
Papadopoulos told Bongino that he wasn't drunk during his meeting with Downer, and that he was being recorded . Papadopoulos noted
during the Bongino interview that transcripts of his meetings with Mifsud and Dower reportedly exist - which he says proves that
he was set up. According to Papadopoulos, Mifsud's lawyer said that he's not a Russian asset and was instead working for Western
intelligence.
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying the FBI about his interactions with Mifsud, and was sentenced to 14 days in federal prison
and a $9,500 fine.
$10,000 cash
Papadopoulos also told Bongino about $10,000 in cash that he was given in an Israel hotel room in July 2017 - which he claims
was another attempt to set him up. He says that he believes the bills were marked, and is looking for a way to bring the cash into
the United States for Congressional investigators to analyze. The cash is currently with his attorney in Greece.
"I'm actually trying to bring that money back somehow so that Congress can investigate it because I am 100 percent sure those
are marked bills, and to see who was actually running this operation against me," Papadopoulos gold Bongino.
"I am more than happy to deliver the $10,000 in cash I received, as part of what I believe was a sting operation to frame me in
summer 2017, to your committee to examine for marked bills. This is in the interest of me being fully transparent," he wrote last
week on Twitter to North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows and Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe.
The two Republicans are members of a congressional task force investigating the FBI's investigation into possible collusion
between the Trump campaign and Russia. The task force interviewed Papadopoulos on Oct. 25.
Papadopoulos acknowledged in his interview with Bongino that his claims about his encounters with an Israeli-American businessman
named Charles Tawil were "an incredible, insane story."
"But it's true," he asserted.
Papadopoulos told Bongino the he believes that Tawil "was working on behalf of Western intelligence to entrap me."
Papadopoulos does not have direct evidence that Tawil was working on behalf of a Western government when they met in March
and July 2017. Instead, Papadopoulos is speculating based on what he says is the peculiar circumstances of his encounters with
Tawil as well as his meetings with at least one known FBI informant. -
Daily Caller
Afraid he might be killed if he didn't accept the money, Papadopoulos took the funds and later contacted Tawil - who allegedly
told Papadopoulos he didn't want it back. From there, Papadopoulos gave the cash to his attorney in Greece. Upon his return to the
United States several days later, Papadopoulos was arrested on July 28, 2017 at Dulles International Airport in Washington D.C.,
by agents who he believes were looking for the cash.
And then when Papadopoulos landed back in America, he was arrested at Dulles International Airport on July 27th. Strangely,
he wasn't shown the warrant for his arrest when arrested, and didn't know the reason why until the next day. The $10,000 that
Tawil paid Papadopoulos in cash is interesting in this context, as it would be the exact amount of money one would be required
to declare at customs. Papadopoulos didn't recall if he was arrested before or after he filled out a customs slip (but didn't
have the money on him). -
Bongino.com
At minimum, one should set aside an hour for the Bongino-Papadopoulos interview if only to hear his version of events.
Perhaps the biggest mystery of all is how George was able to end up with such a hot Italian (not Russian) wife:
"... Bolsonaro, like Trump, is not a disruption of the current neoliberal order; he is an intensification or escalation of its worst impulses. He is its logical conclusion. ..."
"... Despite their professed concern, the plutocrats and their media spokespeople much prefer a far-right populist like Trump or Bolsonaro to a populist leader of the genuine left. They prefer the social divisions fuelled by neo-fascists like Bolsonaro, divisions that protect their wealth and privilege, over the unifying message of a socialist who wants to curtail class privilege, the real basis of the elite's power. ..."
"... The true left – whether in Brazil, Venezuela, Britain or the US – does not control the police or military, the financial sector, the oil industries, the arms manufacturers, or the corporate media. It was these very industries and institutions that smoothed the path to power for Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Trump in the US. ..."
"... Former socialist leaders like Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or Hugo Chavez in Venezuela were bound to fail not so much because of their flaws as individuals but because powerful interests rejected their right to rule. These socialists never had control over the key levers of power, the key resources. Their efforts were sabotaged – from within and without – from the moment of their election. ..."
"... The media, the financial elites, the armed forces were never servants of the socialist governments that have been struggling to reform Latin America. The corporate world has no interest either in building proper housing in place of slums or in dragging the masses out of the kind of poverty that fuels the drug gangs that Bolsonaro claims he will crush through more violence. ..."
"... As in Pinochet's Chile, Bolsonaro can rest assured that his kind of neo-fascism will live in easy harmony with neoliberalism. ..."
"... Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net . ..."
With Jair Bolsonaro's victory in Brazil's presidential election at the weekend, the doom-mongers among western elites are out in force once again. His success, like Donald Trump's, has confirmed a long-held prejudice: that the people cannot be trusted; that, when empowered, they behave like a mob driven by primitive urges; that the unwashed masses now threaten to bring down the carefully constructed walls of civilisation.
The guardians of the status quo refused to learn the lesson of Trump's election, and so it will be with Bolsonaro. Rather than engaging the intellectual faculties they claim as their exclusive preserve, western "analysts" and "experts" are again averting their gaze from anything that might help them understand what has driven our supposed democracies into the dark places inhabited by the new demagogues. Instead, as ever, the blame is being laid squarely at the door of social media.
Social media and fake news are apparently the reasons Bolsonaro won at the ballot box. Without the gatekeepers in place to limit access to the "free press" – itself the plaything of billionaires and global corporations, with brands and a bottom line to protect – the rabble has supposedly been freed to give expression to their innate bigotry.
Here is Simon Jenkins, a veteran British gatekeeper – a former editor of the Times of London who now writes a column in the Guardian – pontificating on Bolsonaro:
"The lesson for champions of open democracy is glaring. Its values cannot be taken for granted. When debate is no longer through regulated media, courts and institutions, politics will default to the mob. Social media – once hailed as an agent of global concord – has become the purveyor of falsity, anger and hatred. Its algorithms polarise opinion. Its pseudo-information drives argument to the extremes."
This is now the default consensus of the corporate media, whether in its rightwing incarnations or of the variety posing on the liberal-left end of the spectrum like the Guardian. The people are stupid, and we need to be protected from their base instincts. Social media, it is claimed, has unleashed humanity's id.
Selling plutocracy
There is a kind of truth in Jenkins' argument, even if it is not the one he intended. Social
media did indeed liberate ordinary people. For the first time in modern history, they were not
simply the recipients of official, sanctioned information. They were not only spoken down to by
their betters, they could answer back – and not always as deferentially as the media
class expected.
Clinging to their old privileges, Jenkins and his ilk are rightly unnerved. They have much
to lose.
But that also means they are far from dispassionate observers of the current political
scene. They are deeply invested in the status quo, in the existing power structures that have
kept them well-paid courtiers of the corporations that dominate the planet.
Bolsonaro, like Trump, is not a disruption of the current neoliberal order; he is an
intensification or escalation of its worst impulses. He is its logical conclusion.
The plutocrats who run our societies need figureheads, behind whom they can conceal their
unaccountable power. Until now they preferred the slickest salespeople, ones who could sell
wars as humanitarian intervention rather than profit-driven exercises in death and destruction;
the unsustainable plunder of natural resources as economic growth; the massive accumulation of
wealth, stashed in offshore tax havens, as the fair outcome of a free market; the bailouts
funded by ordinary taxpayers to stem economic crises they had engineered as necessary
austerity; and so on.
A smooth-tongued Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were the favoured salespeople, especially
in an age when the elites had persuaded us of a self-serving argument: that ghetto-like
identities based on colour or gender mattered far more than class. It was divide-and-rule
dressed up as empowerment. The polarisation now bewailed by Jenkins was in truth stoked and
rationalised by the very corporate media he so faithfully serves.
Fear of the domino effect
Despite their professed concern, the plutocrats and their media spokespeople much prefer a
far-right populist like Trump or Bolsonaro to a populist leader of the genuine left. They
prefer the social divisions fuelled by neo-fascists like Bolsonaro, divisions that protect
their wealth and privilege, over the unifying message of a socialist who wants to curtail class
privilege, the real basis of the elite's power.
The true left – whether in Brazil, Venezuela, Britain or the US – does not
control the police or military, the financial sector, the oil industries, the arms
manufacturers, or the corporate media. It was these very industries and institutions that
smoothed the path to power for Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Trump in the
US.
Former socialist leaders like Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela were bound to fail not so much because of their flaws as individuals but because
powerful interests rejected their right to rule. These socialists never had control over the
key levers of power, the key resources. Their efforts were sabotaged – from within and
without – from the moment of their election.
Local elites in Latin America are tied umbilically to US elites, who in turn are determined
to make sure any socialist experiment in their backyard fails – as a way to prevent a
much-feared domino effect, one that might seed socialism closer to home.
The media, the financial elites, the armed forces were never servants of the socialist
governments that have been struggling to reform Latin America. The corporate world has no
interest either in building proper housing in place of slums or in dragging the masses out of
the kind of poverty that fuels the drug gangs that Bolsonaro claims he will crush through more
violence.
Bolsonaro will not face any of the institutional obstacles Lula da Silva or Chavez needed to
overcome. No one in power will stand in his way as he institutes his "reforms". No one will
stop him creaming off Brazil's wealth for his corporate friends. As in Pinochet's Chile,
Bolsonaro can rest assured that his kind of neo-fascism will live in easy harmony with
neoliberalism.
Immune system
If you want to understand the depth of the self-deception of Jenkins and other media
gatekeepers, contrast Bolsonaro's political ascent to that of Jeremy Corbyn, the modest social
democratic leader of Britain's Labour party. Those like Jenkins who lament the role of social
media – they mean you, the public – in promoting leaders like Bolsonaro are also
the media chorus who have been wounding Corbyn day after day, blow by blow, for three years
– since he accidentally slipped past safeguards intended by party bureacrats to keep
someone like him from power.
The supposedly liberal Guardian has been leading that assault. Like the rightwing media, it
has shown its absolute determination to stop Corbyn at all costs, using any pretext.
Within days of Corbyn's election to the Labour leadership, the Times newspaper – the
voice of the British establishment – published an article quoting a general, whom it
refused to name, warning that the British army's commanders had agreed they would sabotage a
Corbyn government. The general strongly hinted that there would be a military coup first.
We are not supposed to reach the point where such threats – tearing away the
façade of western democracy – ever need to be implemented. Our pretend democracies
were created with immune systems whose defences are marshalled to eliminate a threat like
Corbyn much earlier.
Once he moved closer to power, however, the rightwing corporate media was forced to deploy
the standard tropes used against a left leader: that he was incompetent, unpatriotic, even
treasonous.
But just as the human body has different immune cells to increase its chances of success,
the corporate media has faux-liberal-left agents like the Guardian to complement the right's
defences. The Guardian sought to wound Corbyn through identity politics, the modern left's
Achille's heel. An endless stream of confected crises about anti-semitism were intended to
erode the hard-earned credit Corbyn had accumulated over decades for his anti-racism work.
Slash-and-burn politics
Why is Corbyn so dangerous? Because he supports the right of workers to a dignified life,
because he refuses to accept the might of the corporations, because he implies that a different
way of organising our societies is possible. It is a modest, even timid programme he
articulates, but even so it is far too radical either for the plutocratic class that rules over
us or for the corporate media that serves as its propaganda arm.
The truth ignored by Jenkins and these corporate stenographers is that if you keep
sabotaging the programmes of a Chavez, a Lula da Silva, a Corbyn or a Bernie Sanders, then you
get a Bolsonaro, a Trump, an Orban.
It is not that the masses are a menace to democracy. It is rather that a growing proportion
of voters understand that a global corporate elite has rigged the system to accrue for itself
ever greater riches. It is not social media that is polarising our societies. It is rather that
the determination of the elites to pillage the planet until it has no more assets to strip has
fuelled resentment and destroyed hope. It is not fake news that is unleashing the baser
instincts of the lower orders. Rather, it is the frustration of those who feel that change is
impossible, that no one in power is listening or cares.
Social media has empowered ordinary people. It has shown them that they cannot trust their
leaders, that power trumps justice, that the elite's enrichment requires their poverty. They
have concluded that, if the rich can engage in slash-and-burn politics against the planet, our
only refuge, they can engage in slash-and-burn politics against the global elite.
Are they choosing wisely in electing a Trump or Bolsonaro? No. But the liberal guardians of
the status quo are in no position to judge them. For decades, all parts of the corporate media
have helped to undermine a genuine left that could have offered real solutions, that could have
taken on and beaten the right, that could have offered a moral compass to a confused, desperate
and disillusioned public.
Jenkins wants to lecture the masses about their depraved choices while he and his paper
steer them away from any politician who cares about their welfare, who fights for a fairer
society, who prioritises mending what is broken.
The western elites will decry Bolsonaro in the forlorn and cynical hope of shoring up their
credentials as guardians of the existing, supposedly moral order. But they engineered him.
Bolsonaro is their monster.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include
"Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East"
(Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books).
His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
I'm not surprised that you are such a fine shot with his harpoon considering your naval
background, Mark! The UK is slowly sinking to its appropriate level of incompetence and
self-delusion with the likes of former PM Dave Cameron declaring that he is 'shit bored' and
would like to return to cabinet, preferably as Foreign Minister. That could be arranged, but
as Foreign minister in Libya.
Still, the whole 'Russian corrupting in Britain' is the British government's perception
management at its finest. As someone recently posted on the last thread, a Spanish case
against RUSSIAN MAFIA collapsed for lack of evidenceafter ten years , which I
suspect was partly provided by British Intelligence paid organized crime experts from Russia
like Litvenenko & Skripal. Who's been bilked then?
Yes, this is a classic case of 'LOOK OVER THERE!' rather than the billions upon billions
sunk in to London by the UK and the west's bestest Gulf buddies, you know, the one's who fear
not their exposure for outrageous human rights abuses on a genocidal scale such as in Yemen,
and a much smaller scale with the likes of their own citizens, sic Kashoggi. But, Chelsea
& Westminster are such a fundamental part of British Life (coz its London, innit?) and
does very well for itself. I have to admit, it is (mostly) nice around there where you can
take a stroll along the Embankment, wander around Hyde Park and visit the museums.
"Like in the Wild West, betting in the saloon is also common when it comes to Syria. The US
State Department under Obama placed all its bets on some entity they invented, which they
liked to call "moderate rebels" (why not "respectable terrorists" or "polite criminals"?).
They lost. Numerous left-wing academics signed on to regime change years ago, and because
they only pretend to be seasoned analysts for their day jobs, they did not foresee the
collapse of the anti-government forces in Syria. That list included noted "post-colonial"
scholars and anthropologists, united in their belief in "democracy promotion" and remaking
Syria into something palatable to them, with the right leaders in place. Five years later and
a smaller group -- including feminists like Gloria Steinem and Judith Butler, anarchists like
Noam Chomsky and the anthropologist David Graeber, the Marxist David Harvey, and advocates of
recolonization like Michael Walzer -- placed their bets on socialist Kurdish militias,
presumably increasing the value of their bet by the important sign value of their brand name
authority. Ironically, in the process of reimagining legendary Rojava as the site of a second
Spanish Civil War, they were openly collaborating with Donald Trump (not naming him directly,
since "the US government" was more convenient). These signatories were thus complicit with
the very same commander-in-chief of the armed forces they were calling on for support of
Syrian Kurds. They wanted "the US government," whose President is Donald Trump, to impose
sanctions on Turkey, and to develop a foreign policy that put Kurdish interests at the
forefront. You can be sure that, elsewhere, in front of different crowds, they return to "the
Resistance" by puffing up their little chests and sounding all "anti-Trump" -- but when it
came to cheering their favourite band of ethnic anarchists, they could dispense with
appearances. Less "prestigious" characters, publishing in a less "prestigious" outlet,
countered the call to "defend Rojava", a call which appropriated "progressive" politics for
the cause of imperialism (thus reigniting an old marriage). (David Harvey, by the way, having
cashed in on abundant sales of his volume, The New Imperialism, has recently changed his
mind: he has decided that imperialism is merely a metaphor, "rather than anything real". Out
of curiosity, we have to wonder if "capitalism" is also a metaphor, rather than anything
real, seeing how Marxists have linked capitalism with imperialism. Perhaps even socialism is
a metaphor, rather than anything real."
This Canadian has a lot to say well worth reading!!!!!
"... Along with Nemtsov, Kara-Murza was an early backer of the US congressional passage of the Magnitsky Act in 2012, which targets Russian oligarchs and officials who support the Putin regime and are accused of corruption and human rights abuses. ..."
"... Since 2014, Kara-Murza has worked for the Open Russia Foundation, which was founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who rose to become one of the most powerful and richest oligarchs of Russia during the 1990s and was imprisoned by Putin in 2003. ..."
"... Gessen also teaches at Columbia University's Journalism School and is the brother of Masha Gessen, who has been heavily involved in the anti-Putin media propaganda for many years. ..."
On Wednesday, October 17, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a leading Russian liberal oppositionist, was interviewed by Keith Gessen, editor
of the n+1 magazine, in an event hosted by Columbia University's Harriman Institute for the Study of Eurasia, Russia and
Eastern Europe. The event was a stark testimony to the advanced preparations for a US-backed "color revolution" in Russia, i.e.,
an imperialist-orchestrated and funded movement of a section of the oligarchy and upper middle class to topple the Putin regime,
similar to those that have taken place in Ukraine and Georgia.
Vladimir Kara-Murza is one of the many shadowy figures of Russian politics who, while little known to most people inside or outside
Russia, are playing a key role in directing and supporting the US anti-Russia policy and the course of the Russian pro-US liberal
opposition. The son of Vladimir Kara-Murza, Sr., who was a major figure in the oligarch-controlled Russian media under Boris Yeltsin
in the 1990s, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Jr. worked for many years as the right-hand man of Boris Nemtsov, one of Yeltsin's key allies
in the 1990s and a right-wing political opponent of Putin, who was assassinated in 2015 under murky circumstances.
Along with Nemtsov, Kara-Murza was an early backer of the US congressional passage of the Magnitsky Act in 2012, which targets
Russian oligarchs and officials who support the Putin regime and are accused of corruption and human rights abuses. He has lobbied
for the adoption of similar legislation by governments throughout the world. Through this work, Kara-Murza also became close to the
late John McCain, one of Washington's foremost supporters of "color revolutions" throughout the territory of the former Soviet Union.
In August, Kara-Murza served as a pallbearer at McCain's funeral, along with former Vice President Joe Biden and the actor Warren
Beatty.
Since 2014, Kara-Murza has worked for the Open Russia Foundation, which was founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who rose to become
one of the most powerful and richest oligarchs of Russia during the 1990s and was imprisoned by Putin in 2003.
In short, Kara-Murza has been at the center of the operations for a color-revolution-type movement in Russia for years. And this
is precisely what he was invited to speak on with the self-styled leftist and Russia expert Keith Gessen, founding editor of the
n+1 magazine, one of the most popular magazines among pseudo-left circles. (Gessen also teaches at Columbia University's
Journalism School and is the brother of Masha Gessen, who has been heavily involved in the anti-Putin media propaganda for many years.)
The event started with Keith Gessen asking Kara-Murza about the
assassination of Boris Nemtsov which the
latter, of course, attributed to the Kremlin. For most of the discussion, however, Kara-Murza detailed his involvement in the preparations
for a color revolution in Russia.
Kara-Murza insisted that "the history of Russia teaches us that big political changes in our country can start quickly and unexpectedly."
He referred to both the 1905 Revolution and the February Revolution of 1917, which, as Kara-Murza pointed out, even took Lenin by
surprise, and then the collapse of the USSR "in three days" in 1991. "This is how things happen in Russia", he insisted, and "the
problem with this is that nobody is prepared. We [at the Open Russia Foundation] see it as our mission to begin those preparations
for future change now. We cannot afford to not be ready again. Most of the things we do inside of Russia is targeted at preparing
for this future transition."
The Open Russia Foundation, he continued, had 25 regional branches and a series of working groups which were already elaborating
plans for political reforms and constitutional changes for the post-Putin period. Furthermore, they were focusing on "work with the
new generation, the people who will be in charge of Russia" through training and education programs. Lastly, they were doing "international"
work, which he himself was in charge of, which included "outreach" directed, again, at preparing the "future transition."
When later asked by an audience member how he saw the future of Russia in the next few decades, he declared that this change would
come not within the next few decades, but within the next few years.
When he was asked from the audience whether the latest pension reform, which is opposed by over 90 percent of the population,
could trigger the kind of "sudden change" he was expecting, Kara-Murza said: "It could but it doesn't have to. There is always the
argument that it's [going to be] something of a socio-economic nature. Actually, if we look at the two decades of Putin, the peak
of the protests was in December 2011 when the middle class was booming. It was about dignity, it had nothing do to with social issues.
The trigger will not be necessarily economic."
He continued, "The only really shaky point [for Putin] was when so many people felt insulted that the government was wiping its
feet over them. I think it's going to be something like that. A color revolution of dignity," like the events in Ukraine in 2014.
In other words, what Kara-Murza and the Open Russia Foundation are working on is the promotion of a right-wing middle-class movement
similar to the Maidan in Ukraine, which would provide the basis for a coup to topple the current government.
The key figures and mechanisms for such a "color revolution" were also addressed at some length. Keith Gessen asked how Kara-Murza
viewed the campaign of the blogger Alexei Navalny, who, as the WSWS has written, is a
far-right, pro-US figure who cloaks his right-wing
program behind murky phrases about corruption. Just how fraudulent and politically calculated this focus is became clear in the discussion
when Keith Gessen asked whether Navalny's focus on corruption as the center of his political platform was "a winning platform." Kara-Murza
responded: "Yes, it is. Corruption is such a widely understandable issue. It's an issue that everybody is aware of."
In the discussion, a graduate student from Harriman asked whether the Open Russia Foundation had a "particular road map" for what
to do when the "sudden event" Kara-Murza expected actually occurred. Kara-Murza replied: "If there were a model, it would be something
like the Polish roundtable [of 1989]. The way we want a transition to happen in Russia is peaceful and smooth. We don't want a violent
revolution. Russia has had enough revolutions. The problem is that the people who are in power today are doing everything for a revolution
to occur."
Then, he went into the figures who would be included in such a roundtable. "Of course, Boris Nemtsov would have been at the roundtable",
but, he assured his audience, there were many others. The figures he named were: Yevgeni Roizman, the mayor of Yekaterinburg, who
is a notorious far-right-winger, with deep ties to the local mafia. In Russia, he became known above all through his alleged "drug"
relief program, which has involved heavy physical abuse of drug addicts.
He also named Galina Shirshina, a member of the liberal opposition party Yabloko (which Nemtsov led until his assassination) as
well as Lev Shlosberg, a local politician in Pskov who is also a leading member of "Yabloko." Finally, Kara-Murza named Dmitri Gudkov,
who is heading the opposition "Party of Changes" with Ksenia Sobchak, the daughter of Putin's mentor Anatoly Sobchak, who
ran as a presidential candidate this year
.
"Navalny and Khodorkovsky would obviously also be at the roundtable", Kara-Murza added. When Gessen asked "What about the Communists?"
Kara-Murza said that Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of the Stalinist and National Bolshevik "Left Front", may also hope for a seat at
the roundtable. "We have very different views, but we have a good personal relationship. He's a decent human being, politically and
on a human level."
Then, he added, "there are also many nationalists who are not controlled by the Kremlin" and who could join the roundtable. Throughout
the event, Kara-Murza repeated that he and his allies were the true patriots and Russian nationalists, as opposed to Putin and the
oligarchs and officials around him. "I just don't want to bore everyone with a long list of names," he said, as he concluded his
enumeration of prospective of roundtable participants.
Like all Russian liberal oppositionists, Kara-Murza makes a hue and cry about rigged elections under Putin. Yet at no point did
he even mention the possibility of an election before or after such a "roundtable," the participants of which have most evidently
already been discussed and set.
There could hardly be a more open statement about the complicity of the so called opposition forces in Russian in a premeditated,
US-backed plot to overthrow the Putin regime and install another, more pro-US, right-wing government in its place.
Kara-Murza speaks for a section of the oligarchy which not only seeks to gain control over the social and economic wealth of Russia,
but also fears that a continuation of the Putin regime will threaten not only Russia's geopolitical position, but also social revolution.
They see their main goal in making sure that a reshuffling within the oligarchy and upper middle class takes place, to assure both
a reorientation of Russian foreign policy more directly in line with the interests of imperialism, and the ongoing suppression of
the working class.
The complete indifference toward the implications of these policies for the masses of working people in Russia was at full display
when Kara-Murza defended the process of capitalist restoration and the 1990s as time when Russia was actually make headway on the
world stage: Russia was included in the G8 and finally internationally recognized, Kara-Murza stressed.
He contemptuously dismissed any criticism of the 1990s by referring to this decade as the "supposedly horrible 90s." The fact
that the Russian economy experienced the worst collapse recorded in modern history for peacetime; that life expectancy plummeted,
that hundreds of thousands committed suicide and were driven into substance abuse and that workers were going without pay for months
and years, all of this is evidently of no concern to him.
Underlining the recklessness of the whole operation, the question of the potential consequences of a "color revolution" was not
even raised. But anyone who looks at the past three decades of US foreign policy knows where this type of intervention of leads:
civil war, ethnic strife, dictatorial regimes, and decades of economic, social and economic crisis. In the case of Russia, a "color
revolution" would most likely mean the violent break-up of the Russian Federation -- many opposition leaders in fact argue for different
borders of Russia. It would, moreover, raise the very immediate danger of a nuclear catastrophe: what if a section of the military
resorts to the vast nuclear arsenal of Russia to defend its interests? And what will the US military and NATO do if a color revolution
underway in Russia suddenly threatens to go astray? Will they intervene directly militarily?
The involvement of Keith Gessen in this dubious event is revealing. At no point did he raise something akin to a critical question.
His role was nothing but to ask polite questions and provide Kara-Murza with a platform. A self-styled leftist, Gessen has translated
and published the writings of Kirill Medvedev, a leading figure in the Russian Socialist Movement (RSM), a Pabloite formation in
Russia. This year, he published a novel "A Terrible Country" in which he, yet again, promotes the Russian pseudo-left. In 2014, the
RSM fully backed the far-right coup in Kiev. In Russia itself, the RSM has long shifted toward full support for Alexei Navalny's
right-wing "anti-corruption campaign," ignoring or dismissing his history of support for Russian fascism and racism. The role of
Gessen in this event is emblematic of the role of these forces as handmaidens US and European imperialism.
It was befitting for Columbia University's Harriman Institute to host this event: the first interdisciplinary Russia institute
to be formed after the beginning of the Cold War, it has historically been associated with US imperialist plotting against first
the Soviet Union and then Russia. To this day, the Harriman Institute, which is a non-profit, functions primarily as a think tank
as well as an educational and recruiting center for Washington's foreign policy establishment and the CIA.
For much of its existence, the Harriman Institute was dominated by the figure and work of
Zbigniew Brzezinski who, for over half a
century, played a central role in elaborating the world strategy and justifying the war crimes of US imperialism. One of Brzezinski's
political trademarks was his advocacy for fostering political opposition and insurrections in the Soviet Union, to undermine the
regime and thus fight what he saw as one of the US's main competitors for the control of Eurasia. The "color revolution" strategy
of US imperialism since 1991 stands in precisely this tradition. Now as then, far-right forces within the elites and fake left tendencies
are the props of imperialism "on the ground."
Events like the one at Columbia reveal much about the state of world politics. "Color revolutions" which will impact the lives
of hundreds of millions and threaten civil and all-out nuclear war, are being discussed and plotted behind the exclusive doors of
an Ivy League institution with an audience of some 50 people, most of whom are graduate students and professors who, one may assume,
either already are on the payroll of the CIA and the State Department or seeking to get there.
The Putin regime offers no alternative to these imperialist machinations. Like the sections of the oligarchy that Kara-Murza speaks
for, Putin and his cronies have emerged out of and enriched themselves on the basis of the destruction of the Soviet Union which
was carried by the Stalinist bureaucracy hand-in-gloves with imperialism. It considers not imperialism, but the Russian working class
to be its main enemy, and, hence, responds to every imperialist provocation is a response of desperate attempts to find a deal with
imperialism, largely behind closed doors, and the promotion of nationalism and militarism at home.
This sinister event is a warning to the international working class about the advanced preparations for the next step in the efforts
of US imperialism to topple the Putin regime and bring the resources of Russia under its direct control: it is high time for workers
both in the US and in Russia to intervene in politics on an independent basis to put an end to these dangerous conspiracies of imperialism
through the struggle for socialism.
Looks like Iran was "Skripaled". Intelligence agencies are now capable to perform false flag operation in thier
home countries and blame other government with absolute impunity.
Notable quotes:
"... Israels secret service Mossad, with the CIA behind it, is framing Iran with alleged assassination plots in Europe. ..."
"... It is unlikely that Iran would take action in Europe, which it urgently needs to reduce the damage of U.S. sanction, over an incident for which it already punished the Islamic State. ..."
"... The Danish claims are allegedly based on information provided by Mossad. That only increases the suspicion that the assassination plot is a false flag operation similar to a recent one in Belgium. More likely though is that the CIA is behind such false flag incidents. ..."
"... Bahram Ghasemi, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Iran "re-emphasized" to the diplomats a previous warning about the presence in their respective countries of members of a group that Iran classifies as a terrorist group and wants arrested and prosecuted. ..."
"... On October 30 Denmark suddenly accused Iran of an assassination plot against a leader of the ASMLA group ..."
"... It indeed seems that Danish government, led by the rightwing Venstre party, is collaborating with the U.S. and Britain to sabotage the European position against U.S. sanctions on Iran ..."
"... The former Secretary General of NATO and U.S. stooge Anders Fogh Rasmussen is the predecessor of the current Venstre party leader and Danish premier Lars Lřkke Rasmussen. Both are hawks. ..."
"... Yesterday Israeli journalist reported that the information on which Denmark acted came from Israel ..."
"... Iran's foreign minister accuses Israel of running false flag operations to frame Iran ..."
"... Times of Israel ..."
"... Iran has no interest in causing any upheaval with Europe shortly before the second round of U.S. sanctions, which threaten its economic well being, come into place early this month. Iran already took revenge for the Ahvaz attack. It has no need to tackle some unrelated separatist who resides in Denmark. Iran needs Europe to work around the U.S. sanctions. That aim prohibits any such operations. ..."
"... Both, the MEK plot as well as the case in Denmark, smell of false flag incidents. In both case no one was hurt. In both cases some stooges with no current relation to Iran were caught. Both cases came to light after information was allegedly provided by Mossad ..."
"... "Both, the MEK plot as well as the case in Denmark, smell of false flag incidents. In both case no one was hurt." Just like with the "bombs" shipped to a few US "liberals" recently. ..."
"... It was only going to be a matter of time until Iran got Skripalled. Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif Tweets a list : "Incredible series of coincidences. Or, a simple chronology of a MOSSAD program to kill the JCPOA?" ..."
Israels secret service Mossad, with the CIA behind it, is framing Iran with alleged assassination plots in Europe.
In September a terror attack killed some 30 people in Iran. Two entities, an Arab separatist movement as well as the Islamic State
terror group ISIS, took responsibility. After an investigation Iran found that it was ISIS which was responsible. It took revenge
against the identified culprits.
Six weeks later Denmark claims, without providing evidence, that Iran tried to assassinate a leader of the Arab separatist movement
over the incident. Iran denies any such attempt. The right wing Danish government uses the claim to urge other European countries
to sanction Iran.
It is unlikely that Iran would take action in Europe, which it urgently needs to reduce the damage of U.S. sanction, over
an incident for which it already punished the Islamic State.
The Danish claims are allegedly based on information provided by Mossad. That only increases the suspicion that the assassination
plot is a false flag operation similar to a recent one in Belgium. More likely though is that the CIA is behind such false flag incidents.
The details:
On September 22 gunmen
killed 29 and wounded
more than 70 participants and onlookers of a veterans day parade in Ahvaz, Iran:
Three of the attackers were gunned down during clashes with the security forces and one other was arrested, news agencies reported.
...
"The terrorists disguised as Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and Basiji (volunteer) forces opened fire to the authority
and people from behind the stand during the parade," the governor of Khuzestan, Gholam-Reza Shariati, said, according to IRNA.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert also referred to the attack as terrorism. Nauert said on Saturday, "We stand
with the Iranian people against the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism and express our sympathy to them at this terrible time".
On 22 September 2018, Yaqoob Al-Ahvaz claimed responsibility for the 2018 Ahvaz military parade attack in comments to UK-based
Iran International TV. He said that his group Ahvaz National Resistance, a part of Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of
Ahvaz, has "no choice but to resist." On 23 September, a statement made in The Hague, Netherlands, on the ASMLA website, denied
responsibility for the attack, saying that the claim was made by a "group that was expelled from the organization since 2015."
After Yaqoob Al-Ahvaz claimed responsibility Iran
accused Saudi Arabia
of involvement in the attack:
IRGC spokesman Ramezan Sharif said the attackers were affiliated with a terrorist group supported by Saudi Arabia, Iran's state-run
Press TV said.
"The individuals who fired at the people and the armed forces during the parade are connected to the al-Ahvaziya group which
is fed by Saudi Arabia," Sharif said. Saudi Arabia has yet to respond to the allegations.
Several years ago ASMLA aka Al-Ahvaziya
committed several
terror attacks in Iran. Its leaders live in the Netherlands and Denmark.
Iran immediately reminded
those countries of their duties:
Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned the ambassadors of the Netherlands and Denmark, along with a senior British diplomat on Saturday
to issue a strong protest the attack, Iran's state-run media reports.
Bahram Ghasemi, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Iran "re-emphasized" to the diplomats a previous warning about
the presence in their respective countries of members of a group that Iran classifies as a terrorist group and wants arrested
and prosecuted.
According to IRNA, Ghasemi said "it is unacceptable" that members of a terrorist group be allowed in those countries and not
be included on the European Union's terror list only because they have not committed crimes on European soil.
A few days later though, Iran concluded that the attack was not committed by the Ahvaz movement, but by the Islamic State. On
October 1 it responded with a missile salvo
that hit Islamic State facilities in Syria:
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced they have bombed a site in eastern Syria in retaliation to the terrorist
attack against a military parade in Iranian Ahvaz 10 days ago.
...
The IRGC confirmed that the targeted terrorist group was behind the terror attack that killed over a dozen and injured many
more in the city of Ahvaz.
An additional operation against the planers of the attack
took place on October 15 in Iraq:
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Tuesday they had killed the "mastermind" behind an attack on a military parade in the Iranian
city of Ahvaz last month which left 25 people dead, nearly half of them members of the Guards.
The Guards said in a statement published on state media their forces had killed a man named Abu Zaha and four other militants
in Diyala province in Iraq. One news website run by Iran's state television said Abu Zaha was a member of Islamic State.
That closed the issue for Iran.
On October 30 Denmark suddenly accused Iran of
an assassination plot against a leader of the ASMLA group:
Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen described the alleged planned assassination by Iran of an exiled separatist leader
in Denmark as "totally unacceptable"
The Iranian ambassador to Copenhagen was summoned to the foreign ministry over the allegations. A Norwegian citizen of Iranian
origin was arrested in Sweden on 21 October in connection with the alleged plan. The man denies the charges. Authorities conducted
a massive manhunt on 28 September which led to road closures, trains and ferries being cancelled, and bridges being shut across
Denmark.
On Tuesday, Danish intelligence chief Finn Borch Andersen confirmed the measures had been taken to prevent the alleged plot.
The Danish intelligence accused the Norwegian citizens of taking pictures of a house where one of the ASMLA leader lives. It provide
no evidence for its claims. Iran rejected the accusations:
An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said such "biased reports" and allegations pursued " the enemy's plots and conspiracies"
to harm the developing relations between Iran and Europe , according to Tasnim news agency.
It indeed seems that Danish government, led by the rightwing Venstre party, is collaborating with the U.S. and Britain to
sabotage the European position against U.S. sanctions on Iran:
Mr Rasmussen said, after a meeting with his British counterpart Theresa May in Oslo, that he appreciated her support. "In close
collaboration with UK and other countries we will stand up to Iran," he tweeted. Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said Denmark
would discuss further actions with European partners in the coming days.
The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, congratulated
Denmark on arresting "an Iranian regime assassin".
The former Secretary General of NATO and U.S. stooge Anders Fogh Rasmussen is the predecessor of the current
Venstre party leader and Danish premier Lars Lřkke
Rasmussen. Both are hawks.
Yesterday Israeli journalist reported that the information on which Denmark acted came from Israel:
BREAKING: Israeli Mossad gave Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) the information about the assassination attempt
planned by Iranian intelligence service against the leader of the Iranian opposition organization ASMLA, Israeli official tells
me
Well - if Israeli officials says Iran did something bad that will surely be true. (Not.)
Iran's foreign minister
accuses
Israel of running false flag operations to frame Iran :
Denmark's accusations against Iran followed the unveiling of another suspected Iranian plot to target a Paris rally by an opposition
group in June. According to Israeli reports, the Mossad helped thwart that attack as well , which led to the arrest of several
Iranians in Europe, including a diplomat.
The earlier plot
involved two members of the anti-Iranian terror cult MEK in Belgium who were caught with explosives that they allegedly wanted
to use to blow up a MEK conference in Paris:
The allegation that an Iranian operative plotted an attack on French soil is jeopardizing Europe's support for the accord. As
U.S. and Israeli officials ramp up pressure on Europe to sever ties with Tehran, they have cited it as a reason why Mr. Macron
and other leaders should end their support for the deal.
On Tuesday, Denmark announced it had foiled an Iranian operation to kill a dissident, turning up the pressure on Europe to
harden its posture toward Tehran. A spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry said Iran had no involvement in the case.
The most interesting question about such plots is always "Cui bono?". Who benefits from these incidents?
Iran has no interest in causing any upheaval with Europe shortly before the second round of U.S. sanctions, which threaten
its economic well being, come into place early this month. Iran already took revenge for the Ahvaz attack. It has no need to tackle
some unrelated separatist who resides in Denmark. Iran needs Europe to work around the U.S. sanctions. That aim prohibits any such
operations.
Both, the MEK plot as well as the case in Denmark, smell of false flag incidents. In both case no one was hurt. In both cases
some stooges with no current relation to Iran were caught. Both cases came to light after information was allegedly provided by Mossad
.
But is it really Israel who set up these incidents? Both serve U.S. interest just as much. It is no secret that the U.S. wants
to prevent European subversion of U.S. sanctions on Iran.
In June 2017 the Trump administration
installed
a new CIA group to plot and launch undercover operations against Iran. It is led by its most ruthless operator:
He is known as the Dark Prince or Ayatollah Mike, nicknames he earned as the Central Intelligence Agency officer who oversaw the
hunt for Osama bin Laden and the American drone strike campaign that killed thousands of Islamist militants and hundreds of civilians.
Now the official, Michael D'Andrea, has a new job. He is running the C.I.A.'s Iran operations, according to current and former
intelligence officials, an appointment that is the first major sign that the Trump administration is invoking the hard line the
president took against Iran during his campaign.
Mr. D'Andrea's new role is one of a number of moves inside the spy agency that signal a more muscular approach to covert operations
under the leadership of Mike Pompeo, the conservative Republican and former congressman, the officials said.
A year later the same Mike Pompeo, now Secretary of State, created the
Iran Action Group within
the State Department. It is a complementary entity to the CIA group. Little has been published about the action both groups have
taken so far. What has Ayatollah Mike done since he set up shop 18 month ago?
It is likely that the false flag operations in Europe, like the ones in Belgium and Denmark, are run by the CIA with the Mossad
only in an auxiliary role. The U.S. can hardly admit that it is faking terrorist incidents in Europe while the overrated Mossad loves
to take credit for everything that happens on this world.
Europe has no interest in supporting or escalating Trump's war on Iran. EU countries should demand hard evidence from Denmark
and other accusers of Iran and should not act on the basis of only vague accusations.
Posted by b on November 1, 2018 at 10:30 AM |
Permalink
Comments Iran should sue the puppet state Denmark. End of story
Israel is regarded as a beneficent country with no ulterior motives by western governments and media. Every time, you can count
on like clockwork, no matter how outrageous or self serving the claim.
thanks b.. i agree with your analysis here.. the usa needs to keep its puppet states. on a string... cia has a long history of
these types of actions.. i am surprised at how easily or convenient it is for the puppets to continue as puppets.. and of course
as we approach the nov 5 th financial santion bs from the evil empire that claims equality for all (after usa and israel are cared
for) will be trying to alienate the rest of the world to iran as much as possible.. the timing here is in line with that goal
post.. very predictible, just like our local shill who will claim it is iran as opposed to usa-israel-ksa and etc, that pull this
shit regularly.. the same ugly crew responsible for supporting terrorism as witnessed in syria, yemen and etc further back are
at work here... predictible..
i suspect more bs to come from these same state sponsored liars....
The complete and utter amorality of the West on display yet again, as if we needed any more examples. There is certainly compelling
evidence that a group of "extremists" are endangering all of humanity and the entire planet, the only problem for Western MSM
in reporting on this is that those "extremists" are in fact the ruling elites of the West and their "allies" in Saudi Arabia and
Israel.
"Both, the MEK plot as well as the case in Denmark, smell of false flag incidents. In both case no one was hurt." Just like
with the "bombs" shipped to a few US "liberals" recently.
I thought the War on Terror dictated that the whole world was the battlefield. What's the difference between Iran trying to take
down a terrorist in Denmark and the US trying to take one down in Pakistan or Afghanistan or Africa?
It was only going to be a matter of time until Iran got Skripalled. Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif
Tweets a list : "Incredible series of coincidences.
Or, a simple chronology of a MOSSAD program to kill the JCPOA?"
Please note the last listed "coincidence."
Also on Zarif's Twitter is a video segment of his interview with Face The Nation and other important announcements.
This is what he said about the Pittsburg attack:
"Extremism and terrorism know no race or religion, and must be condemned in all cases. The world deserves better than to
have to live with weaponized demagoguery. Thoughts and prayers with victims of terrorist attack on Pittsburgh synagogue and
their loved ones." [My Emphasis]
The nations of the world have had the following choice to make for awhile now, and I'd say the choice can no longer be kicked
down the road:
Either blindly follow the two prevaricating Outlaw Nations--United States and Israel--or stand with Russia, China, and others
in supporting proven truths and upholding the fundamental principles of International Law as expressed via the UN Charter. In
other words, it's past time to review GW Bush's dicta: Either you're with us or against us--abet the lawbreakers or join the posse
to contain them.
The evil empire and their bought minions are infecting the globe. They will never stop until their domination by organised $ brings
surfs everywhere under their control.
These forces do not believe in a "middle class", they believe the wealthiest should rule because it creates a more stable and
predictable society..
A society Charles Dickens wrote about. Wonderful...
One needs a high level of stupid among the western population to sell bull s... by the buckets. But then again, that is US and
allies. As was said: Too stupid to realize they are stupid. In the US the most trusted institution is the military. Proof enough?
about MEK, the terrorist group... our shithead exprime minister steven harper was singing the praises of them the past month....
apparenlty stevie just can't do enough for israel and zionism, and if the canuck media which is essentialy bought and paid for
by the same interests has its way, we will get a similar insane gov't after trudeau light is finished his term... apparently canucks
are one cycle behind the usa in electing its leaders... it will be a trump type israel subservient toad for next pm of cauckistan...
i sure wish the western political players weren't so beholden to neoliberalism. and we had someone even half the leader putin
is.... but, we don't....
East by not responding strongly to West provocations is begging for war.
East by crying for West for cooperation is begging for war.
And since East and West are controlled by the same same cabal - war is inevitable.
Just ask Mr. Kissinger...
The Edomites, who after Rome's extermination of the remnant of the House of Israel at Jerusalem began calling themselves "Jews"
for "controlled opposition" for "the real Anti-Christ" "engine for enslaving mankind" we founded God's America to escape, become
sex perverts, including incesting Sabbatean Frankists - hence the Manchu-baldness, as a consequence of their satanic cult's ritual
sodomy of innocent toddlers while being rabbinically inculcated as "gods chosen by God to rule the world."
Wow. Thank You for this one. After reading this excellent assessment of the present situation, of which we might only know the
most shallow facts, I had to do a search (DDG) about Iran during the time of the first openly Fascist Europe - being described
as having emanated from 3rd-Reich-Germany and Italy.
I was unaware that there was an
Anglo-Soviet
Invasion of Iran , because of the alleged sympathy of the Shah's Iran with Nazi-Germany. The Brits and the Russians were buddies
then and wanted to prevent that Iranian oil is accessible to Nazi-Germany.
All over sudden I am confused that the Brits invaded shoulder to shoulder with Soviet forces Iran - while now, besides delivering
the political ham theater of saber rattling against Russia, supporting terror and instigating sanctions against Iran again.
To make things much worse to comprehend, one is to wonder how many European countries actually did join Nazi Germany without
much ado at the time, based on the fact that the Scandinavians and the Netherlands are now as Fascist as Nazi Germany was during
its short 1000 years of glory. Does anybody else get the impression that this was always this way? That we have been lied to about
everything regarding Fascism? That it was never Fascism that was the problem in Europe - as it appears to do very well there -
but a strong Germany that could have easily governed its territory via effective 'bureaucracy'. All of Europe.
The truth is, that the stench of Fascism today, was already stinking badly in the 20th century, but was never really a problem.
The problem were the Germans. And somehow, the Germans want to continue to have economic ties with Iran. Is this how history repeats
itself - minus the marching Soviet/Russian and British buddy forces?
How many false flag operations have been invoked to explain unpopular events in recent years? The British government was behind
the attempted murder of Skripal. All of the chemical attacks launched against the opposition in Syria were false flag operations
to bring the US into the war (which amounted to nothing burgers anyway). Ray McGovern hypothesized the US used the Vault 7 tools
as a false flag to blame Russia for the DNC hack. Is there any end to false flag speculation?
Who cares if the Iranians deny the charge? That means absolutely nothing. Russia has been lying and denying for years. Additionally,
that Mossad would have provided the information to Denmark and France is completely logical since they have been collecting intelligence
on Iran for years - and have been dealing with Iranian-supported terrorists for decades.
There is no evidence for a false flag operation. Sure it's a possibility (it's always a possibility), but the current evidence
points toward Iranian plans to murder dissidents. The British were right about Skripal. The Dutch were right about MH17. Ray McGovern
was wrong about the CIA hacking the DNC - and the likely result of this investigation is that Iran planned to murder a couple
of dissidents. In lieu of the stupidity exhibited by the Saudis in the Khashoggi murder, it's completely believable.
With all of that said, this is a well thought out attempt to blame the US.
Denmark has become another UK, willing to perform any act and light any fuse against Russia, Iran or any nation that challenges
the hegemony of US, EU and NATO.
Just a subservient vassal, self-degradating. I would compare Denmark to a whore, but that defames those poor souls.
The Danes are like Brits. There, I said it. Nothing worse than the official scumbags of Britain. Pity the good folks of both
countries.
Such a little country desperately trying to hide their true Nazi soul, fabricating events and promulgating Fake News and bogus
Intel.
In service to big Hegemon and little hegemon (Israel).
thanks for the analysis. we all see the pattern, but i guess it's still important to debunk the bullshit--it just never seems
to stop the predetermined goals. it was widely seen that saddam's alleged wmd's didn't exist, but the invasion went on. now the
u.s. wants war with iran. unless russia or china intervenes, what can stop it?
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Nov 1, 2018 3:15:48 PM |
link
@10 - WJ: Difference is, USA has drones and some 19 yo teen can kill you with his joystick. ;)
I think false flag seems likely, but i also have some doubts about ISIS claiming to be resposible. The Iranian state is also pretty
complex, with many different actors and power centers. So it cant be ruled out that those arab seperatists are resposible and
that some rouge IRGC faction took action against reason of the state as a whole.
Like B said, the EU should demand evidence. Like with Skripal.. Not trust the Danish NATO proxys.
The Dutch were not right about MH17, and neither are the Danes. Almost certainly another anti-Iranian false flag coming --
this on American soil -- w war soon to follow.
'The Russian military traced the Buk missile [9M38 missile], which shot down the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in eastern
Ukraine in 2014, using serial numbers found on missile fragments showcased by an international team of investigators led by the
Netherlands.
'Using the serial number of the nozzle cluster 9D13105000 No. 8-30-113 and the engine of the missile 9D131 with the serial
number 8869032, the Russian military identified this missile as one produced by the Dolgoprudny plant – a Soviet/Russian designer
and mass producer of surface-to-air missiles located in the city of Dolgoprudny, Moscow Oblast.
'The military said that the documentation for the aforementioned missile is still stored at the plant – the missile with the
aforementioned engine and nozzle cluster has the manufacturing serial number of 8868720.
'According to the provided documents, the nozzle cluster was installed in the missile on December 24, 1986. The engine was
installed to the missile on the same day.'
About the only difference between Trump and Hillary I can judge is he's not quite as reckless. Otherwise, their policy goal
remains the same: Full Spectrum Dominance by any means necessary. The attack proves yet again the Outlaw US Empire would rather
have destabilization and war in the region than peace, still thinking it remains the World's Boss.
Thanks b, this is Journalism. Poor craigsummers appears to be in shock. It's ok craig.
We're in a really strange place vis a vis "Mossad" in the west. The average person on the street doesn't know whether to idolize
them as superhuman kickass kravmaga-inventing Jason Bourne types, or diabolical creeps like Weinstein's "former Mossad" minions.
Then Sacha Baron Cohen comes around and makes them funny again. Are they scary? Funny? When they appear in official media, it's
usually in a display of mindblowing incompetence or fraud. So you can see how we're confused.
25 - "USA has drones and some 19 yo teen can kill you with his joystick."
Yes, from a safe place in some place in the U.S. desert, but I wonder how the pilots of the aircraft refueling the KSA bombing
runs to Yemen feel as they finish and do a 180 to return to base. Do they first look to see what their evil has done before heading
back?
More likely it is Iran conveniently concluded that ISIS was responsible, only to get off the hook of EU countries that harbor
terrorists not only anti Iran by anti Russia, so they closed the case not to wreck meek EU attempt to find the way around US sanctions
with trade with Iran. Mossad did not like that and hence used another Russia Gate like provocation to stop EU Iran accommodation,
this time claiming new Iranian terrorism issue Orwelian style blame victims.
karlof1 27 "About the only difference between Trump and Hillary I can judge is he's not quite as reckless."
I would agree with that, but I also think he will be willing to take big risks to see his plan through. He may well be like
Putin's cornered rat if his plans are blocked.
One question we should be asking is why all of a sudden is Denmark taking a leading role in accusing Iran of supporting terrorism
and terrorist cells in Europe. Is Denmark's action as much to pressure Sweden and Finland into joining NATO as it is to pressure
the EU into following the US in sanctioning Iran and tearing up the nuclear treaty the EU still adheres to?
This crap by the Danes is not without precedent. They were in on the US attack against the SAA at Deir Ezzor. US, UK, Australia
and Denmark all took part in that attack.
One question we should be asking is why all of a sudden is Denmark taking a leading role
the danes swede and norway,netherlands folks have all been anglo zion borged.
the man leading this charge is a mr samuel son a proud son of a son i am sure he believes what he says i'm sure he has good reason.
wait for future headlines involving norways trillion dollar sovreign wealth fund vanishing just like gadaffi libya or ukraines
gold..
country control via epstein lolita express blackmail.
young boys and girls in ritual cctv horror show as a form of soft power persuasion
I'm not entirely convinced b. The Iranian government has a long history of assassination attempts. And Denmark is not exactly
a war mongering nation so your claims seem a bit shaky. I have never been impressed by analyses of Iran on this blog, as I think
both b and many commentators here totally ignorant of the IRI's crimes against its own citizens. I am very knowledgable when it
comes to Iran and so incidents like these do not surprise me. Of course I should make clear that it is possible to be against
the IRI and western war mongering nations at the same time.
I just can't stand responding to cs21 hasbara garbage; nothing is more annoying than hasbara. To quote Irish Nobel laureate GB
Shaw: never wrestle with pigs, you both get dirty and the pig loves it!
Mossad used the MEK and another terrorist group, Jundallah in Iran when they didn't do the dirty job themselves to assassinate
Iranian scientists extra-judicially. Imagine if JFK had done same when Israel was developing its nuclear weapons on the sly?
That's not all, Mossad used these terrorists like they used terrorists in Syria to foment manufactured revolution, specifically,
in Iran, the Green Revolution and as for example what was done in Ukraine, terrorist snipers masquerading as basiji fired into
the crowd of green protestors and killed a young women who the Western media elevated as the face of the Revolution hoping it
would incite anger that would spread exponentially and trigger riots everywhere then civil war like in Syria and Ukraine, but
they were very disappointed. This is playbook Mossad/CIA revolution engineering. All constituted criminal acts against sovereign
nations, except in Iran their plan fizzled.
Mossad also used false flag against Gadaffi in Libya and years earlier against Mossadegh, the democratically elected leader
of Iran that preceded the Shah. The Lavon Affair was a false flag comprised of multiple terrorist attacks that Israel planned
and plotted to execute and blame on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Egyptian groups.
Mossad has assassinated what it considered to be terrorists in Europe, Syria, Lebanon, UAE, Jordan and on and on with total
impunity. Some of these so-called terrorists were political leaders recent example Arafat, and attempted murder of Meschal, at
least one or more were false flag to trigger civil war, i.e. in Lebanon, and some were what South African Apartheid victims would
consider resistance and freedom fighters.
Israel also attacked the USSLiberty and no doubt had a hand in U.S. military sabotage in Lebanon not to mention murdering American
journalists and activists.
ALL this was done with impunity. So in regards to these foiled terrorist attacks I have no doubt Mossad is up to no good and
Israel has everything to gain in this dirty business they have executed many times before.
The truth lies in who benefits most and who has exhibited the most egregious pattern of behaviour. ISRAEL.
Yes, it certainly smells like a false flag operation.
The CIA, MI6, and Mossad have been doing such operations in Europe since the end of WW2.
No surprise.
IRAN must be a hasbara trigger word. The Zionist web army recruits have arrived. Everything you pulled out of wiki I can double,
triple, quadruple for Isra-hell. For starters, let's talk about Prison facility 1391 - torture, murder, perpetual isolation--dark
ages stuff.
Let's talk about the kidnapping, imprisonment, even torture of children. Perhaps, the worst human rights record against children.
8000 Palestinian children arrested since 2000.
What about the two-tier justice system in Isra-hell?
Shall we discuss the murder of activists, journalists and protestors? What about political prisoners in Isra-hell? What about
administrative detention. Detention without trial.
This is the tip of the iceberg regarding Isra-hell's human rights abuses. Don't get me started.
As we approach the end of the year the big questions facing Europe are:
(1) Which country will win the prize for the most decapitations or slit throats? France or Germany?
With dozens of horrific crimes recently these two competitors are running neck and neck, however with Macron's France averaging
close to one slit throat per day, France is probably going to win this contest
Which leaves us with the big question Germans are asking
(2) Which city will earn the distinction of being 2018's Rape Capital of Germany?
For a long time it seemed that the winner would surely be Berlin, but then Freiburg lurched into the lead a few weeks ago.
And now, with a 15-year-old being gang-raped by Afghan asylum seekers, Munich is hustling to take the title.
This crime and subsequent arrests were kept out of the media for a few weeks
-- coincidentally, until just after the recent local elections in Bavaria
The article below from Bild, also translated into English, contains additional details:
Suspects in Custody: Six Men Allegedly Raped Girl (15)
October 30, 2018
Munich -- The Munich police have arrested five Afghan refugees; according to Bayerischer Rundfunk another alleged perpetrator
is on the run.
The allegation: They reportedly raped a 15-year-old girl.
The Munich public prosecutor confirmed to BILD upon request that there is an investigation involving a sexual assault and several
people have been arrested. The spokesman did not want to comment further.
The case: The girl, who is being psychologically cared for, according to BILD's information, had filed charges against her
"partner" at the end of September. The asylum seeker is said to have verbally threatened her and thereby forced her to have intercourse.
Also, he forced her to have intercourse with several his friends. She was so intimidated that she had to endure being abused
by them all for several days. Each case is to be handled individually. Physical violence had played no role in the incidents.
In addition to the alleged victim's partner, four other refugees (all between 20 and 25 years old) were arrested. The alleged
perpetrators are registered asylum seekers.
In the meantime, warrants have been issued against them on suspicion of rape. They are in custody.
The assaults are said to have occurred at the end of September. The first arrests were made four weeks ago.
Some interrogations remain to be conducted to substantiate the allegations made by the alleged victim, which is one explanation
for why the authorities have not made the case public.
Some of the detainees admitted that they had intercourse with the minor, but said that it had taken place by mutual agreement."
Got that?
According to Bild, "Physical violence played no role in the incidents"
First their is money laundering charges by the US against Denmark's largest bank and now we have Denmark joining the Trump stomp
on Iran project. Could it be the US cut a deal with Denmark to limit their investigations and penalties into this bank and maybe
others, or possible involvement of Danish government officials, and the Dane's jumped at the chance to limit the damage to the
country and it's economy and keep sanction happy Trump from sanctioning them into the poor house.
Denmark, like Sweden and Norway are the biggest enablers of USA's imperial efforts more than any other nations in the whole world.
I think it is only Russia which gets that fact. Nobel prizes are nothing but tooks of the US empire
42 ben, ditto... cs has never heard of the cia and the past countless years of there horrors... in fact as far as cs is concerned,
they never had any role to play in ghouta 2011 and afterwards either...cs thinks the letters stand for charity international association...usaid
is another benevolent org as far as cs is concerned... if cs was ever to read john perkins 'confessions of an economic hit man'
he would fall out of his chair and have his world turned upside down.... cs really needs to hang over at pat langs site where
some of his love and ignorance of the usa's covert history has a place of acceptance.. it ain't here..
"It is likely that the false flag operations in Europe, like the ones in Belgium and Denmark, are run by the CIA with the Mossad
only in an auxiliary role."
Very difficult to distinguish the two. Israel declared its campaign to internally destabilise Iran last spring (evidently having
quailed at the risks of the open military attack), the US has been fruitlessly attempting the same for forty years. I suppose
the new Israeli campaign has revived US efforts.
By the way, I was interested by Alastair Crooke's recent remark that Israeli air superiority has been broken by the S300s.
Crooke's views are to take seriously.
Steve, how could you overlook the all time top lap dog: the UK? The UK would be first on most people's list of sycophant enablers
of US terrorism, regime change, and false flag operations. Sometimes Macron tries to run ahead of the pack, but gets slapped back
by Trump, but when all is said and done, the whole NATO crew are self-serving idiots and assholes.
Denmark, like Sweden and Norway are the biggest enablers of USA's imperial efforts more than any other nations in the whole world.
I think it is only Russia which gets that fact. Nobel prizes are nothing but tooks of the US empire
Posted by: Steve | Nov 2, 2018 4:49:42 AM | 46
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well said!
I totally agree with you after saw the ghastly bully behaviour of Denmark on 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference,
who was actively trying to force down the throat of BRICS (EPS. China & India) and developing countries the schemes that US &
Co wanted: 1): to strangle the development chance of third world and 2). to escape the accountability/ownership of the big messy
pollution the Western countries has been emitted into the air and the world for centuries.
Another aggressive Dane who was in full swing to propagate the Empire's interests/schemes is Anders Fogh Rasmussen, ex-NATO
Secretary General, who was so belligerent that I sometimes question how the peace-love Denmark can produce such an aggressive
person......
b, is there any way to highlight a 'Craig Summers' post at the top, so we can skip over his/her/their lying rubbish unread. Bad
enough having to wade through the effusions of the sprinkling of religious loonies who seem to be posting now, without wasting
time on this bellingcrap-style hasbarollocks.
"In the beginning of 2017 the Danish Security Service PET had received information about planned political murder of individuals
in Denmark who oppose the Turkish government. The PET acted on the information and put the would be targets in safety. This is
revealed by Swedish Radio Ekot. https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=83&artikel=6975341
And is Denmark going to stop doing this:"Denmark's foreign minister has for the first time acknowledged that the government
allowed the sale of surveillance technology to authoritarian Arab governments, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE." "Mass surveillance
during and after the Arab Spring was used to facilitate the mass incarceration of dissidents, leading to the eventual crushing
of popular movements, the report alleged."
And what are the Syro-Ahwazian pro-FSA dudes up to in Denmark:"One battalion of the rebel Free Syrian Army is called the "Ahwaz
Brigade", although the group says there are no foreign fighters in its ranks.
"We have relations with different factions of the (Syrian) rebels," said Habib Nabgan, the former head of a coalition of Ahwazi
parties whose armed wing carried out last week's pipeline attack.
"They need information, which we give them, and we need some of their expertise, so there is cooperation and that is developing,"
he told Reuters via telephone from Denmark, where he took refuge in 2006." https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-iran-arabs-insight-idUKBRE97E0O620130815
Ahwazians in Syria:"Before the Syrian uprising, the Ahwazi community in Damascus was living in fear, but is now fully behind the
revolutionary struggle.There have been frequent demonstrations in Syria by Ahwazi Arabs flying the opposition flag alongside their
own."
Interesting, the first time i heard of this story my instinct immediately was, why on earth would Iran conduct such risky and
rather pointless operations where the downside would greatly outweigh any benefit if they were caught?? Add to that, no one was
harmed, they got "caught".. and Mossad involved.. seems pretty clear to anyone who actually understands what's going on in the
world.. but there aren't many of us who actually think when we read the news.. thanks again MR B for another insightful piece
on analysis :)
Why? Because you think your Zionist propaganda claptrap is actually convincing and working to bring down surviving bastions
of independent thought? It's laughable how hasbara-scripted you read; delivering superficially well-constructed neoliberal brainwash,
whitewash material. Your disingenuous ilk courting the Left with liberal goodies, in one hand while unleashing double-standard
neoconservative righteous destruction with the other is the main reason we now suffer Trump's fascist right-wing version of same.
People protest vote neoliberalism and end up in the arms of the hard right-wing version. It's a no choice choice; an affront to
real democracy. You play the desperation of the Left against the Right and then deliver it into the same neoconstruct. You're
two sides of the same cult and neither can stand independent thought. After I read your Zionist-contrived claptrap, I feel like
my mind has been abused and my time wasted. Once you're wise to the trap, you never go back to falling for whichever charismatic
puppet is going to save us from the other side.
The goal becomes helping others break free of the vicious, cyclical no-choice duopoly to viably challenge and destroy it for
good! You pretend at righeousness, but you're on the side of status quo darkness.
Uh, just one more point, I still believe in GW Shaw's wisdom that you shouldn't wrestle with ignorance, ie pigs, but I just intended
@56 as a Reader Beware CS for anyone who's out there only reading.
Perhaps of more importance was Crooke's remark on US debt. He said in August the cost of servicing the debt, for the first
time, exceeded tax revenue. On top of that, the US must sell over a trillion of new debt each year for the next three years.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Nov 2, 2018 11:31:43 AM | 58
Yes I too thought that was interesting. But Israel's problem is more fatal, in a permanent sense. Air superiority once lost
won't be recovered, but the US could, if it wanted to, live more within its means.
As usual, some former official has to include : Israeli intelligence tipped off the CIA that Iran had likely identified
some of its assets, said the same former official.
"Bolton, speaking Wednesday at an event hosted by the Alexander Hamilton Society in Washington, said he expects U.S. defense
spending "to flatten out" in the near term. He said he didn't anticipate major cuts to entitlements such as Medicare and Social
Security.
""It is a fact that when your national debt gets to the level ours is, that it constitutes an economic threat to the society,"
Bolton said. "And that kind of threat ultimately has a national security consequence for it.""
Of course, he wants to cut support for citizens instead of support for the Deep State and its massively corrupt MIC. The massive
cut in revenues caused by Trump's giveaways to corporations and the 1% were designed to exacerbate the problem and create an artificial
crisis in discretionary spending. Most from all sides of the political spectrum can see this for what it is and are already pushing
back, which will be the fundamental reason Trump won't get a 2nd term--his policies are proving to be a fiscal nightmare.
The evidence provided by the author that the CIA was the primary driving agent in these incidents is not compelling. In fact,
the US government under Obama supported the JCPOA against the wishes of the Netanyahu government. Thus the statement that "US
interests" are necessarily defined by sanctions against Iran seems to me to be unfounded. Had the author replaced "US interests"
with "Trump administration policies", which are clearly much more aligned with the interests of the Likud and Netanyahu the statement
might be more supportable.
"Do you remember the Green revolution of 2009 that went pfttttt?"
Very interesting article, but the Green Revolution didn't go pfft because of that. 2009 failed because the middle class aren't
very good at revolutions. They aren't the majority, and they didn't have popular support.
Saddam Hussein had no nuclear weapons, contrary to US and British claims. I discovered in
Baghdad a group of British scientific technicians who had been sent by the UK Ministry of
Defense to build outlawed biological weapons at Salman Pak. These included deadly anthrax
and Q-fever – but only for use against Iran if a second Iraq-Iran War erupted.
Plenty of good stuff at the link including what we have read before.
The article leads me to this question: If whomever can fabricate Syrian Army messages,
isn't there one small problem with it? I.e. The Brits may be hoovering up SIGNIT from Mount
Troodos in Cyprus, but unless the radio signals are highly directional (and even then they
emanate outwards), other nations are also recording these signals, such as Russia,
which we never hear about.
Therefore, the Brits/8200 whomever must assume that the Russians have copies and would
know if the former are putting up the bs and can call it out behind closed doors at the UN to
other nations. So what's the point? Simply for building media outrage and DO
SOMETHING! momentum, hoping to act first before it can be scotched? That's what used to
happen in the past
That's a really good piece, with loads of interesting information. What jumped out for me,
though was what amounts to a professional acknowledgement of something that was introduced by
commenters early on in the Skripal affair – the almost complete absence of CCTV footage
of their movements and those of people close to them. As both sources point out, England is
lousy with CCTV, you can barely move without being picked up on multiple cameras. Therefore
the British must have hours of footage that they have chosen not to reveal. And as the
article concludes, the only logical reason for that is that it does not support the official
narrative, since one has obviously been decided upon and vigorously defended.
As an aside, it is tragic that intelligence is manipulated the way it is to present a
desired conclusion. Because intelligence is supposed to be something like the irrefutable
clue, the piece that doesn't fit, in detective stories. It is supposed to provide that
epiphanous moment when you know what has transpired beyond any reasonable doubt. Every
time that moment is discovered to have been brought about by fabrication and deceit so as to
push an incorrect conclusion to the forefront, trust in the method diminishes. Consequently,
the harder governments push this or that piece of evidence as the conclusive piece of proof
which cannot be denied, the more likely it is to have been manufactured rather than
discovered.
A tweetstorm consisting of quotes from Israel Shamir's excellent
article on Bill Browder showing how he operated in an entirely Jewish milieu. Jewish ethnic
networking is alive and well in the twenty-first century.
Kevin MacDonald @TOOEdit Jul 27, 2018
What makes Browder so powerful? He invests in politicians. This probably a uniquely Jewish
quality: Jews outspend everybody in contributions to political figures,
unz.com/ishamir/the-go...
The Untouchable Mr. Browder?
The Browder affair is a heady upper-class Jewish cocktail of money, spies, politicians and
international crime.
Russian NTV channel reported that Browder lavishly financed the US lawmakers. Here they
present alleged evidence of money transfers: some hundred thousand dollars was given by
Browder's structures officially to the senators and congressmen in order to promote the
Magnitsky Act
12:04 PM-Jul 27, 2018
Much bigger sums were transferred via good services of Brothers Ziff, mega-rich Jewish
American businessmen, said the researchers in two articles published on the Veteran News
Network and in The Huffington Post.
12:05 PM-Jul 27, 2018
Kevin MacDonald @TOOEdit Jul 27, 2018 # Replying to @TOOEdit
"Beneficiary of Browder's generosity is Ben Cardin, a Democrat from Maryland, the engine
behind Magnitsky Act. Cardin is a fervent supporter of Hillary Clinton, also a cold warrior
of good standing. More to a point, Cardin is a prominent member of Israel Lobby.
Kevin MacDonald @TOOEdit
"Browder affair is a heady upper-class Jewish cocktail of money, spies, politicians and
international crime. Almost all involved figures appear to be Jewish, not only Browder,
Brothers Ziff and Ben Cardin." Lists other Jews he was involved with: Robert Maxwell, Safra,
Berezovsky,
Two disappearances, and two very different responses from Western governments, which
illustrates their rank hypocrisy.
When former Russian spy Sergei Skripal went missing in England earlier this year, there was
almost immediate punitive action by the British government and its NATO allies against Moscow.
By contrast, Western governments are straining with restraint towards Saudi Arabia over the
more shocking and provable case of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The outcry by Western governments and media over the Skripal affair was deafening and
resulted in Britain, the US and some 28 other countries
expelling dozens of Russian diplomats on the back of unsubstantiated British allegations
that the Kremlin tried to assassinate an exiled spy with a deadly nerve agent. The Trump
administration has further tightened sanctions
citing the Skripal incident.
London's case against Moscow has been marked by wild speculation and ropey innuendo. No
verifiable evidence of what actually happened to Sergei Skripal (67) and his daughter Yulia has
been presented by the British authorities . Their claim that President Vladimir Putin
sanctioned a hit squad armed with nerve poison relies on sheer conjecture.
All we know for sure is that the Skripals have been disappeared from public contact by the British authorities for more than
seven months, since the mysterious incident of alleged poisoning in Salisbury on March 4.
Russian authorities and family relatives have been steadfastly refused any contact by London with the Skripal pair, despite
more than 60 official requests from Moscow in accordance with international law and in spite of the fact that Yulia is a citizen
of the Russian Federation with consular rights.
It is an outrage that based on such thin ice of "evidence", the British have built an edifice of censure against Moscow,
rallying an international campaign of further sanctions and diplomatic expulsions.
Now contrast that strenuous reaction, indeed hyper over-reaction, with how Britain, the US, France, Canada and other Western
governments are ever-so slowly responding to Saudi Arabia over the Khashoggi case.
After nearly two weeks since Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, the Saudi regime is this week
finally admitting he was killed on their premises – albeit, they claim, in a "botched interrogation".
We say Browder, but we mean MI6. He was a part of larger plan concocted by US intelligence agencies to decimate Russia after the dissolution of the USSR.
Of which Harvard mafia played even more important role. The fact that he gave up his U.S. citizenship in
1997 points to his association with MI6.
The level of distortions the US neoliberal MSM operated with in case of Magnitsky (starting with the widely repeated and
factually incorrect claim that he was a lawyers, in create a sympathy; their effort to portrait shady accountant involved in tax
fraud for Browder, as a fighter for justice should be described in a separate chapter on any modem book on the power of propaganda;
this is simply classic ) is compatible with lies and distortions of Skripal affair and point of strong interest ion
intelligence services in both.
Browder and Magnistsky affair really demonstrate that as for foreign events we already live "Matrix environment" of
artificial reality created by MSM and controlled by intelligence agencies and foreign policy establishment; and that ordinary people are forced into artificial
reality with little or no chance to escape.
Notable quotes:
"... Prevezon's American legal team alleged that Browder's story was full of holes -- and that the U.S. and other governments had relied on Browder's version without checking it. ..."
"... The chief American investigator, Todd Hyman of the Department of Homeland Security, testified in a deposition that much of the evidence in the government's complaint came from Browder and his associates. He also said the government had been unable to independently investigate some of Browder's claims. ..."
"... In court documents, Prevezon's lawyers alleged that Magnitsky was jailed not because he was a truth-seeker -- but because he was helping Browder's companies in tax evasion. ..."
"... The Prevezon attorneys charged that Browder "lied," and "manipulated" evidence to cover up his own tax fraud. ..."
"... The story was "contrived and skillfully sold by William F. Browder to politicians here and abroad to thwart his arrest for a tax fraud conviction in Russia," says a 2015 federal court filing by one of Prevezon's lawyers, Mark Cymrot of BakerHostetler. ..."
"... A Russian-born filmmaker named Andrei Nekrasov made a similar set of arguments in a docudrama released last year. Neither Prevezon nor the Russian government had a role in funding or making the film, both parties say, though Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin helped promote it. ..."
As Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya tells it, she met with Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump aides in New York
last summer to press her case against a widely accepted account of Russian malfeasance, one that underpins a set of sanctions against
Russians.
Trump Jr., who agreed to the June 2016 meeting
at the request of a Russian business associate with a promise of dirt on Hillary Clinton , has said he didn't find much to interest
him in the presentation. And little wonder: The subject is a dense and tangled web, hinging on a complex case that led Congress to
pass what is known as the Magnitsky Act. The law imposed sanctions on individual Russians accused of human rights violations. It
has nothing to do with Clinton.
But the substance of what the pair of Russian advocates say they came to discuss has a fascinating backstory.
It's an epic international dispute -- one that has pitted the grandson of a former American Communist who made a fortune as a
capitalist in Russia against a Russian leader who pines for the glory days of his country's Communist past.
That dossier,
published by Buzzfeed , made other, more salacious allegations about Trump, and FBI Director James Comey briefed the Republican
about it before he took office. The dossier is not favorable to Putin and the Russian government.
Simpson's role on both sides of the Putin divide is set to be explored in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday examining
the Justice Department's requirements for foreign lobbying disclosures.
Due to testify at the hearing is Simpson's longtime opponent in the Magnitsky dispute, William Browder, an American-born hedge-fund
investor who made millions investing in post-Soviet Russia and gave up his U.S. citizenship in 1997.
Simpson's lawyer said he would defy a subpoena to appear Wednesday because he was on vacation, and that he would decline to answer
questions anyway, citing his right against self-incrimination.
Browder, whose grandfather Earl led the American Communist Party, accuses Simpson of peddling falsehoods as an agent of the Russian
government. The law firm Simpson worked with on the case accused Browder in court papers of perpetrating a web of lies. Both men
dispute the allegations.
The Death of Sergei Magnitsky
The story begins with the November 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian tax accountant who was working for Browder, and
who later died in prison .
Browder's account of Magnitsky's death triggered international outrage. According to Browder, Magnitsky was a lawyer who had been investigating a theft of $230 million in tax rebates paid to Browder's
companies in Russia. Browder says his companies had been taken over illegally and without his knowledge by corrupt Russian officials.
Browder says Magnitsky was arrested as a reprisal by those same corrupt officials, and then was tortured and beaten to death.
Browder presented documents suggesting that some officials who benefited from the alleged fraud purchased property abroad.
That account led Congress to pass the so-called Magnitsky Act in 2012, imposing sanctions on the Russian officials who were alleged
to have violated Magnitsky's human rights.
The Russian government soon imposed a ban on American adoptions of Russian children, ostensibly for other reasons but done in
response, many experts say, to the Magnitsky sanctions.
Forty-four Russians are currently on the Magnitsky sanctions list maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department, meaning their U.S.
assets are frozen and they are not allowed to travel to the U.S.
Once a Putin supporter, Browder became one of the Russian leader's most ardent foes, spearheading a campaign to draw international
attention to the Magnitsky case. He and his employees at Hermitage Capital Management presented information to governments, international
bodies and major news organizations.
Browder's advocacy marks a shift from 2004, when, as one of Russia's leading foreign investors, he praised Putin so vigorously
that he was labeled Putin's
"chief cheerleader" by an analyst in a Washington Post article. Browder has said that Magnitsky's death spurred him to reexamine
his view of Putin.
The State Department, lawmakers of both parties and the Western news media have described the Magnitsky case in a way that tracks
closely with Browder's account. Browder's assertions are consistent with the West's understanding of the Putin government -- an authoritarian
regime that has been widely and credibly accused of murdering journalists and political opponents.
In 2013, the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office sued a Russian company, accusing it of laundering some of the proceeds of the fraud
Magnitsky allegedly uncovered. The complaint incorporated Browder's account about what happened to Magnitsky.
That lawsuit set in motion a process through which that version of events would come under challenge.
The defendant, a company called Prevezon, is owned by Denis Katsyv, who became wealthy while his father was vice governor and
transport minister for the Moscow region, according to published reports. The father, Pyotr Katsyv, is now vice president of the
state-run Russian Railways. Veselnitskaya has long represented the family.
Prevezon hired a law firm, BakerHostetler, and a team that included a longtime New York prosecutor, John Moscow. Also working
on Prevezon's behalf were Simpson, Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin.
Simpson, a former investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, declined to comment.
Simpson also worked with former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele in the creation of the dossier that asserts Trump
collusion with Russian election interference. A source close to him said his work on the dossier was kept confidential from his other
clients.
The federal civil lawsuit by the Manhattan U.S. attorney against Prevezon was the first opportunity for the U.S. government to
publicly present whatever evidence it had to support its legal assertions regarding Magnitsky. It was also an opportunity for the
defendants to conduct their own investigation.
Prevezon's American legal team alleged that Browder's story was full of holes -- and that the U.S. and other governments had
relied on Browder's version without checking it. Browder and the U.S. government disagreed.
The chief American investigator, Todd Hyman of the Department of Homeland Security, testified in a deposition that much of
the evidence in the government's complaint came from Browder and his associates. He also said the government had been unable to independently
investigate some of Browder's claims.
In court documents, Prevezon's lawyers alleged that Magnitsky was jailed not because he was a truth-seeker -- but because
he was helping Browder's companies in tax evasion.
The Prevezon attorneys charged that Browder "lied," and "manipulated" evidence to cover up his own tax fraud.
The story was "contrived and skillfully sold by William F. Browder to politicians here and abroad to thwart his arrest for
a tax fraud conviction in Russia," says a 2015 federal court filing by one of Prevezon's lawyers, Mark Cymrot of BakerHostetler.
A Russian-born filmmaker named Andrei Nekrasov made a similar set of arguments in a docudrama released last year. Neither
Prevezon nor the Russian government had a role in funding or making the film, both parties say, though Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin
helped promote it.
Russians were robbed by Jewish people both domestic & foreign under Yeltsin & president Putin stopped them starting with Yukos
& Khodorkovsky & others like Berezovski fled to UK.
A similar history we found in the 30th in Germany which caused the rise of Adolf Hitler & his anti-Semitism ultimately ending
in the Holocaust.
Presently we see the same happening in USA where the Democratic establishment in media, industry & banks are fighting back
- using any illegal method in the book -against the white 'Waspy' Republicans of Trump. And let's not forget that the US population
is for 72% White!! That's NOT racism but pure & simple democracy at work.
"... Department of Justice and FBI officials in the Obama administration in October of 2016 only presented to the court the evidence that made the government's case to get a warrant to spy on a Trump campaign associate ..."
"... The FBI referred to Papadopoulos in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application - however what has been released to the public is so heavily redacted that it's unclear why he is mentioned. ..."
"... As The Hill 's John Solomon notes, based on Congressional testimony by former FBI General Counsel James Baker - the DOJ / FBI redactions aren't hiding national security issues - only embarrassment . ..."
"... President Trump issued an order to declassify the documents on September 17, but then walked it back - announcing that the DOJ would be allowed to review the documents first after two foreign allies asked him to keep them classified. ..."
"... "My opinion is that declassifying them would not expose any national security information, would not expose any sources and methods," said Ratcliffe. "It would expose certain folks at the Obama Justice Department and FBI and their actions taken to conceal material facts from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court." ..."
After hinting for months that the FBI was not forthcoming with federal surveillance court
judges when they made their case to spy on the Trump campaign, Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe (R)
said on Sunday that the agency is holding evidence which "directly refutes" its premise for
launching the probe, reports the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross.
Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe provided Sunday the clearest picture to date of what the FBI
allegedly withheld from the surveillance court.
Ratcliffe suggested that the FBI failed to include evidence regarding former Trump
campaign adviser George Papadopoulos , in an interview with Fox News.
Ratcliffe noted that the FBI opened its investigation on July 31, 2016, after receiving
information from the Australian government about a conversation that Papadopoulos had on May
10, 2016, with Alexander Downer , the
top Australian diplomat to the U.K. - Daily Caller
While Australia's Alexander Downer claimed that Papadopoulos revealed Russia had "dirt" on
Hillary Clinton, Ratcliffe - who sits on the House Judiciary Committee - suggested on Sunday
that the FBI and DOJ possess information which directly contradicts that account.
"Hypothetically, if the Department of Justice and the FBI have another piece of evidence
that directly refutes that, that directly contradicts that, what you would expect is for the
Department of Justice to present both sides of the coin to the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court to evaluate the weight and sufficiency of that evidence," Ratcliffe said,
adding: "Instead, what happened here was Department of Justice and FBI officials in the Obama
administration in October of 2016 only presented to the court the evidence that made the
government's case to get a warrant to spy on a Trump campaign associate."
The FBI referred to Papadopoulos in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant
application - however what has been released to the public is so heavily redacted that it's
unclear why he is mentioned.
As The Hill 's John Solomon notes, based on Congressional testimony by former FBI General
Counsel James Baker - the DOJ / FBI redactions aren't hiding national security issues -
only embarrassment .
Other GOP lawmakers have suggested that evidence exists which would exonerate Papadopoulos -
who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Maltese professor (and
self-professed member of the Clinton Foundation), Joseph Mifsud.
Ratcliffe suggested that declassifying DOJ / FBI documents related to the matter "would
corroborate" his claims about Papadopoulos.
Republicans have pressed President Trump to declassify the documents, which include 21
pages from a June 2016 FISA application against Page. House Intelligence Committee Chairman
Devin Nunes has said
that the FBI failed to provide "exculpatory evidence" in the FISA applications. He has also
said that Americans will be "shocked" by the information behind the FISA redactions. -
Daily Caller
President Trump issued an order to declassify the documents on September 17, but then walked
it back - announcing that the DOJ would be allowed to review the documents first after two
foreign allies asked him to keep them classified.
"My opinion is that declassifying them would not expose any national security information,
would not expose any sources and methods," said Ratcliffe. "It would expose certain folks at
the Obama Justice Department and FBI and their actions taken to conceal material facts from the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."
"... Russian has a unique descriptive term--Anglicized as Neculturny: Those without/incapable of having culture, an extremely disparaging term. I bring this up because what we see rising again in the United States is intolerance and the criminalization of charity--particularly toward the homeless. The attitude of the Outlaw US Empire's military toward the bombing of civilians, their infrastructure and all related behavior that are War Crimes is the most graphic example--Yemen, Haiti, Palestine, Somalia, and all too many other places. Just the Russian attempts to try and minimize civilian casualties in Syria versus NATO's attitude on the question shows the vast divide present. Which nations are tolerant thus ipso facto humanitarian and which aren't? IMO, the divide is very stark. One side says There's No Alternative, while the other says Another World's Possible that dignifies people rather than denigrating them. ..."
The following is from the Q&A portion of Valdai Club's Plenary Session and IMO is very critical as we attempt to understand
what underlies the extreme Russophobia displayed by Western elites and their minions:
"Chairman of the Patriarchal Council for Culture Metropolitan Tikhon:
"The round table I took part in here, at Valdai, dealt with cultural issues, or to be exact, whether and how culture can affect
the life of society in the 21st century and today.
"At the onset of the discussion Mr Zanussi asked the following question, Can we even grasp, can we assess a nation's culture
today? An opinion was voiced that the level of charity in society may be such an assessment criterion. I mean general culture,
not its specific manifestations.
"It may seem that it was a fairly abstract discussion. But the events in Kerch, even though we do not fully understand the
motives behind this ill-fated person's actions, let us see how aggression and intolerance are on the rise not only in Russia but
also generally everywhere.
"My question is as follows: Firstly, what do you yourself think of the conclusions we have made at this round table regarding
charity as a key criterion of society's general culture ? [My Emphasis]
"Secondly, we talk a lot of about state culture policy nowadays. There is a lot of debate. We are all aware that the state
will not regulate culture in a rough or intrusive way, and this is probably absolutely correct. But can the state deliberately
support all those creative and historical spiritual and cultural keynote dominants that have developed in Russia, something we
call spiritual and cultural values?
"Vladimir Putin: I think this what we have been doing, in reference to the second part of your question. I think the state
must do this very carefully by allowing people with different outlooks to work out their own views, express them and compete,
let us say, with your views. It may seem surprising for me to say that, but I think this is the way it is.
"My sympathies certainly lie with you, but as a state official, I still think it is my duty to ensure the opportunity for every
person to express their position. Why? Because my position is based on the first part of your comment.
" What is charity? To use more modern words, it is tolerance, commitment to compromise. At any rate, it is one of the facets
of charity. This is the way it is. If we claim that charity, tolerance is a criterion of culture, then we must be in a position
to let people express their views and listen to them. " [My Emphasis]
Russian has a unique descriptive term--Anglicized as Neculturny: Those without/incapable of having culture, an extremely
disparaging term. I bring this up because what we see rising again in the United States is intolerance and the criminalization
of charity--particularly toward the homeless. The attitude of the Outlaw US Empire's military toward the bombing of civilians,
their infrastructure and all related behavior that are War Crimes is the most graphic example--Yemen, Haiti, Palestine, Somalia,
and all too many other places. Just the Russian attempts to try and minimize civilian casualties in Syria versus NATO's attitude
on the question shows the vast divide present. Which nations are tolerant thus ipso facto humanitarian and which aren't? IMO,
the divide is very stark. One side says There's No Alternative, while the other says Another World's Possible that dignifies
people rather than denigrating them.
The Blogmire
According to
an article in The Mail , the mother of Sergei Skripal, Yelena, has not heard from
her son since the incident on 4th March , and the last time she heard from her granddaughter,
Yulia, was on 24th July:
"Recalling her phone conversation with Yulia, Yelena told the Daily Mirror : 'The
last time I actually spoke to Yulia was on the 24th of July on my 90th birthday. She
rang - it was unexpected but it was so lovely to hear from her. She called and was actually
with Sergei. She told me: "I'm with daddy he is beside me but he can't speak as he has a pain
in his throat". She said he had been in some pain.'"
This is interesting for a number of reasons.
Firstly, we know that during the conversation on 24th July, according to a number of reports
(for example here
), Yulia told her grandmother that the reason Sergei was unable to speak was because his voice
was still weak due to a tracheostomy :
"Babushka, happy birthday, everything is fine, everything is perfect. I am in London with
papa. He can't speak because he's got a tracheostomy, that pipe, which will be taken off in
three days. Now when he speaks with that pipe, his voice is first of all very weak and
secondly, he makes quite a lot of wheeze. So babushka with your poor hearing you would really
struggle to understand him. He'll call after the tracheostomy is off. "
This was almost 3 months ago. So the tracheostomy was preventing Sergei from
speaking; but it was coming off in three days; yet nearly 3 months later and still no call from
Sergei? Is that not very odd? Indeed, especially given that Yelena states in the interview that
she and Sergei used to speak every week .
Secondly, the call on 24th July is itself very odd. Notice that Yulia uses the phrases
"everything is fine, everything is perfect." These are basically the same sorts of phrases that
she repeated over and over in
her call with her cousin Viktoria on 5th April :
"Everything is ok, everything is fine."
"Everything is fine, but we'll see how it goes, we'll decide later. You know what the
situation is here. Everything is fine, everything is solvable, everyone is recovering and is
alive."
"Everything is ok. He is resting now, having a nap. Everyone's health is fine, there are
no irreparable things. I will be discharged soon. Everything is ok."
She seems very keen - some would say overly keen - to emphasise that everything is
fine and okay and perfect etc. To me it sounds unnatural and forced. What do you think?
But more than this, imagine yourself in the same situation. Your father is next to you. He
can speak, but not very well, and so can't communicate through the phone to his mother. What
would you do? Well, I know what I would do. I would relay speech from the one to the other. "He
says he's getting better and misses you very much grandma." "She says she loves you, dad."
Isn't that what normal people would do in such circumstances?
But instead, Yulia speaks in a way that doesn't fill me with too much certainty that he was
actually in the room with her. It's all very medical and somewhat officious. And even if his
voice was a bit wheezy and hard to understand, his ears were okay, weren't they? Couldn't Yulia
have held the phone to her dad's ear so he could hear his mother speak to him? Again, that
would be what a normal person would do in such circumstances, wouldn't it? But of course they
don't do normal in SkripalWorld.
Thirdly, we have to reckon with the fact that since that call, in which Yulia indicated that
Sergei would call in as little as three days, there has been no communication at all . Not with
grandma. Not with Viktoria. Not with anyone (apparently even Mark Urban got the cold
shoulder).
Actually, that's not quite the case. We don't really have to reckon with this because the
heroic journalism of The Mail gives us the answer. In the same piece that it mentioned
a call between Yulia and her grandma, in which Sergei was apparently sat right next to Yulia,
we get this:
"Since that solitary phone conversation, she [Yelena] has not heard from her the two targeted
relatives as any contact could lead Russian forces to the pair."
Remarkable, isn't it? So according to The Mail , the reason that Sergei
Skripal cannot call his mother, is because Russian forces might be able to trace his
whereabouts and order a hit on him. Another one, apparently. And yet in the very same piece
they report on Yulia Skripal calling her grandmother on 24th July, with Sergei Skripal at her
side. See? It's obvious, isn't it?
Not for the first time in this case, I'm left scratching my head and wondering whether the
journalists who write this sort of thing believe their readers to be so dim that they won't
notice statements in the same article that utterly refute one another, or whether the
journalists themselves are so witless that they simply don't realise that they are
contradicting themselves in the space of a few sentences. Any thoughts?
The fact is that Yulia has phoned her cousin Viktoria a number of times since the beginning
of April, and in most, if not all of those calls, her father was said to be close by. She even
did a little film for Reuters in May, with her father apparently in the same compound. Why were
these allowed, since according to The Mail , it could have led Russian forces to the
pair? Or are we to believe that Russian forces have only just developed the capability to trace
phone calls since 24th July? Worse still, have British Security Services forgotten how to
prevent phone calls being traced by other intelligence agencies since 24th July, not to mention
also losing the ability to stop Russian forces from coming and getting them?
Or is it more likely that The Mail cannot be bothered to ask the obvious questions
that stem from their own report. Such as:
1. Why is the apparent victim in this case, Sergei Skripal, who is under the protection of
British (and possibly US) intelligence services, unable to phone his mother, whom he used to
speak to on a weekly basis?
2. Does this constitute a violation of his human rights?
3. Given that he has had no contact with his mother since 4th March, how can we be sure
that he is alive, and if he is, whether he is not being held against his will?
UK politicians in Skripal story behaved by cheap clowns. Their story with door knob was pathetic. They tried to invent
the legend with poisoning on the fly and that shows. There is definitely something else brewing here and Shamir proposed his
version with Skripal double dealings or something along those line is quite plausible.
We will never know, but I think British discredited themselves for the whole world in this story. Trump was not better will
using this tory to impose additional sanctions on Russia. This is just another proof that he is another neocon who during election
campaign like Obama played the role of isolationalist and then appointed Haley to UN and hired Pompeo as his Secretary of
state and Bolton as his security advisor -- a typical "bat and switch" operation in US politics.
Notable quotes:
"... Vrublevsky thinks that British intelligence convinced the GRU (probably we should say that GRU is not called GRU anymore but GU, the Chief Directorate of the General Staff, but it hardly matters) that Mr Skripal wanted to return home to Russia. Probably they were told that Mr Skripal intended to bring some valuable dowry with him, including Porton Down data and the secrets of the Golden Rain dossier. It is possible that Skripal had been played, too; perhaps he indeed wanted to go back to Russia, the country he missed badly. ..."
"... As we had learned from videos and stills published by the Brits, the two men had been carefully followed from the beginning to the end. Meanwhile, British intelligence staged a 'poisoning' of Skripal and his daughter, and the two agents quickly returned home. ..."
"... There is not a single man close to Russian intelligence who thinks that Skripal had actually been poisoned by the Russians. First, there was absolutely no reason to do it, and second, if the Russians would poison him, he would stay poisoned, like the Ukrainian Quisling Stepan Bandera was. ..."
"... However, by playing this card, the British secret service convinced the Foreign Office to expel all diplomats who had contacts and connection to the exposed GRU agents. The massive expulsion of 150 diplomats caused serious damage to the Russian secret services. ..."
"... Such a massive operation against Russian agents and their contacts could signal forthcoming war. In normal circumstances, states do not reveal their full knowledge of enemy agents. ..."
"... I do not know what is the truth. At this point I no longer care because we will never know but it will be the British version that will be the most popular. I like most people like good stories. Unfortunately for Russia the Brits have better script writers, director and actors. ..."
Vrublevsky thinks that British intelligence convinced the GRU (probably we should say that
GRU is not called GRU anymore but GU, the Chief Directorate of the General Staff, but it hardly
matters) that Mr Skripal wanted to return home to Russia. Probably they were told that Mr
Skripal intended to bring some valuable dowry with him, including Porton Down data and the
secrets of the Golden Rain dossier. It is possible that Skripal had been played, too; perhaps
he indeed wanted to go back to Russia, the country he missed badly.
Two GRU agents, supposedly experts on extraction (they allegedly sneaked the Ukrainian
president Yanukovych from Ukraine after the coup and saved him from lynching mob) were sent to
Salisbury to test the ground and make preparations for Skripal's return. As we had learned from
videos and stills published by the Brits, the two men had been carefully followed from the
beginning to the end. Meanwhile, British intelligence staged a 'poisoning' of Skripal and his
daughter, and the two agents quickly returned home.
There is not a single man close to Russian intelligence who thinks that Skripal had actually
been poisoned by the Russians. First, there was absolutely no reason to do it, and second, if
the Russians would poison him, he would stay poisoned, like the Ukrainian Quisling Stepan
Bandera was.
However, by playing this card, the British secret service convinced the Foreign Office to
expel all diplomats who had contacts and connection to the exposed GRU agents. The massive
expulsion of 150 diplomats caused serious damage to the Russian secret services.
Still, the Russians had no clue how the West had learned identities of so many diplomats
connected to GRU. They suspected that there was a mole, and a turncoat who delivered the stuff
to the enemy.
That is why Vladimir Putin decided to dare them. As he knew that the two men identified by
the British service had no connection to the alleged poisoning, he asked them to appear on the
RT in an interview with Ms Simonyan. By acting as village hicks, they were supposed to provoke
the enemy to disclose its source. The result was unexpected: instead of revealing the name of a
turncoat, the Belling Cat, a site used by the Western Secret Services for intentional leaks,
explained how the men were traced by using the stolen databases. Putin's plan misfired.
The Russian secret service is not dead. Intelligence services do suffer from enemy action
from time to time: the Cambridge Five infiltrated the upper reaches of the MI-5 and delivered
state secrets to Moscow for a long time, but the Intelligence Service survived. Le Carre's
novels were based on such a defeat of the intelligence. However they have a way to recover.
Identity of their top agents remain secret, and they are concealed from the enemy's eyes.
But in order to function properly, the Russians will have to clean their stables, remove
their databases from the market place and keep its citizenry reasonably safe. Lax, and
not-up-to-date agents do not apparently understand the degree the internet is being watched.
Considering it should have been done twenty years ago, and meanwhile a new generation of
Russians has came of age, perfectly prepared to sell whatever they can for cash, it is a
formidable task.
There is an additional reason to worry. Such a massive operation against Russian agents and
their contacts could signal forthcoming war. In normal circumstances, states do not reveal
their full knowledge of enemy agents. It made president Putin worry; and he said this week: we'll
go to heaven as martyrs, the attackers will die as sinners. In face of multiple and recent
threats, this end of the world is quite possible.
Great story. If told many people would believe it. But now it is kind of late. So why it
wasn't told within few days or weeks of Skripal affair? Why it is the British media that has
initiative and Russian media is reactive and defensive? The story that Skripal wanted to
return and that two agents were lured in there should have been told right away and that it
turned out be MI5 provocation should have been insinuated. And the two agents should have
been interviewed on Russian media. Instead we get defensive inept and indolent Russian
reactions.
I do not know what is the truth. At this point I no longer care because we will never
know but it will be the British version that will be the most popular. I like most people
like good stories. Unfortunately for Russia the Brits have better script writers, director
and actors.
@utu " Instead we get
defensive inept and indolent Russian reactions."
The reaction 'if we want to kill somebody that somebody does not survive' I cannot see as
inept and indolent.
Excellent piece by Israel Shamir which I think gives the correct explanation of the Skripal
poisoning. This was a classic fishing, 'click bait' operation which produced a very valuable
haul for Western Intelligence. The only question is whether Skripal cooperated with it
– which I think he did – not knowing that both he and his daughter were meant to
die. Hence Putin's rage against Skripal a few weeks ago ( calling him a scumbag traitor etc,
etc) after the Russian operatives were identified because retired agents are supposed to stay
retired.
Russia made a very serious mistake with the RT interview with the 2 operatives. Better not
to say anything if you can't give the whole story. The GU weren't happy to show their
incompetence, but compounded the original mistake with obvious lying. That was a propaganda
gift to the Western media and has helped convince original disbelievers of Russian
perfidy.
Russia needs to step up its game especially in the media dept.
@Anatoly Karlin " British
or American human capital, but there are certainly consummate professionals relative to what
passes for today's Russian intelligence services. "
On what this 'certainly' is based, I see no argument whatsoever.
Already a long time ago, I must admit, the CIA director had to admit to senator Moynihan that
he had lied about the CIA not laying mines in Havana harbour.
A professional in espionage does not get caught.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 'Secrecy', New Haven 1998
Anyone acquinted with Sept 11 understands that the USA's secret army, the CIA, was
involved.
Another blunder.
As far as I know British secret services never get caught.
How clever the Russians are, suppose quite clever, I for one do not think that the stupid
stories about for example Skripal have any truth in them.
Until now the asserted Russian meddling in USA elections have not been proved.
Do not know of anything credible that Russian intelligence people are said to have done.
But of course Russian intelligence does exist.
"A related problem is that since there is now a free market economy, with many more
attractive career options for talented people, the high quality people go to work in other
spheres, leaving the intelligence agencies with the dregs;" .
A direct result of erasing ideology so as to erase personality cult towards highly
respected people in former USSR .When you have no ideology ( or worst, share ideology with
your opponent, i.e free market .) all what you have, from values to secrets, from scientific
human capital to secret service officials, are out there in the global market for possible
selling to the best postor .this is the principle of capitalism .. after all, it is said,
almost everybody has a price .The challenge is finding out where that little bunch who have
not are ..Obviously, in this scenario, the one who has the printing machine has a "little"
advantage How to overcome this would be part of "what is to be done" ..
If the Russians wanted to kill them they would be dead. Period. It is all FN hoax.
The latest English came up with was that poison was smeared on the door handle and that both
touched the door handle. Give me a break. Such a idiocy. Just imagine the exit procedure
where both are touching the door knob.
And than both Russians went to garbage dump carrying the little bottle and thru it there.
What an exemplary citizen neat behavior by Russians,
All English story is such a stupid idiocy that it turns my stomach.
However, the presence of Russian spies in Salisbury can be explained by its nearness to
Porton Down, the secret British chemical lab and factory for manufacturing chemical weapons
applied by the White Helmets in Syria in their false-flag operation in Douma and other
places. It is possible that a resident of Salisbury (Mr Skripal?) had delivered samples
from Porton Down to the Russian intelligence agents. This makes much more sense than the
dubious story of Russians trying to poison an old ex-spy who did his stretch in a Russian
jail.
If Mr. Skripal has been poisoned by the stuff of which he himself took samples in Porton
Down, this would run completely parallel to the earlier poisoning of Mr. Alexander
Valterovich Litvinenko, who also became ill because of carrying poison (polonium) around.
If [Yulia Skripal] had not had the courage to make this call while slipping the
observance of British intelligence, she would probably be dead by now.
Both Skripals are most likely DEAD, murdered by British "intelligence"
services.
The formulaic and curiously uninterested treatment of the matter in the British media
seems inconsistent with the Skripals still being alive.
The article above suggests that the Skripals were unwitting or witting participants in a
sting to expose Russian intelligence agents. More importantly, Sergey Skripal appears to have
had a role in the creation of the DNC's "dossier" to undermine the Trump presidencey.
Whatever the background, Sergey Skripal became privy to important secrets that the Brits
and their seditious allies in the U.S. Deep State do not want exposed.
In the Skripal case the British have not explained why, after claiming to have found the
closest approach to a smoking gun in the form of traces of novichok in that hotel room, the
hotel was not then immediately quarantined.
And assuredly, with Putin's name on the line, the Russians have to do a better job if they
are to refute the standing accusations – the RT interview was something of a PR
disaster.
The Belloncat data, although superficially convincing, could so easily have been faked by
anybody with reasonable knowledge of Russian internet infrastructure and some proficiency in
Photoshop.
But I did not know about these massive intelligence security breaches in Russia. Wow,
that's huge. Even though it's not clear to me how this indicates Putin's plan misfired. If
anything he got exactly what he wanted: confirmation that the "West" had access to the entire
passport database. Knowing what your enemy has in intelligence is a huge win, now they can
work on correcting it (hard as it may be, it would be impossible without knowing).
But the fact is Russia has not really disputed the results so I am fairly confident that
not only was Belling Cat right, but Israel is right, and now we have the situation where
Russia knows that Western intelligence has full access to Russia's passport database.
@Tyrion 2 Had some
experiences with Chinese and Mossad spies, not to mention Russian Jewish hard-drug dealers.
Here are a few examples.
There was an AMES postdoc at UCSD, a Chinese applied-math brain who had a 10-plus female
handler. She'd stop by occasionally to check up on him. He always get extremely anxious when
she was around. Couldn't figure out if it was fear, sexual excitement, or a combination of
both.
There was an old Chinese man and his foxy young female protege, who enjoyed filming U.S.
military maneuvers along the San Diego coast. I observed their operation for days.
There was a swing-shift cleaning crew in a Southern California high-tech mfg facility that
was all Chinese, in an area that typically employed Latin American crews. Its head honcho was
a beautiful Chinese lady. They made it their job to sort through trash bins and save papers.
The feds busted them.
As far as the Mossad, I spent two years on a rental property in SD county, which was
occupied by them as well. Mostly Israeli kids using the property and a local Israeli-owned
vegetarian restaurant as their "scorpion den." Got fairly familiar with some of their
espionage work and methods.
I don't go looking for this stuff. I'm just able to recognize it. As an empath I can read
people, quite well. It's a natural gift.
Can't stomach Israel's insensitive nature. That's why you'll typically find me pointing
out their self-serving bullshit.
This is a pretty good article but also falls on its face at the end
Mr Shamir's 'inside' information confirms my own take on Petrov and Boshirov which I
published a few days after that RT interview with Ms Simonyan
I wrote this on Col Lang's blog on Sept 14
'Yeah those two 'tourists' do look the part don't they I would say they are probably GRU
or something similar but nobody 'poisoned' the Skripals that's total kabuki theater another
Potemkin village production from the reality masters
Something is afoot here though perhaps these two were lured to Salisbury as part of a
frame up plot, perhaps by Skripal himself or perhaps the Brits caught wind of their plans
to visit [on some standard spying mission, certainly not assassination] and put in motion
the elaborate hoax
Everybody there protested loudly including Andrey Martyanov [Smoothie] I also added
this
' I disagree with everyone here it seems these guys aren't tourists but they also didn't
try to kill anyone that's stupid
It's some sort of spy game
Here's one scenario double agent Skripal makes convincing noises about flipping back
someone at GRU [or some similar outfit] sends these two to Salisbury to check it out a very
stupid move which is why Putin is now miffed enough to display these guys publicly and
their field career surely over also a slap in the face to the silly Limeys for playing
dirty pool even in the cloak and dagger game there are unwritten rules '
This is now exactly the story that Mr Shamir is presenting here but he is a day late and a
dollar short
I also don't agree with his take that this is all somehow a big loss for Russian intel the
Brits are the ones who have painted themselves in a corner their Skripal story is a wet paper
bag waiting to fall apart the fact that they lured the Russians to Salisbury, under whatever
pretext, be it Skripal or Porton Down/white helmets etc was their only small tactical victory
because they could then later expose those two after months of Russian denials in order to
show the Russians were in fact somehow involved
But that exposure came months later all that time the Russians would have known that
Boshirov and Petrov had been captured on candid camera and would have had time to work on
their countermove
Mr Shamir writes this like the game is over that is ridiculous the Brits have no way out
of the Skripal hoax there was never any poisoning the original diagnosis of the Skripals in
the Salisbury hospital was opioid overdose that came out in the first BBC interview with the
hospital staff months after the 'poisoning'
It was not until 48 hours after the Skripals were admitted to hospital and the convenient
intervention of Porton Down that the medical diagnosis was 'changed' to nerve agent
poisoning
BUT this is an unsustainable story that WILL FALL APART the simple reason is medical and
chemical fact both nerve agents and agricultural pesticides are based on the exact
same chemical compound organophosphates
'There are nearly 3 million poisonings per year resulting in two hundred thousand
deaths.'
That is the simple reason why emergency doctors EVERYWHERE are trained to recognize and
treat this kind of poisoning especially in rural, agricultural areas like
Salisbury
That is why it took months for media to gain access to the medical staff at that hospital
the British spooks needed to do a lot of 'persuading' with medical professionals that would
have wanted no part in such trickery and fakery
But this is a ticking time bomb that is bound to blow up in the faces of the very stupid
Brits
So yes they pulled off a minor coup in luring those two to Salisbury but the game is very
very far from over
As for Skripal he is in on it for sure as I speculated in my original comment on the
matter..the Russian intel services are perfectly aware of this, yet Mr Shamir's supposedly
well connected source has zero knowledge of this which tells me this source is actually a
useless clown who 'knows' exactly what an internet commenter [myself] already knew two months
ago
PS the fact that the Brits supposedly have all kinds of database info on the Russian intel
apparatus and personnel files etc doesn't mean anything the author is a making a big deal out
of this, but his story lacks meat on its bones most 'intel' is open source material
anyway
As for sensitive stuff that may have been 'sold' by 'corrupt' bureaucrats one must ask if
such 'info' is actually real or a clever plant providing fake info is the oldest spy trick in
the book and this article simply takes for granted that such a trick would not have been
employed why not ?
@FB How would a fake
database leak include the real data on the two GRU agents that just happened to be sent to
UK? Maybe it was to make the data leak seem real?
In spycraft it is always impossible to know how deep the deception goes. That's why the
very article to which you are responding started with:
It is hard to evaluate the exact measure of things in the murky world of spies and
counter-spies, but it appears that the Western spies have had extraordinary success in the
subterranean battle.
I think that a clear strategy by the western "intelligence" services is starting to emerge
vis-a-vis the Russians. By accusing any Russian that they can get their hands on, of being a
spy, they want to scare the ordinary Russians from visiting the west, so afterwards any
Russian actually caught traveling to the west can be safely assumed to be a spy – since
by the calculations of the clever western intelligence – only someone who is actually a
spy while at the same time being Russian, would dare to travel to the west. How smart is
that?
Joking aside, it really is becoming unsafe for Russian nationals to travel to the west.
Even though the west reserves the generosity of calling somebody equal only for those that
are from the 3rd world – Russians clearly don't deserve such generosity.
Despite this, exceptions can be made and some unfortunate Russian soul could be accused of
being equal with those highly evolved westerners and against their will can be offered
protection from Mother Russia.
Pretty much like it happened to Yulia Skripal. She was only visiting her gastarbeiter
father in GB, who apparently expressed desire to return to Russia, against pretty much
everybody's wishes, and all of a sudden Yulia Skripal found herself bestowed with the western
generosity of being declared equal, and was disappeared from public eye in order to protect
her from those with whom she is clearly not equal – the Russians.
Thank God at least MI-6 proved equal to the task and discovered her equalness in a nick of
time and saved her. The moral of the story: Only democracy has the power to recognize who is
equal and who is not. Then, on the other hand, capitalism can keep acquiring new monikers
such as "democracy" – all they want, Russia still has better quality of equality,
despite ditching socialism.
@CalDre Yes I 'stubbornly'
refuse to take at face value this silly statement
it appears that the Western spies have had extraordinary success in the subterranean
battle.'
Because it's not backed up by anything other than hot air as for that supposed 'data'
about Petrov and Boshirov
that was put out by Bellingcat
Ie mickey mouse stuff as with everything these clowns do, it is meant only to bamboozle
the most utterly stupid bipeds
A very nice clue is the fact that a Russian website called 'The Insider' is Bellingcat's
acknowledged partner here
If you read the article in English they claim to have 'dug' up a lot of info from various
sources such the central Russian resident database and passenger check in data for their
flight to the UK
Big deal that Shamir is building a mountain out of a molehill is more than clear
In fact this entire Shamir tale appears to have one subtle purpose to publicize and
glorify the Bellingcat outfit
which irredeemably lost any credibility a few weeks back when illiterate poofter Eliott
Higgins refused a debate challenge by the distinguished MIT physicist and former presidential
advisor Ted Postol actually calling Postol an 'idiot' a move that astounded even those
willing to entertain Higgins on a semi-credible level
@Anatoly Karlin Be that as
it may, the "Western side" had (publicly known) Aldrich, Hanssen and Benghazi fiasco.
Boils down to, from the comment below:
When you have no ideology ( or worst, share ideology with your opponent, i.e free market
.) all what you have, from values to secrets, from scientific human capital to secret
service officials, are out there in the global market for possible selling to the best
postor .this is the principle of capitalism .. after all, it is said, almost everybody has
a price..
and
Obviously, in this scenario, the one who has the printing machine has a "little"
advantage.
And, on top of it, in West, since the fall of The Wall, we've been having "Cooking the
Intelligence to Fit the Political Agenda".
This commenter begs to differ with M. Karlin's assessment (8) of the relative competence of
Russian sovok and CIA. "consummate professionals relative to what passes for today's Russian
intelligence services"? Mais non.
CIA always gets caught. All they do is step on their crank, again and again. They depend
not on professionalism but on what Russ Baker describes as a strange mix of ruthlessness and
ineptitude. Both stem from impunity in municipal law.
For example: CIA torture and coercive interference got comprehensively exposed, worldwide,
in the '70s. What happened? Don Gregg gave the Church and Pike committees an ultimatum: Back
off or it's martial law. CIA got busted again in the '80s for the criminal enterprises under
the Iran/Contra rubric. By then CIA had installed Tom Polgar, Former Saigon Station Chief, as
chief investigator for the cognizant Senate Select committee, and Polgar assured Gregg that
his hearings would not be a repeat of the abortive Pike and Church flaps.
So CIA are clowns. They can afford to be clowns because they know they can get away with
it. Getting away with it is their only skill, and the only skill they need.
The persistent category error at this site is failing to realize that CIA is the state.
They rule the USA.
The President has authority under the Global Magnitsky Act to impose sanctions against
anyone who has committed a human rights violation. Congress has already requested a HR
investigation which Trump must act on and report to them within 4 months
It appears my prediction of Saudi gate may be right. This potentially is good news for
Iran and Russia. Perhaps not so good for Trump and Saidis. Israel may not be happy. Perhaps
his wife's plane troubles were a warning shot to remind him who is boss. Who knows ?
Haleys resignation beginning to make sense now. The House of Trump and House of Saud may
soon fall, and Bibi wont be happy losing Trump and MBS. We all know what they are capable of
to get things back on track
Why did the media held back on this so for so long?
Yemen (and Gaza).
CGTN & Al-Jazeera are the only global news outlets consistently and regularly reporting on the US facilitated
genocides in Yemen and Jewish-occupied Palestine/Gaza.
The never-ending Khashoggi non-mystery mystery keeps Yemen & Gaza out of the Jew-controlled Western Media
headlines. Saudi Barbaria and "Israel" are natural allies because each of them is an artificial Western political
construct with a cowardly and incompetent military apparatus and an anti-heroic penchant for slaughtering undefended
civilians - for psychopathic reasons.
--------
Talking about psychopathy...
Oz's Christian Zionist PM, Sco Mo, is blathering about following Trump's lead and moving Oz's Embassy in "Israel" to
Jerusalem. Sc Mo, who has never had an original idea in his life, still hasn't woken up to the fact that Trump's
Jerusalem gambit was a trap for Bibi. So it's hilarious that Sco Mo The Unoriginal, is planning to take a flying
leap into the same trap!
Anyone with more than half a brain would realise that...
1. No civilised country has followed Trump's lead.
2. Trump can, and will, reverse his (illegal) Jerusalem decision out of a 'new-found respect' for International Law.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 18, 2018 12:14:08 AM |
83
Whoever is ultimately behind this campaign (which I
suspect is a loose association of interest groups spread throughout SA, Turkey, London citi, wall street, whoever)
they will not stop until MbS is paraded through the streets in chains or at least his head at the end of a lance. At
this point the only question how many days will it take to see his head on a pike?
"Their target that night: Anssaf Ali Mayo, the local leader of the Islamist
political party Al-Islah. The UAE considers Al-Islah to be the Yemeni branch of the worldwide Muslim Brotherhood,
which the UAE calls a terrorist organization. Many experts insist that Al-Islah, one of whose members won the Nobel
Peace Prize, is no terror group. They say it's a legitimate political party that threatens the UAE not through
violence but by speaking out against its ambitions in Yemen."
".......Russia's
foreign minister has accused the open-source Bellingcat investigative team of acting as a front
for Western intelligence services seeking to manipulate public opinion.
Bellingcat has played a leading role in identifying the alleged names of two men accused
of trying to poison ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain this year. It has
previously published investigations that reportedly link Russia to the downing of flight MH17
in eastern Ukraine and suspected chemical attacks in Syria.
"It's no secret to anyone, Western journalists write openly that Bellingcat is connected to
special services," Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Euronews
on Tuesday.
"They leak information through it to have some effect on public opinion," he
said......."
Two disappearances, and two very different responses from Western governments, which illustrates their rank
hypocrisy.
When former Russian spy Sergei Skripal went missing in England earlier this year, there was almost
immediate punitive action by the British government and its NATO allies against Moscow.
By contrast,
Western governments are straining with restraint towards Saudi Arabia over the more shocking and provable case of
murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The outcry by Western governments and media over the Skripal affair was deafening and resulted in Britain, the US
and some 28 other countries
expelling
dozens
of Russian diplomats on the back of unsubstantiated British allegations that the Kremlin tried to assassinate an
exiled spy with a deadly nerve agent. The Trump administration has further tightened
sanctions
citing
the Skripal incident.
London's case against Moscow has been marked by wild speculation and ropey innuendo.
No verifiable
evidence of what actually happened to Sergei Skripal (67) and his daughter Yulia has been presented by the British
authorities
. Their claim that President Vladimir Putin sanctioned a hit squad armed with nerve poison
relies on sheer conjecture.
All we know for sure is that the Skripals have been disappeared from public contact by the British
authorities for more than seven months
, since the mysterious incident of alleged poisoning in Salisbury
on March 4.
Russian authorities and family relatives have been steadfastly refused any contact by London with the Skripal
pair, despite more than 60 official requests from Moscow in accordance with international law and in spite of the
fact that Yulia is a citizen of the Russian Federation with consular rights.
It is an outrage that
based on such thin ice of "evidence", the British have built an edifice of
censure against Moscow, rallying an international campaign of further sanctions and diplomatic expulsions.
Now contrast that strenuous reaction, indeed hyper over-reaction, with how Britain, the US, France, Canada and
other Western governments are ever-so slowly responding to Saudi Arabia over the Khashoggi case.
After nearly two weeks since Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, t
he Saudi
regime is this week finally admitting he was killed on their premises – albeit, they claim, in a "botched
interrogation".
Turkish and American intelligence had earlier claimed that Khashoggi was tortured and murdered on the Saudi
premises by a 15-member hit squad sent from Riyadh.
Even more grisly, it is
claimed
that
Khashoggi's body was hacked up with a bone saw by the killers, his remains secreted out of the consulate building
in boxes, and flown back to Saudi Arabia on board two private jets connected to the Saudi royal family.
What's more, the Turks and Americans claim that the whole barbaric plot to murder Khashoggi was on the orders
of senior Saudi rulers, implicating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The latest twist out of Riyadh, is an
attempt to scapegoat "rogue killers" and whitewash the House of Saudi from culpability.
The fact that 59-year-old Khashoggi was a legal US resident and a columnist for the Washington Post has no
doubt given his case such prominent coverage in Western news media. Thousands of other victims of Saudi vengeance
are routinely ignored in the West.
Nevertheless, despite the horrific and damning case against the Saudi monarchy,
the response from the
Trump administration, Britain and others has been abject.
President Trump has blustered that there "will be severe consequences" for the Saudi regime if it is proven
culpable in the murder of Khashoggi. Trump quickly qualified, however,
saying
that
billion-dollar arms deals with the oil-rich kingdom will not be cancelled.
Now Trump appears to be joining
in a cover-up by spinning the story that the Khashoggi killing was done by "rogue killers".
Britain, France and Germany this week issued a
joint
statement
calling for "a credible investigation" into the disappearance. But other than "tough-sounding"
rhetoric, n
one of the European states have indicated any specific sanctions, such as weapons contracts
being revoked or diplomatic expulsions.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was "concerned"
by the gruesome claims about
Khashoggi's killing,
but he
reiterated
that
Ottawa would not be scrapping a $15 billion sale of combat vehicles to Riyadh.
The Saudi rulers have even
threatened
retaliatory
measures if sanctions are imposed by Western governments.
Saudi denials of official culpability seem to be a brazen flouting of all reason and circumstantial evidence
that Khashoggi was indeed murdered in the consulate building on senior Saudi orders.
This week a glitzy international investor conference in Saudi Arabia is being boycotted by top business
figures,
including
the
World Bank chief, Jim Yong Kim, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Britain's venture capitalist Richard Branson. Global
firms like Ford and Uber have pulled out, as have various media sponsors, such as CNN, the New York Times and
Financial Times. Withdrawal from the event was in response to the Khashoggi affair.
A growing bipartisan
chorus
of
US Senators, including Bob Corker, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham and Chris Murphy, have called for the cancellation
of American arms sales to Saudi Arabia, as well as for an overhaul of the strategic partnership between the two
countries.
Still, Trump has rebuffed calls for punitive response.
He has said that American jobs and
profits depend on the Saudi weapons market. Some 20 per cent of all US arms sales are estimated to go to the House
of Saud.
The New York Times this week headlined: "In Trump's Saudi Bargain, the Bottom Line Proudly Stands Out".
The Trump White House will be represented at the investment conference in Saudi Arabia this week – dubbed
"Davos in the Desert" by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. He said he was
attending
in
spite of the grave allegations against the Saudi rulers.
Surely the point here is the unseemly indulgence by Western governments of Saudi Arabia and its so-called
"reforming" Crown Prince. It is remarkable how much credulity Washington, London, Paris, Ottawa and others are
affording the Saudi despots who, most likely, have been caught redhanded in a barbarous murder.
Yet, when it comes to Russia and outlandish, unproven claims that the Kremlin carried out a bizarre
poison-assassination plot, all these same Western governments abandon all reason and decorum to pile sanctions on
Russia based on lurid, hollow speculation. The blatant hypocrisy demolishes any pretense of integrity or
principle.
Here is another connection between the Skripal and Khashoggi affairs. The Saudis no doubt took note of the way
Britain's rulers have shown absolute disregard and contempt for international law in their de facto abduction of
Sergei and Yulia Skripal.
If the British can get away with that gross violation, then the Saudis probably
thought that nobody would care too much if they disappeared Jamal Khashoggi.
Grotesquely, the way things are shaping up in terms of hypocritical lack of action by the Americans, British
and others towards
the Saudi despots, the latter might just get away with murder. Not so Russia. The
Russians are not allowed to get away with even an absurd fantasy.
We are in "Pulp Fiction" aren't we? Any scenario is possible coming from the Saudis or
the Anglo media. The Skripal has been a successful one.
Thanks for completing the scenario with your own ideas of the beheading of witnesses that you
mistakenly attributed to me.
I would suppose that Saudis have something usually convincing to shut off talkative
people, like they will shut off Trump or even the Turks: Money
The Skripal hoax grew legs I never imagined possible. If people did quietly question it,
those people were deprived of a public counter-narrative in the mainstream Press to nurture
their skepticism. This could cause a dimwit to renounce natural suspicion and a sharpie to
know when to shut-up if he/she did not wish to be laughed at or worse.
They have so many of us dangling on a string. Thank b and others for MoA!
Cool down! We had TWO GRU murderers walk into Salisbury, with no CCCTV ecidense yet that they
were near Skripal's house, and no evidence from his house , which surely must have under
surveillance. Do you believe this? OK you believe the official story too.
And apart from that, Kashroggis probable demise is all cool, as he was a head chopping
advocate, a Wahabistst. Fuck him . Wahabists go in Class on camps which has on the entrance
"Arbeit mach frei" which of course is a general lie, but the whe get to kill them in a
humanely way (see instruction manual from CiA)
Or you just shoot them in the chest, less smatter and more blood. Headshots are messy, stuff
everywhere., sometimetimes, if you accidentially hit a weak point in the cranium , you have
brains everywhere , dont wan't that.
As another poster commented, something is missing...
It is like a well choreograhped drame, Skripals were the same, this also is tooooo nice
fitting together... Hmfr!
Qui bono? Who makes money on this? I certainly cannot answer that, but lets play safe : The
Russians did it!
They beamed up Kasshoggi to their base on the dark side of the moon, the re killed him in
civilized manner, fucking him to death with nice looking whores and spoonfeeding him Beluga
caviar and interjected wit sips of Russian Starka. He was then made to mush and beamed back
into the Saudi consulate making a real mess. Now poor headchop promoter is all over the
place! He must love that up in his muslum heaven with 72 old hags. There is no martyrdom in
being beamed to the moon and put through a garden shredder, that is nothing special.
So now the Saudi's has Khassoggi al over their faces (literally :)) and the Turks eye a new
way to betray someone (Putin, wake up!!). Ever since democracy was bestowed on these people,
they have made a mess of it.
Back in the day (when I was gung ho Army boy), it was OK for a Turk officer to shoot dead a
couple of conscripts a year, no problemo, the sentries with weapons had no live rounds hi-hi.
Turkey does not need a hard shove and it will crumble, and the Americans will intervene,
unless Russia is first.
This game is about Turkey, and not goat herders in Saudi Sodoma. They have hardly oil left
and the plebs are angry.
Jared Kushner's friendship/affair with previously merely progressive war criminal MBS, who
has progressed to now also beinted tainted with responsibility for the lurid butchery of an
offensive to MBS 'journalist' who was but days from marriage and the arms of his love, does
not elevate Kushner's already dubious standing in some circles.
Kushner, he who on one memorable occasion chatted til the early hours of the morning,
"cultivating a close friendship", with the mass murdering progressive MBS, who (thus
inspired?; coincidentally?) to Trumpian applause arrested and shook down many members of his
billionaire-cult family. But is this a busom buddy friendship born of equality, two young men
with so much in common?
MBS has been quoted as saying he has "Kushner in my pocket". Hmmm.
And then there's NYT's Tom Friedman's gushing rhapsody in purple over MBS: "... a genuine
reformer, mega-popular dude, and an all-around super awesome guy." Friedman's love was stoked
over what he presumed was a lamb dinner, but in the light of further developments, we are not
so sure....
He was most critical of the Saudi Royals and ;) 'pro-reform.' He was kidnapped in Geneva,
apparently as carried out or 'allowed' for a good part by the Saudi Ambassador.
He was, allegedly, 'rendered' back to KSA, drugged and tortured. Five masked men
knocked him unconscious, anesthetized him, taken him to a Boeing 747 waiting at the Geneva
airport, and flew him to the Saudi capital Riyadh
In F, closer to the events: Celui-ci s'éclipse de la pièce et peu
après, des hommes armés font irruption, frappent Sultan ben Turki, le
menottent, lui font une injection et le transportent inconscient jusqu'à
l'aéroport de Cointrin, où il est embarqué à bord d'un Boeing
médical arrivé plusieurs jours auparavant et toujours prêt à
décoller, selon le récit qu'il en a fait plus tard.
Prison > house arrest, > once freed - he was allowed to go to Boston for medical
treatment - he fled - back to Geneva! - and a court case took place (2016.) Pierre de Preux,
a well known lawyer here, represented him. Imho the state prosecutor (= DA) was brave to take
on this case. It was nevertheless shelved for lack of evidence.
Killing off critics / potential trouble makers / other / takes different forms in
different régimes.
In the US for ex. no big show is made, and the death is classed as suicide, car accident,
druggie death, mystery fall / drowning, etc. no matter how weird the circumstances. In other
lands, it is deemed necessary to demonstrate the power of the Overlords, who can organise 15
ppl, a stark warning is projected.
Posted by: Den Lille Abe | Oct 13, 2018 8:46:30 AM | 118
On one hand, the quantity of black flag incidents is increasing, and that leads to low
quality at many occasions. Ukrainians in particular excel in making most laughable incidents
and the British seem to be influenced. Babchenko was killed, his murder condemned by Her
Majesty Foreign Office and then got resurected. Brits seem to liked that, as exemplified by
heroics of Sir Gavin, the Lord Defender of the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland,
Island of Man etc. etc.) on the frontline of the Free Ukraine.
On the other hand, were Saudis innocent they should have means of proving it. Consulates
have security systems including cameras near the entry. While they are attacked less
frequently than convenience stores, they have a better budget for such systems. Thus it
should not be hard to show that either (a) Jamal Khashoggi actually did not enter KSA
consulate in Istanbul on the day in question or (b) he entered and exited. Barring the use of
hitherto unknown types of beam weapons, I would conclude that he entered and did not exit by
normal means.
That said, there were no reports on beam weapons capable of transporting material objects.
At worst, Russians could focus microwave weapons reducing people inside the consulate to
incontinent cricket hearing idiots, enter through the underground and get out carrying
whatever they please. KSA could be reluctant to release videos showing their people as they
looked like idiots who just pissed into their pants and worse. This is what I can imagine on
the basis of stories from American press that include at least two of "Russia,
consulate/embassy, microwave weapons", usually all three. If we restrict ourself to more
corroborated stories, Russians could drill holes and saturate the air with "military grade
fentanyl" and eschew microwaves. But it would be easier if it was done by Turks with the help
of Russian experts who botched something like that at least once, so they have data how to
drill, spray and calculate the dosage.
Surely, one should not deprecate the ability of Turks to concoct tales. For example, a
typical tale from Tales of 1001 Nights features a beautiful Turkish princess that falls from
one misfortune to another at the hands of a trio of bad characters: a Jewish merchant, a
Christian magician and a Kurdish leader of a band of robbers, only to be eventually rescued
by a dashing young Muslim Arab, and we may have such a tale suitable altered for the occasion
-- perhaps despicable Kurds will show up later.
But really, offering Starka to a prisoner? Because of long aging time and the demand, it
is surprisingly hard to buy, and it is hard to tell if it is popular in Russia at all, Poland
and the Baltics have more of Starka tradition.
"... Any scenario is possible coming from the Saudis or the Anglo media. The Skripal has been a successful one. ..."
"... The Skripal hoax grew legs I never imagined possible. If people did quietly question it, those people were deprived of a public counter-narrative in the mainstream Press to nurture their skepticism. This could cause a dimwit to renounce natural suspicion and a sharpie to know when to shut-up if he/she did not wish to be laughed at or worse. ..."
"... It is like a well choreograhped drame, Skripals were the same, this also is tooooo nice fitting together... ..."
"... Jared Kushner's friendship/affair with previously merely progressive war criminal MBS, who has progressed to now also beinted tainted with responsibility for the lurid butchery of an offensive to MBS 'journalist' who was but days from marriage and the arms of his love, does not elevate Kushner's already dubious standing in some circles. ..."
"... And then there's NYT's Tom Friedman's gushing rhapsody in purple over MBS: "... a genuine reformer, mega-popular dude, and an all-around super awesome guy." Friedman's love was stoked over what he presumed was a lamb dinner, but in the light of further developments, we are not so sure.... ..."
"... Reminded me of the Sultan Bin Turki affair. ..."
"... He was most critical of the Saudi Royals and ;) 'pro-reform.' He was kidnapped in Geneva, apparently as carried out or 'allowed' for a good part by the Saudi Ambassador. ..."
"... On one hand, the quantity of black flag incidents is increasing, and that leads to low quality at many occasions. Ukrainians in particular excel in making most laughable incidents and the British seem to be influenced. Babchenko was killed, his murder condemned by Her Majesty Foreign Office and then got resurected. ..."
We are in "Pulp Fiction" aren't we? Any scenario is possible coming from the Saudis or the Anglo media. The Skripal has
been a successful one.
Thanks for completing the scenario with your own ideas of the beheading of witnesses that you mistakenly attributed to me.
I would suppose that Saudis have something usually convincing to shut off talkative people, like they will shut off Trump or
even the Turks: Money
The Skripal hoax grew legs I never imagined possible. If people did quietly question it, those people were deprived of a public
counter-narrative in the mainstream Press to nurture their skepticism. This could cause a dimwit to renounce natural suspicion
and a sharpie to know when to shut-up if he/she did not wish to be laughed at or worse.
They have so many of us dangling on a string. Thank b and others for MoA!
Cool down! We had TWO GRU murderers walk into Salisbury, with no CCCTV ecidense yet that they were near Skripal's house, and no
evidence from his house , which surely must have under surveillance. Do you believe this? OK you believe the official story too.
And apart from that, Kashroggis probable demise is all cool, as he was a head chopping advocate, a Wahabistst. Fuck him . Wahabists
go in Class on camps which has on the entrance "Arbeit mach frei" which of course is a general lie, but the whe get to kill them
in a humanely way (see instruction manual from CiA)
Or you just shoot them in the chest, less smatter and more blood. Headshots are messy, stuff everywhere., sometimetimes, if you
accidentially hit a weak point in the cranium , you have brains everywhere , dont wan't that.
As another poster commented, something is missing...
It is like a well choreograhped drame, Skripals were the same, this also is tooooo nice fitting together...
Hmfr!
Qui bono? Who makes money on this? I certainly cannot answer that, but lets play safe : The Russians did it!
They beamed up Kasshoggi to their base on the dark side of the moon, the re killed him in civilized manner, fucking him to death
with nice looking whores and spoonfeeding him Beluga caviar and interjected wit sips of Russian Starka. He was then made to mush
and beamed back into the Saudi consulate making a real mess. Now poor headchop promoter is all over the place! He must love that
up in his muslum heaven with 72 old hags. There is no martyrdom in being beamed to the moon and put through a garden shredder,
that is nothing special.
So now the Saudi's has Khassoggi al over their faces (literally :)) and the Turks eye a new way to betray someone (Putin, wake
up!!). Ever since democracy was bestowed on these people, they have made a mess of it.
Back in the day (when I was gung ho Army boy), it was OK for a Turk officer to shoot dead a couple of conscripts a year, no problemo,
the sentries with weapons had no live rounds hi-hi. Turkey does not need a hard shove and it will crumble, and the Americans will
intervene, unless Russia is first.
This game is about Turkey, and not goat herders in Saudi Sodoma. They have hardly oil left and the plebs are angry.
Jared Kushner's friendship/affair with previously merely progressive war criminal MBS, who has progressed to now also beinted
tainted with responsibility for the lurid butchery of an offensive to MBS 'journalist' who was but days from marriage and the
arms of his love, does not elevate Kushner's already dubious standing in some circles.
Kushner, he who on one memorable occasion chatted till the early hours of the morning, "cultivating a close friendship", with
the mass murdering progressive MBS, who (thus inspired?; coincidentally?) to Trumpian applause arrested and shook down many members
of his billionaire-cult family. But is this a busom buddy friendship born of equality, two young men with so much in common?
MBS has been quoted as saying he has "Kushner in my pocket". Hmmm.
And then there's NYT's Tom Friedman's gushing rhapsody in purple over MBS: "... a genuine reformer, mega-popular dude, and
an all-around super awesome guy." Friedman's love was stoked over what he presumed was a lamb dinner, but in the light of further
developments, we are not so sure....
He was most critical of the Saudi Royals and ;) 'pro-reform.' He was kidnapped in Geneva, apparently as carried out or 'allowed'
for a good part by the Saudi Ambassador.
He was, allegedly, 'rendered' back to KSA, drugged and tortured. Five masked men knocked him unconscious, anesthetized him,
taken him to a Boeing 747 waiting at the Geneva airport, and flew him to the Saudi capital Riyadh
In F, closer to the events: Celui-ci s'éclipse de la pičce et peu aprčs, des hommes armés font irruption, frappent Sultan
ben Turki, le menottent, lui font une injection et le transportent inconscient jusqu'ŕ l'aéroport de Cointrin, oů il est embarqué
ŕ bord d'un Boeing médical arrivé plusieurs jours auparavant et toujours pręt ŕ décoller, selon le récit qu'il en a fait plus
tard.
Prison > house arrest, > once freed - he was allowed to go to Boston for medical treatment - he fled - back to Geneva! - and
a court case took place (2016.) Pierre de Preux, a well known lawyer here, represented him. Imho the state prosecutor (= DA) was
brave to take on this case. It was nevertheless shelved for lack of evidence.
Killing off critics / potential trouble makers / other / takes different forms in different régimes.
In the US for ex. no big show is made, and the death is classed as suicide, car accident, druggie death, mystery fall / drowning,
etc. no matter how weird the circumstances. In other lands, it is deemed necessary to demonstrate the power of the Overlords,
who can organise 15 ppl, a stark warning is projected.
On one hand, the quantity of black flag incidents is increasing, and that leads to low quality at many occasions. Ukrainians
in particular excel in making most laughable incidents and the British seem to be influenced. Babchenko was killed, his murder
condemned by Her Majesty Foreign Office and then got resurected. Brits seem to liked that, as exemplified by heroics of Sir Gavin,
the Lord Defender of the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, Island of Man etc. etc.) on the frontline of the Free Ukraine.
not seen till now though is any questioning of Bellingcat's credentials in mainstream
media. So let me hand you over, without further ado and with hearty if surprised approval,
to Mary Dejevsky: not known as a Kremlin stooge or Putin troll. Yet here she is, in today's
Independent, asking in all sincerity and with admirable bluntness just WTF is Bellingcat?
"... its russia and chinas job to assist america to reach the acceptance stage as peacefully as possible while allowing as much face saving as possible for washington and their ruling class. at the end of the day everyone wants to go on living. the next 15 years ought to be quite exciting. ..."
SKRIPALMANIA. Has now been completely outsourced to Bellingcat. Which tells the discerning observer two things: 1) there is
no evidence 2) the truth is probably the opposite. (And for those of you who take Bellingcat seriously: become discerning.)
To those of you who are like myself deeply sceptical about this story can I recommend this article in the UK Independent newspaper.
We should be asking for answers about the Skripals and Bellingcat – and not just from Russia. Mary Dejevsky.
Higgins has entered the polite academic space both in the Uk and the US in lightening speed. And as a result of that got special
attention by media. Not only that, but in the US he additionally joined an important cog of the EU-US think thank world. The Atlantic
Council made him a non-resident "Senior Fellow". As expert in digital forensics, open source and the future of Europe.
When the huge open source "gold rush" caught my attention in the early post 9/11 years, all the excited members I witnessed
more close up were quite system conform. That was after the Iraq war intelligence expertise. That's why it made me wonder. Thus,the
story of Eliot Higgins seems no outlier from my rather limited perspective.
And yes, I am with Paul Robinson, who a while ago noticed the same contradictions as Mary Dejevsky. On one hand the Russians
seem to be omnipotent, on the other they have all these bungling secret service members that are so easy to out. But notice not
by a bunch of laymen, but by a crowd led by a serious senior expert and academic. ;)
Higgins has entered the polite academic space both in the Uk and the US in lightening speed. And as a result of that got special
attention by media. Not only that, but in the US he additionally joined an important cog of the EU-US think thank world. The Atlantic
Council made him a non-resident "Senior Fellow". As expert in digital forensics, open source and the future of Europe.
When the huge open source "gold rush" caught my attention in the early post 9/11 years, all the excited members I witnessed
more close up were quite system conform. That was after the Iraq war intelligence expertise. That's why it made me wonder. Thus,the
story of Eliot Higgins seems no outlier from my rather limited perspective.
And yes, I am with Paul Robinson, who a while ago noticed the same contradictions as Mary Dejevsky. On one hand the Russians
seem to be omnipotent, on the other they have all these bungling secret service members that are so easy to out. But notice not
by a bunch of laymen, but by a crowd led by a serious senior expert and academic. ;)
I think some people here are actually taking Eliott Higgins far too seriously...he is still an uneducated underwear salesman...and
acts like it...case in point his recent twitter outburst at Ted Postol, calling him an 'idiot'...that just shows what a substance
free clown this guy is...
I briefly looked at that blog article linked to by snowflake and it is basically verbal diarrhea...bottom line is that Higgins
and that Bellincat 'outfit' are best simply ignored...not worth the time or mental bandwidth to even think about...
Atlantic Council has a very great Ph.D consultant, and strategists' strategist and tacticians' tactician, Dr. Blank. He, of all
places, taught in US Army War College. He taught, of course, about Russia, since he has Ph.D in Soviet/Russian "history" or whatever
passes as such in US "Russian Studies" field.
His strategic concepts are so devoid of even basic high school level knowledge of Russia (and her geography, BTW) that one
is forced to ask how is it even possible to have this kind of "experts"? Among many outlandish ideas Dr. Blank proposed in his
academic career dedicated to fighting evil Russians was to send US Navy to the Azov Sea to demonstrate the US Naval might.
This was one of the most profound facepalm moments of my life--I mean it. Not only Dr. Blank has no clue about Russia, he also
has no clue about US Navy. Yet, he is an expert, alright.
You left the best part out of that State Department policy statement. He announced a new position, the Senior Advisor for Russian
Malign Activities and Trends or SARMAT for short. That's straight out of the axis of evil mindset. How can we have a sober and
productive policy towards Russia with crap like this?
I thought that was from Duffleblog but you're right:
https://www.state.gov/p/eur...
Third para from the bottom. Part of that $380 million must be Bellingcat's budget.
I can't wait to see what awful person is selected for this role. Also, Sarmat is also the name for Russia's newest ICBM, which
makes one wonder what was on the back of their minds when they came up with this one.
washingtons foreign policy visa vie russia and china is as yet unable to reach the psychological stage of sublimation. frustrated,
angry and demoralised that they can not militarily atttack russia once and for all putting paid ....to who is the biggest dog
in the yard...... american elites lash out ineffectually using various media, economic and financial games to assuage their inability
to get their way.
each iteration of this plan becomes weaker and less effective than the previous one leading to more rage at being thwarted.
where the current crop of american ruling elites are concerned we are talking about 2 factors.... a profound lack of a really
good cosmopolitan education and a near total lack of appreciation for how weak the american industrial base has become the past
30 years (you can not intimidate powerful nations if your military technology is 1 or more generations BEHIND)
an apt understanding of washingtons dilemma is best grasped reading the kubler-ross stages of grieving over a dying loved one.
in this case the dying loved one is american exceptionalism and the l godlike power that goes with it for the 1/100 or 1%.
its russia and chinas job to assist america to reach the acceptance stage as peacefully as possible while allowing as much
face saving as possible for washington and their ruling class. at the end of the day everyone wants to go on living. the next
15 years ought to be quite exciting.
"... What we are seeing now are the consequences of classic imperial over-reach – extending one's power so far and so generally that it hoists itself upon its own petard! The implosion of the USA continues afoot, Hillary Clinton being one of its cheerleaders (according to her recent Amappaling interview). ..."
The whole Magnitsky Act thing was supposed to be a convenient tool of western foreign
policy cloaked in Human Rights sugar to justify punished the usual suspects ad
perpituitam, not for attacking allies. It looks like some US politicians actually think it is
about human rights! They'll need to practice their best acting to explain why some are on the
list and others aren't, along with compliant media and governments.
What we are seeing now are the consequences of classic imperial over-reach –
extending one's power so far and so generally that it hoists itself upon its own petard! The
implosion of the USA continues afoot, Hillary Clinton being one of its cheerleaders
(according to her recent Amappaling interview).
Trump is also promising a rapid USG reaction to India buying S-400s, so it really is time
to stock up on the popcorn. I knew for sure that this year would certainly be more
interesting than last year, but 2019 should be a corker. Woo.
The OPCW, like the Council of Europe, the OSCE, WADA and others have become deeply partizan
and anti-Russian organizations since the 1990s. A handful of members put out a 'report' on
whatever and claim that they have 'evidence' which they should be trusted on rather than
provide. The rest of them go along with it. The only reason that makes sense for the
attempted 'hack' on the OPCW is that Russia is being denied access to information. The
argument, like everything else bullshit from the West is ' You don't show the evidence to
the arsonist ' , sic MH17 because it has already been judged and found guilty.
So far WADA had to row back because of the Schimdt Report (which the media of course did
not report) and all the reinstated athletes, Russia has suspended payments and may well pull
out of the CoE because is it sick and tired of being bombarded with bs at every meeting as if
medieval Bear baiting has returned in a modern form (it has).
All these organizations are destroying themselves. If anything all this shows how weak the
West's soft power has become that they need to throw everything including the kitchen
sink at Russia. They don't like resistance, let alone pushback. They're more careful about
China of course and as we saw recently in the South Pacific the Chinese simply won't be cowed
or intimidated.
As for the allegations about China, we'll most of us have followed the Snowden revelations
about the USA and its Five Eyes global surveillance and infiltration, so its no surprise that
China has been running its own operations. It's what countries do, though apparently they're
not supposed to. Remember that back in 2002 it was discovered that the US bugged the 767
of then Chinese Premier Jian Xiao-Ping. * I think that all this reporting is a sign of
desperation by the powers that be because all else has failed so far and they need to keep
the narrative going.
By wrapping it all up together with a pretty pink bow it is to make it ' undeniable
' in the eyes of people who should know better.
The temptation by Russia will be to publicly burn western spies in Russia, but it is just
another in a long line of provocations to get Russia to respond angrily and make a big
mistake. I can imagine RT being banned and other measures if things start to spiral.
This whole G(R)U story was ready to go at an appropriate moment, and I suspect one of the
factors was Putin's recent comments about Skripal that had captured the world media's ear. By
piling their report on shortly afterwards, they hope to hijack and amplify their
narrative.
But, it's words, not meaningful actions. Either they will try and use this to kick off a
whole new level of sanctions that they haven't before (high value, sensitive stuff like
aerospace, tech etc.). It is possible the timing of this is a last ditch effort to try and
get U-rope on board to stop NordSteam II or anything they think they can squeeze through.
It's weakness through desperation and also to divert from their failures elsewhere.
Or burn western spies in other countries that are far less friendly
It is interesting that one of the groups doxxing Russian 'spies' claim to be volunteers
and patriots. No-one believes that in the slightest apart from morons. Like BellEnd cat, the
number of cut-outs/plausible denial groups has mushroomed and ebb and flow with need. The
volunteer claim is no protection.
How can you ask such a question. Holland is a US vassal and the US uses its vassals to give
its actions legitimacy by claiming that there is an "international" reaction to "Russian
aggression". This is why the US always attacks countries around the world as part of some BS
coalition of its own vassals. It is claiming its aggression is actually justified
international action.
The Dutch recently signed a big order to have 28 of their AH-64D Apache's 'upgraded' to the
'E' model which is really a re-manufactue and upgrade (from sand and heavy use in helping the
US bomb tribesmen far away), & their Patriots to be modernized too.
Because the so called chemical weapons watchdog, which the British government has recently
made judge, jury and exucationer as regards all incidences of alleged uses of chemical agents
as a weapon, namely it can now accuse and condemn whom it thinks are perpetrators of such
chemical attacks, is based in The Hague, where the wicked Russians have allegedly been
hacking etc. and, in general, up to their vile and nefarious deeds, as is, of course, in
their nature of doing things, because they are vile barbarians, subhuman even
I forget where I picked the following up ( from some Russian blog, because it is a
translation). I saved it but forget to put in the source:
September 14, 2018
THE DUBIOUS ROLE OF THE OPCW
(OPCW NEVER uses the word "Novichok")
Even those people who are skeptical about what the British government says (and rightly so)
tend to accept the „Novichok"-Psyop after they read that "OPCW confirms Novichok nerve
agent in Amesbury". But if you actually read what the (summary) of the OPCW says, you will
find the following:
"The team requested and received vials of biomedical samples COLLECTED BY THE BRITISH
AUTHORITIES for delivery to the OPCW laboratory and subsequent analysis by OPCW designated
laboratories for purposes of comparison and in order to verify the analysis conducted by the
United Kingdom. (S 1671, Paragraph 6.)
This VIOLATES THEIR OWN RULES about ensuring a forensic "chain of custody" because they
did not take bio-samples THEMSELVES but accepted the (2nd-hand) material that the
'authorities" had given them.
Regarding the "Premier Jour" perfume-story the OPCW has this to say:
"During the second deployment [6 weeks after Sturgess fell ill] the team collected a
sample of the contents of a small bottle that the police had seized as a suspect item from
the house of Charles Rowley in Amesbury" (P. 9)
In paragraph 10 they confirm that the results of the subsequent analysis "show that the
sample consists of a toxic chemical at a concentration of 97-98% therefore considered to be
"of high purity". (If Charly had got this on his skin he would not have survived )
Again, the chain of custody is non-existent: The OPCW did NOT collect the glass-vial in
Rowley's flat, and could not verify its condition at the end of June, but they accepted what
"the authorities" had told them about it and examined a sample of its content. There was
plenty of time to tamper with the bottle before the OPCW arrived in Salisbury (so malfeasance
cannot be ruled out).
(BTW, Sometimes you don't see the wood for the trees: WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would
transport a deadly nerve-agent in a GLASS-BOTTLE??????)
Again they accepted material from the British authorities (as if they were incapable of
any deception )
What former (Iraq) weapons-inspector Scott Ritter wrote about the OPCW „fact-finding"
mission in Syria is also to a certain extent relevant in the Skripal-Saga:
"The problem, however, is that the OPCW is in no position to make the claim it did. One of
the essential aspects of the kind of forensic investigation carried out by organizations such
as the OPCW -- namely the application of scientific methods and techniques to the
investigation of a crime -- is the concept of "chain of custody" of any samples that are
being evaluated. This requires a seamless transition from the collection of the samples in
question, the process of which must be recorded and witnessed, the sealing of the samples,
the documentation of the samples, the escorted transportation of the samples to the
laboratory, the confirmation and breaking of the seals under supervision, and the subsequent
processing of the samples, all under supervision of the OPCW. Anything less than this means
the integrity of the sample has been compromised -- in short, there is no sample."
(Article: Ex-weapons-inspector: Trump's Sarin Claims built on „Lie" by Scott
Ritter)
Here, Ritter was referring the fact that the OPCW was not able to actually visit the
(terrorist-controlled) "crime-scene" in Khan Sheikhoun but instead went to Turkey (!) where
they accepted testimonies and material given to them by the White Helmets and other
artificial "NGOs" ("highly likely" paid and organized by MI6, DGSE and the CIA). There they
were able to observe autopsies of the 3 alleged victims of the poison-gas attack.
"An NGO had delivered the bodies to the hospitals, though OPCW will not publicly comment
on the identity of the NGO. Samples from the bodies were provided to two separate
laboratories, which independently confirmed indications of sarin or sarin-like
substances.
In criminal proceedings, though, which are similar to the process followed by the UN in
determining a war crime, it is a fundamental principle that ALL EVIDENCE be under the control
of investigators AT ALL TIMES. That didn't happen in this case."
By the way, the OPCW-FFM in Syria (regarding the Douma-incident) was led by two BRITISH
"experts":
The work of the fact finding mission [FFM] was criticized by the Russian Permanent
Representative to the OPCW who complained on 14 April 2017 that:
"Under the mandate defined for [the FFM], its membership should be approved by the Syrian
government, and it should be balanced. For some time, these provisions were observed
somewhat, but then the mission was split into two groups. One [Team Bravo], led by Steven
Wallis from Britain, works in contact with the Syrian government, while the other one [Team
Alpha], headed by his fellow countryman Leonard Phillips, deals with the claims filed by the
Syrian armed opposition. THIS LATTER GROUP IS WORKING COMPLETELY NON-TRANSPARENTLY. ITS
MEMBERSHIP IS CLASSIFIED, AND NO ONE KNOWS WHERE IT GOES OR HOW IT OPERATES. They are
allegedly using the same methodology as Steven Wallis' group, but they are clearly working
mostly remotely, relying on the internet and the fabrications provided by Syrian opposition
NGOs, and never go to Syria. At least, we are not aware of a single such trip".
But the unspeakable "journalists" of the MSM (and RT is not much better the interview with
the suspects is a joke ) do not bother with such complicated details. They just write "OPCW
confirms use of Sarin" in Khan Sheikhoun (and "Novichok" in Salisbury) and ignore all
contradicting evidence and the MOTIVE the UK gov has for demonizing Russia (spoiling their
dirty game in Syria and "Sykes-Picot №2") so one can only agree with this comment:
"Professional journalism is now a wasteland. There is no public exposure of what we all
know has happened and the threat it represents to us all . They have been disloyal to us, so
we owe them no respect in return".
And finally – on the implied higher "morality" of UK politics:
The ECJ has just recently found that the UK's mass surveillance programmes, revealed by
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, did "not meet the 'quality of law' requirement" and were
"incapable of limiting 'interference' to what is 'necessary in a democratic society'"'.(P.387
of the judgement: Case of Big Brother Watch & others vs .UK)
The British evidently thought also about the lunacy of transporting a nerve agent in
sufficient quantity to kill dozens if not hundreds in a glass bottle; that's why Hamish de
Beegee chimed in with his article about how the FSB and the Kremlin had invested months of
work and thousands of pounds developing a ceramic bottle which looked just like the real
thing, but which you could stand a Volkswagen on top of. That's why I pointed out that they
had already used the excuse that it broke to establish how Rowley was exposed.
I suspect The Netherlands are being targeted because among other things the International
Court of Crimes and the International Court of Justice are based in The Hague. There may be
other reasons as well: the Dutch must have a fair few skeletons in their collective closet
and the US could very well target one of these and bring the entire wardrobe crashing down
and exposing all its sordid secrets. One of these bone-shakers is that The Netherlands is a
major corporate tax haven and as such competes with Britain and the US. http://www.nomoretax.eu/netherlands-tax-haven/
I forget where I picked the following up ( from some Russian blog, because it is a
translation). I saved it but forget to put in the source:
September 14, 2018
THE DUBIOUS ROLE OF THE OPCW
(OPCW NEVER uses the word "Novichok")
Even those people who are skeptical about what the British government says (and rightly so)
tend to accept the „Novichok"-Psyop after they read that "OPCW confirms Novichok nerve
agent in Amesbury". But if you actually read what the (summary) of the OPCW says, you will
find the following:
"The team requested and received vials of biomedical samples COLLECTED BY THE BRITISH
AUTHORITIES for delivery to the OPCW laboratory and subsequent analysis by OPCW designated
laboratories for purposes of comparison and in order to verify the analysis conducted by the
United Kingdom. (S 1671, Paragraph 6.)
This VIOLATES THEIR OWN RULES about ensuring a forensic "chain of custody" because they
did not take bio-samples THEMSELVES but accepted the (2nd-hand) material that the
'authorities" had given them.
Regarding the "Premier Jour" perfume-story the OPCW has this to say:
"During the second deployment [6 weeks after Sturgess fell ill] the team collected a
sample of the contents of a small bottle that the police had seized as a suspect item from
the house of Charles Rowley in Amesbury" (P. 9)
In paragraph 10 they confirm that the results of the subsequent analysis "show that the
sample consists of a toxic chemical at a concentration of 97-98% therefore considered to be
"of high purity". (If Charly had got this on his skin he would not have survived )
Again, the chain of custody is non-existent: The OPCW did NOT collect the glass-vial in
Rowley's flat, and could not verify its condition at the end of June, but they accepted what
"the authorities" had told them about it and examined a sample of its content. There was
plenty of time to tamper with the bottle before the OPCW arrived in Salisbury (so malfeasance
cannot be ruled out).
(BTW, Sometimes you don't see the wood for the trees: WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would
transport a deadly nerve-agent in a GLASS-BOTTLE??????)
Again they accepted material from the British authorities (as if they were incapable of
any deception )
What former (Iraq) weapons-inspector Scott Ritter wrote about the OPCW „fact-finding"
mission in Syria is also to a certain extent relevant in the Skripal-Saga:
"The problem, however, is that the OPCW is in no position to make the claim it did. One of
the essential aspects of the kind of forensic investigation carried out by organizations such
as the OPCW -- namely the application of scientific methods and techniques to the
investigation of a crime -- is the concept of "chain of custody" of any samples that are
being evaluated. This requires a seamless transition from the collection of the samples in
question, the process of which must be recorded and witnessed, the sealing of the samples,
the documentation of the samples, the escorted transportation of the samples to the
laboratory, the confirmation and breaking of the seals under supervision, and the subsequent
processing of the samples, all under supervision of the OPCW. Anything less than this means
the integrity of the sample has been compromised -- in short, there is no sample."
(Article: Ex-weapons-inspector: Trump's Sarin Claims built on „Lie" by Scott
Ritter)
Here, Ritter was referring the fact that the OPCW was not able to actually visit the
(terrorist-controlled) "crime-scene" in Khan Sheikhoun but instead went to Turkey (!) where
they accepted testimonies and material given to them by the White Helmets and other
artificial "NGOs" ("highly likely" paid and organized by MI6, DGSE and the CIA). There they
were able to observe autopsies of the 3 alleged victims of the poison-gas attack.
"An NGO had delivered the bodies to the hospitals, though OPCW will not publicly comment
on the identity of the NGO. Samples from the bodies were provided to two separate
laboratories, which independently confirmed indications of sarin or sarin-like
substances.
In criminal proceedings, though, which are similar to the process followed by the UN in
determining a war crime, it is a fundamental principle that ALL EVIDENCE be under the control
of investigators AT ALL TIMES. That didn't happen in this case."
By the way, the OPCW-FFM in Syria (regarding the Douma-incident) was led by two BRITISH
"experts":
The work of the fact finding mission [FFM] was criticized by the Russian Permanent
Representative to the OPCW who complained on 14 April 2017 that:
"Under the mandate defined for [the FFM], its membership should be approved by the Syrian
government, and it should be balanced. For some time, these provisions were observed
somewhat, but then the mission was split into two groups. One [Team Bravo], led by Steven
Wallis from Britain, works in contact with the Syrian government, while the other one [Team
Alpha], headed by his fellow countryman Leonard Phillips, deals with the claims filed by the
Syrian armed opposition. THIS LATTER GROUP IS WORKING COMPLETELY NON-TRANSPARENTLY. ITS
MEMBERSHIP IS CLASSIFIED, AND NO ONE KNOWS WHERE IT GOES OR HOW IT OPERATES. They are
allegedly using the same methodology as Steven Wallis' group, but they are clearly working
mostly remotely, relying on the internet and the fabrications provided by Syrian opposition
NGOs, and never go to Syria. At least, we are not aware of a single such trip".
But the unspeakable "journalists" of the MSM (and RT is not much better the interview with
the suspects is a joke ) do not bother with such complicated details. They just write "OPCW
confirms use of Sarin" in Khan Sheikhoun (and "Novichok" in Salisbury) and ignore all
contradicting evidence and the MOTIVE the UK gov has for demonizing Russia (spoiling their
dirty game in Syria and "Sykes-Picot №2") so one can only agree with this comment:
"Professional journalism is now a wasteland. There is no public exposure of what we all
know has happened and the threat it represents to us all . They have been disloyal to us, so
we owe them no respect in return".
And finally – on the implied higher "morality" of UK politics:
The ECJ has just recently found that the UK's mass surveillance programmes, revealed by
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, did "not meet the 'quality of law' requirement" and were
"incapable of limiting 'interference' to what is 'necessary in a democratic society'"'.(P.387
of the judgement: Case of Big Brother Watch & others vs .UK)
The British evidently thought also about the lunacy of transporting a nerve agent in
sufficient quantity to kill dozens if not hundreds in a glass bottle; that's why Hamish de
Beegee chimed in with his article about how the FSB and the Kremlin had invested months of
work and thousands of pounds developing a ceramic bottle which looked just like the real
thing, but which you could stand a Volkswagen on top of. That's why I pointed out that they
had already used the excuse that it broke to establish how Rowley was exposed.
Explosive. Nobody but Americans can be trusted to run international institutions, especially
when they are bought and paid for by the USA. Hey, that'd be a good job for Travis Tygart. He
has been chafing lately about the limits of his power to get at Russia from USADA.
The pace of events seems to be taking on momentum, as if it is leading up to something,
and there's that kind of stillness in the air, while sounds seem far away and tinny, like
just before a big storm breaks.
Alexander Mishkin, the second man accused of involvement in the Skripal assassination plot, was likely to have been sent
on the mission because he was a trained doctor capable of providing an antidote in case the novichok attack went wrong, according
to security sources.
Dr Mishkin, like the GRU colleague who travelled with him to Salisbury, was made a 'Hero of the Russian Federation' with
Vladimir Putin personally presenting him with the award, according to the investigative website Bellingcat.
The 'antidote' to nerve-agent exposure is atropine, which is broadly marketed to world defense forces in an auto-injector. Your
medical expertise in dispensing it is to remove the protective cap, and strike it against your thigh in the muscle, point-first
– the internal spring does the rest, right through your clothing. We used to practice it regularly in NBCD training, except the
fluid in training injectors is just water. Some crybaby pointed out the needle might pick up a fragment of cloth on its way in,
and cause an infection, so we stopped doing it with real needles, and now you just get a thump against your leg from the spring.
Military forces are also trained to administer atropine to stricken comrades who were overcome before they could react. Just
be sure to give him his own atropine and not yours, and push the needle through his pocket-flap afterward and then bend it over,
so that anyone happening on the scene after you have left will know he has already been given atropine and not administer another
dose. Atropine overdose causes its own set of problems.
I think it's pretty clear that it does not 'make eminent sense' to have a 'qualified military doctor along in case something
went wrong with the Novichok', since anyone can administer Atropine and there is an enormous worldwide base of soldiers and ex-soldiers
who could do it as well as anyone else. Horseshit piled on top of horseshit.
For some bizarre reason this UK fairy tale requires many Russians. One isn't enough to smear some alleged top secret nerve agent
on a door knob (at least in one of the dozens of contradictory theories spewed by Scotland Yard). Wearing gloves (e.g. store bought
nitrile ones which would stop this poison, unlike latex ones) is clearly considered too much intellectual effort for Russian untermenschen
and they need a doctor to tag along. This fictional doctor claim is patently absurd. A doctor without hospital facilities is nothing
but a paramedic and as you rightly describe no such person is needed to administer atropine.
The average media sap in the UK and NATzO apparently can't be bothered to do any thinking. The best assassination plot would
involve only a single agent and not a handful. Even freaking video games have the lone assassin meme repeated. One agent could
also have a well established cover story. A gang of assassins would essentially be evidence against itself. A whole specially
designed bottle of nerve agent is ridiculous and unnecessary. And having it disposed of in a way that it can be found by some
homeless junkies is simply not credible. Don't they have sewer grates in the UK?
Vis the Dutch push for a new sanctions regime for Human Rights abusers, apart from global
sponsors of Islamic terrorism who also happen to have $$$, the obvious takeaway that only
just occurred to me is that the push for a European Magnitsky Act must have failed.
This is exactly the same thing, they just dropped the name. The EU is not united and
I don't see the Netherlands as having enough influence in the EU without the UK.
Where would we be without solid, honest citizen journalism like this? Bellingcat has passed
the CIA, MI5, Scotland Yard and the FBI and never looked back. In fact, we have not heard
Peep One from any of them since Bellingcat burst on the scene, and the British press goes
straight to print from its reports, to hell with waiting for informed comment from the
intelligence services or law enforcement.
Come to think about it, what are their countries paying them for?
I'm looking forward to the first Bellingcat spin-offs.
Eliot Higgins – Special Invesigator featuring Tom Cruise and introducing Sparky his
lovable mongrel dog which miraculously survived the Salisbury Novichok Massacre and can sniff
out GRU agents a mile away.
And following temporary employment reviewing orders at a Leicester UK women's underwear
manufacturer, the unemployed Higgins then "dispensed with looking for another job so that he
could devote himself to blogging full-time" and has now pogressed to being a senior fellow in
the "Digital Forensic Research Laboratory" and the "Future Europe Initiative", projects run
by the Washington, D.C based "think tank" the "Atlantic Council".
Higgins hard at work researching
A "kept man"? His wife must bring home the bacon then.
Well, she would if she were not a Turk.
The then 32-year-old Higgins started blogging about the civil war in Syria from his home
as Brown Moses: "He had no formal intelligence training or security clearance that gave him
access to classified documents. He could not speak or read Arabic. He had never set foot in
the Middle East, unless you count the time he changed planes in Dubai en route to Manila, or
his trip to visit his in-laws in Turkey".
As far as I am aware, he still has no credentials for his chosen field, albeit he is now a
"fellow" of this and that. He has also since bursting into the bloggosphere considerably put
on weight:
Higgins belongs to an obsessive coterie of self-appointed military intelligence experts
who use social media to piece together critical details of faraway conflicts, often well
ahead of seasoned professionals. Frequently self-taught and operating far outside the
military-industrial complex, these amateur analysts have honed a novel set of sleuthing
skills that fuse old-fashioned detective work with new sources of intelligence generated by
cell phone cameras and spread by social networks. Syria's war, widely considered the most
documented conflict in history, has turned social media into a weapon of mass detection --
critical both for fighters on the ground and for faraway observers trying to make sense of
the conflict.
The mind boggles: he and his fellow "amateur analysts" are often well ahead of seasoned
professionals. Frequently self-taught and operating far outside the military-industrial
complex !!!
Once upon a time, nobody would dare to do what they are doing because of the danger of a
ruinous lawsuit. But so long as he continues accusing the right people, the west will
safeguard him from that as best it can. Maybe that's the way to go. They've left themselves
without a retreat, saying this and that are 'confirmed'. Sue the outfit.
Note how Bellingtwat states that it has "conclusively" established the real identity of
Petrov on evidence gleaned from "multiple open sources" and "testimony from people familiar
with the person" in question.
How do they do this?
First to the post again and well ahead of all the Western intelligence agencies, which are
obviously understaffed with incompetents and not in possession of state-of-the-art means of
gathering intelligence such as . errrr, Facebook?
A few days ago, that lying old slag May appeared on stage at the Conservative Party annual
conference with Abba's "Dancing Queen" playing in the bacground. May appeared to be trying to
dance to the Abba hit. What a cupid old stunt!
And yesterday at an EUSSR Brussels conference, EU chief-executive and piss-artist Juncker
appears to have been possibly trying to take the piss out of that old, lying bag May's
gyrations:
Yes, their resources really do beat all, don't they? Able to trawl through Russians' private
records at will, even those ominously marked, "Not for public release". But then, they have
lots of willing helpers inside Russia, which the western intelligence agencies officially
have not. Makes you wonder how Russia can miss catching them, innit, considering the
intertubes are strictly controlled in Russia and all their intelligence transactions are in
the public domain? I mean, with their troll farms and all their snoopy organizations?
Bellingcrap could have just mentioned its sources during the course of its article instead of
proclaiming that it's going to detail in another post to be supposedly published today (9
October 2018) the methodology it and The Insider Russia used and the information trail
established. Perhaps a sign that Bellingcrap is starting to feel some pressure to lift its
game to a level acceptable to its masters at The Atlantic Council?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. BellEndCat can only manage the former.
Still, it's good enough for the BBC who this morning spoke to a (former?) Georgian minister
who was saying that if the West was united and stopped Russia from invading Georgia in 2008,
then Ukraine, Crimea, Skripals etc. wouldn't have happened, followed by BBC correspondent
Norton who said that 'was about right'.
A research arm of the U.S. military is exploring the possibility of deploying insects
to make plants more resilient by altering their genes. Some experts say the work may be seen
as a potential biological weapon.
In an opinion paper published Thursday in the journal Science, the authors say the U.S.
needs to provide greater justification for the peace-time purpose of its Insect Allies
project to avoid being perceived as hostile to other countries. Other experts expressed
ethical and security concerns with the research, which seeks to transmit protective traits to
crops already growing in the field .
####
The rest at the link.
Using the US's own definitions that it has used to place sanctions on other countries,
this is clearly a dual-use technology, i.e. civilian with military applications (which
is just about the same as any fancy satellited up in space etc.). Conclusion? The US must
sanction itself!
The US has been using insects as bioweapons for decades (including attacking Cuba and the
USSR). The current development program is using this insect research as a cover. Its real
function is to develop targeted genetic weapons designed to exterminate ethic groups. These
weapons are beyond any "mass destruction" and are pure genocide devices. Anyone who thinks
that this sort of research is unlikely is a retard without a clue. There is a reason why
certain US companies were buying up Russian human bio-waste (e.g. amputated limbs, cadavers).
If anyone thinks that the US will care about collateral damage to neighbouring Slavic
countries, then they are full on retarded as well. In 1990 Americans could not tell the
difference between Ukrainians and Russians (and even Chechens). Now for purely political
reasons they pretend to see every microscopic difference. The US has no love for Poland,
Ukraine, or any other new Europe country. They are merely cannon fodder for its imperial
ambitions. The hate that Poles and other Slavic states have for Russia is pathological.
Poland is basically a German branch plant economy. Tell me why Poland should have more love
for Germany than for Russia? And don't invoke communism since Russians were not privileged
compared to Poles before 1991. It was, in fact, the other way around.
The US is always asking to be trusted with some fearsome new capability, on the grounds that
its values are a fail-safe – it is so innately good that it could never use such
capabilities for evil. And it seems obsessed with modifications to achieve super-plants so
that one potato will feed a family of eight, and suchlike – what's wrong with food the
way nature intended it to be?
If you would decide whether a technology or process should be viewed as a threat, just
imagine it was announced by Russia. The USA would scream its head off.
I can't help noticing as well that some of its changes seem geared toward not having to do
anything about global warming, continuing to rely on a petroleum-dominated energy policy and
so forth, by engineering a food supply that will flourish through as changing environment. If
it is successful in that aim it is assured global domination, as the food supply of other
countries could vanish if the country did not sign on to the US technology agenda. America
would not have to threaten anyone's crops with secret-agent bugs. It could just go on as it
is doing, and continue to contribute to global warming.
A suspected third member of the Kremlin hit squad behind the Salisbury nerve agent attack
has been named, according to a respected Russian news website.
Sergey Fedotov, 45, travelled to the UK on the same day as the two assassins already
charged by British authorities – and boarded the same flight home.
The Telegraph had previously reported the existence of a third member of the Russian
intelligence hit squad and a trawl of flight records by the Fontanka news agency matched it
to Fedotov.
According to Fontanka, Fedotov flew to the UK on a passport whose number differs by
only a few digits from those used by the two GRU military intelligence agents officially
wanted for the nerve agent attack.
It is almost certain Fedotov is not the passenger's real name but an alias. No traces
of Sergei Fedotov have been found in documentary databases or on social media. He has no
property, vehicles or telephone numbers registered to his name in Russia, according to
Fontanka.
No "alleged"in "Kremlin hit squad behind the Salisbury nerve agent attack but It is
almost certain Fedotov is not the passenger's real name but an alias.
"... As many, including Murray have pointed out, the story the UK is telling displays none of the tradecraft that one would expect from a sophisticated intelligence service. ..."
So little about the mutating, public narrative makes sense, including motive, whether Russian
or British. Some suggest that the British find it useful to paint an ongoing story for the
public of Russian depravity and duplicity. If that were the case, why paint Russia as the
gang that couldn't shoot straight - too inept to constitute a serious threat?
As many, including Murray have pointed out, the story the UK is telling displays none
of the tradecraft that one would expect from a sophisticated intelligence service.
Very convincing. This Israeli expert blows up the UK's narrative in a few well-chosen
one-liners.
"If the GRU acted, both the killers and the other participants in the operation would come
to the UK on the passports of other countries that have visa-free relations with it. Here, two
alleged GRU officers go to the embassy, leave their fingerprints there, get a
visa, stop at the hotel, pass under all the cells. This you will not find even in ladies'
detective novels."
An Israeli expert on international terrorism, writer Alexander Brass, shared his view on the
case of the Skripals poisoning in Salisbury. Brass draws parallels between the work of the
special services of Israel and Russia – he believes that if to compare the British
version with the practice of the special agents, then the absurdity becomes obvious.
"Alexander, so what, in your opinion, happened in Salisbury?"
-There was a rough provocation by the British special services. In my opinion, this is
obvious.
"There's a lot of stupidity on stupidity." The story with Petrov and Boshirov does not hold
up any professional peer review. According to the Brits, the Skripals were poisoned by GRU
agents (this is what the department is called, although this is now the Main Directorate of the
RF General Staff).
I want to explain how the special services work. If you need someone to eliminate, then this
is a very serious operation, which is being prepared for a long time. A very significant
material and human resource is allocated. We are talking about dozens of employees. On the
territory of this state, an "advanced command post" is being created.
In the operation, a technical support group, a logistic group, a cover group, an external
surveillance group and a group of performers are involved.
The performers themselves appear at the very last moment. They do not go anywhere, lighting
up on cameras, do not use public transport, but move on rented cars, which they do not rent
themselves. And the more they will not stop in hotels, but will live on safe houses provided by
the logistics group.
Such groups do not come under the passport of their country, do not go to the embassy for
obtaining a visa, leaving fingerprints. This is complete nonsense. Professionals do not work
that way.
If the GRU acted, both the killers and the other participants in the operation would come to
the UK on the passports of other countries that have visa-free relations with it. Here, two
alleged GRU officers go to the embassy, leave their fingerprints there, get a
visa, stop at the hotel, pass under all the cells. This you will not find even in ladies'
detective novels.
"... And what about the possibility of MI5's involvement in, dare we use the term, false flag operations? ..."
"... As someone who abhors the premise of conspiracy theory on principle, the fact that more and more are turning to its warm embrace as an intellectual reflex against what is politely described as the 'official narrative' of events, well this is no surprise when we learn of the egregious machinations of Western intelligence agencies such as Britain's MI5. ..."
"... If any such investigation is to be taken seriously, however, it must include in its remit the power to investigate all possible links between Britain's intelligence community and organisations such as, let's see, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group ? ..."
"... The deafening UK mainstream media and political class silence over the trail connecting 2017 Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi and MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence agency, leaves a lingering stench of intrigue that will not out. The work of investigative journalist Mark Curtis on this sordid relationship is unsurpassed. ..."
"... "The evidence suggests that the barbaric Manchester bombing, which killed 22 innocent people on May 22nd, is a case of blowback on British citizens arising at least partly from the overt and covert actions of British governments." ..."
"... "The evidence points to the LIFG being seen by the UK as a proxy militia to promote its foreign policy objectives. Whitehall also saw Qatar as a proxy to provide boots on the ground in Libya in 2011, even as it empowered hardline Islamist groups." ..."
"... "Both David Cameron, then Prime Minister, and Theresa May – who was Home Secretary in 2011 when Libyan radicals were encouraged to fight Qadafi [Muammar Gaddafi] – clearly have serious questions to answer. We believe an independent public enquiry is urgently needed." ..."
"... In words that echo down to us from ancient Rome, the poet Juvenal taunts our complacency with a question most simple and pertinent: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Who will guard the guards themselves? ..."
An intelligence service given free rein to commit 'serious crimes' in its own country is an
intelligence service that is the enemy of its people. The quite astounding
revelation that Britain's domestic intelligence service, MI5, has enjoyed this very freedom
for decades has only just been made public at a special tribunal in London, set up to investigate the country's
intelligence services at the behest of a coalition of human rights groups, alleging a pattern
of illegality up to and including collusion in murder.
The hitherto MI5 covert policy sanctioning its agents to commit and/or solicit serious
crimes, as and when adjudged provident, is known as the Third Direction. This codename has been
crafted, it would appear, by someone with a penchant for all things James Bond within an agency
whose average operative is more likely to be 5'6" and balding with a paunch and bad teeth than
any kind of lantern-jawed 007.
The Pat Finucane Centre ,
one of the aforementioned human rights groups involved in bringing about this tribunal
investigation (Investigatory Powers Tribunal, to give it its Sunday name) into the nefarious
activities of Britain's domestic intelligence agency, issued a damning
statement in response to the further revelation that former Prime Minister David Cameron
introduced oversight guidelines with regard to the MI5 covert third direction policy back in
2012.
Cameron's decision to do so, the group claims, was far from nobly taken:
"It can be no coincidence that Prime Minister David Cameron issued new guidelines,
however flawed, on oversight of MI5 just two weeks before publication of the De Silva report
into the murder of Pat Finucane. The PM was clearly alive to the alarming evidence which was
about to emerge of the involvement of the Security Service in the murder. To date no-one within
a state agency has been held accountable. The latest revelations make the case for an
independent inquiry all the more compelling."
Pat Finucane, a Belfast Catholic, plied his trade as a human rights lawyer at a time when
the right to be fully human was denied the minority Catholic community of the small and
enduring outpost of British colonialism in the north east corner of Ireland, otherwise known as
Northern Ireland. He was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in 1989, back when the
decades-long conflict euphemistically referred to as the Troubles still raged, claiming victims both
innocent and not on all sides.
Unlike the vast majority of those killed and murdered in the course of this brutal conflict,
Finucane's murder sparked a long and hard fought struggle for justice by surviving family
members, friends and campaigners. They allege – rather convincingly, it should be said
– that it was carried out with the active collusion of MI5.
Stepping back and casting a wider view over this terrain, the criminal activities of
Britain's intelligence services constitute more than enough material for a book of considerable
heft. How fortunate then that just such a book has already been
written.
In his 'Dead Men Talking: Collusion, Cover Up and Murder in Northern Ireland's Dirty War',
author Nicholas Davies "provides information on a number of the killings [during the
Troubles], which were authorized at the highest level of MI5 and the British
government."
But over and above the crimes of MI5 in Ireland, what else have those doughty defenders of
the realm been up to over the years? After all, what is the use of having a license to engage
in serious criminal activity, including murder and, presumably, torture, if you're not prepared
to use (abuse) it? It begs the question of how many high profile deaths attributed to suicide,
natural causes, and accident down through the years have been the fruits of MI5 at work?
And what about the possibility of MI5's involvement in, dare we use the term, false flag
operations?
As someone who abhors the premise of conspiracy theory on principle, the fact that more and
more are turning to its warm embrace as an intellectual reflex against what is politely
described as the 'official narrative' of events, well this is no surprise when we learn of the
egregious machinations of Western intelligence agencies such as Britain's MI5.
What we are bound to state, doing so without fear of contradiction, is this particular
revelation opens up a veritable Pandora's Box of grim possibilities when it comes to the
potential crimes committed by Britain's domestic intelligence agency, ensuring that a full and
vigorous investigation and public inquiry is now both necessary and urgent.
If any such investigation is to be taken seriously, however, it must include in its remit
the power to investigate all possible links between Britain's intelligence community and
organisations such as, let's see, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group ?
The deafening UK mainstream media and political class silence over the trail connecting 2017
Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi and MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence agency,
leaves a lingering stench of intrigue that will not out. The work
of investigative journalist Mark Curtis on this sordid relationship is unsurpassed.
As Curtis writes,
"The evidence suggests that the barbaric Manchester bombing, which killed 22 innocent
people on May 22nd, is a case of blowback on British citizens arising at least partly from
the overt and covert actions of British governments."
In the same report he arrives at a conclusion both damning and chilling:
"The evidence points to the LIFG being seen by the UK as a proxy militia to promote its
foreign policy objectives. Whitehall also saw Qatar as a proxy to provide boots on the ground
in Libya in 2011, even as it empowered hardline Islamist groups."
Finally: "Both David Cameron, then Prime Minister, and Theresa May – who was Home
Secretary in 2011 when Libyan radicals were encouraged to fight Qadafi [Muammar Gaddafi]
– clearly have serious questions to answer. We believe an independent public enquiry is
urgently needed."
In words that echo down to us from ancient Rome, the poet Juvenal taunts our complacency
with a question most simple and pertinent: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Who will
guard the guards themselves?
Edward R Murrow
puts it rather more bluntly: "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."
Sooner or later, people in Britain are going to have to wake up to who the real enemy
is.
John Wight has written for a variety of newspapers and websites, including the
Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and
Foreign Policy Journal.
"... As the hoax unravels, the real story of "foreign collusion" comes out ..."
"... This entire episode has Her Majesty's Secret Service's fingerprints all over it. Steele's key role is plain enough: here was a British spook who was not only hired by the Clinton campaign to dig up dirt on Trump but was unusually passionate about his work – almost as if he'd have done it for free. And then there was the earliest approach to the Trump campaign, made by Cambridge professor and longtime spook Stefan Halper to Carter Page. And then there's the mysterious alleged "link" to Russian intelligence, Professor Joseph Mifsud, whose murky British-based thinktank managed to operate openly despite later claims it was a Russian covert operation. ..."
"... It was Mifsud who orchestrated the Russia-gate hoax, first suggesting that the Russians had Hillary Clinton's emails, and then disappearing into thin air as soon as the story he had planted percolated into plain view. Some "Russian agent"! ..."
"... Trump's decision to walk back his announcement that the key Russia-gate intelligence would be declassified tells us almost as much as if he'd tweeted it out, unredacted. For what it tells us is that public knowledge of the contents would constitute a major break in relations with at least one key ally. ..."
"... So here we have it at last, the final truth of Russia-gate: yes, there was indeed foreign collusion in the 2016 election, but it came from the opposite direction than the media are telling us. We weren't attacked by Russia: a few thousand dollars in Facebook ads that nobody saw did not put Trump in the White House. Our democratic process was undermined, not by the supposedly omnipotent Vladimir Putin but by the intelligence agencies of some of our more beloved "allies." We were attacked by a tag -team, both foreign and domestic, intent on ousting a democratically-elected President by any means necessary. ..."
"... When those subsidies, subventions, and special privileges are threatened, as they are by the nationalist cheapskate Trump, who would gladly demolish the whole decrepit, dated, and dangerous cold war architecture with a wave of his hand. A US President who puts America first? They can't allow it. ..."
"... The global Establishment has risen up against the People. ..."
As the hoax unravels, the real story of "foreign collusion" comes out
The
conspiracy to overthrow a sitting US President extends far beyond our own "Deep State." As I've
been
saying in this space for quite some time, it's been an international team effort from the
beginning. Setting aside the British origins of the obscene "dossier" compiled by "ex"-MI6
agent Christopher Steele, we now have further confirmation of foreign involvement in President
Trump's
decision to delay (perhaps indefinitely) the declassification of key Russia-gate documents.
While US intelligence officials were expected to oppose the move, "Trump was also swayed by
foreign allies, including Britain, in deciding to reverse course, these people said. It wasn't
immediately clear what other governments may have raised concerns to the White House."
But of course the Washington Post knows perfectly well which other governments would
have reason to raise "concerns" to the White House. It's clear from the public record that the
following "allies" have rendered the "Resistance" essential assistance at one time or
another:
United Kingdom – This entire episode has Her Majesty's Secret Service's
fingerprints all over it. Steele's key role is plain enough: here was a British spook who was
not only hired by the Clinton campaign to dig up dirt on Trump but was unusually passionate
about his work – almost as if he'd have done it for free. And then there was the
earliest approach to the Trump campaign, made by Cambridge professor and longtime spook
Stefan Halper to Carter
Page. And then there's the mysterious alleged "link" to Russian intelligence, Professor
Joseph Mifsud, whose murky British-based thinktank managed to operate openly despite later
claims it was a Russian covert operation.
It was Mifsud who orchestrated the Russia-gate hoax, first suggesting that the Russians
had Hillary Clinton's emails, and then disappearing into thin air as soon as the story he had
planted percolated into plain view. Some "Russian agent"!
Australia – Why would the former Australian High Commissioner to the UK seek
out George Papadopoulos, a low-level semi-advisor to the Trump campaign, and milk him for
information while getting him drunk?
Israel – So how did Papadopoulos find himself spilling his guts at a bar
with a top Australian intelligence figure? The Times reports that "The meeting at the
bar came about because of a series of connections, beginning with an Israeli Embassy official
who introduced Mr. Papadopoulos to another Australian diplomat in London."
Estonia – The Times and other outlets report that a "Baltic
intelligence agency" was the first to relay "concerns" about Russian influence over the Trump
team. I'm willing to bet it was the Estonians, who have always been the most actively
anti-Russian actors in the region.
Ukraine – Democratic National Committee members actually met with Ukrainian
government leaders in an attempt to uncover dirt on Trump. Working together with the DNC,
Democratic official and Ukrainian lobbyist Alexandra Chalupa received active assistance from
the Ukrainian embassy, which became a veritable
locus of Clintonian campaign operations.
This is part of the price we pay for our vaunted "empire," and the "liberal international
order" the striped-pants set is so on about. As that grizzled old "isolationist" prophet, Garet
Garrett, described the insignia of empire at the dawn of the cold war:
"There is yet another sign that defines itself gradually. When it is clearly defined it may
be already too late to do anything about it. That is to say, a time comes when Empire finds
itself –
"A prisoner of history.
"The history of a Republic is its own history . A Republic may change its course, or
reverse it, and that will be its own business., But the history of Empire is a world history,
and belongs to many people."
A Republic may restrain itself, wrote Garrett, but "Empire must put forth its power" –
on whose behalf? There are many claimants whose wealth, position, and prestige depend on the
Imperial largesse. When that claim is threatened, the "satellites" turn against their
protector. This is what the Russia-gate covert action -- carried out by coordinated action of
our "allies" – is all about. We now have clear evidence of just how far our "client"
states are willing go to ensure that the American gravy train of free goodies continues to
flow.
Trump's decision to walk back his announcement that the key Russia-gate intelligence would
be declassified tells us almost as much as if he'd tweeted it out, unredacted. For what it
tells us is that public knowledge of the contents would constitute a major break in relations
with at least one key ally.
So here we have it at last, the final truth of Russia-gate: yes, there was indeed foreign
collusion in the 2016 election, but it came from the opposite direction than the media are
telling us. We weren't attacked by Russia: a few thousand dollars in Facebook ads that nobody
saw did not put Trump in the White House. Our democratic process was undermined, not by the
supposedly omnipotent Vladimir Putin but by the intelligence agencies of some of our more
beloved "allies." We were attacked by a tag -team, both foreign and domestic, intent on ousting
a democratically-elected President by any means necessary.
Here is the final irrefutable argument against America as the "world leader," designated
champion of the "liberal international order" – we become, as Garrett noted, a prisoner
of history. Indeed, we are no longer entitled to write our own history, but must endure the
lobbying and aggressive interventions of our ungrateful and spiteful "allies," whose welfare
states could not exist without generous US "defense" subsidies.
When those subsidies, subventions, and special privileges are threatened, as they are by the
nationalist cheapskate Trump, who would gladly demolish the whole decrepit, dated, and
dangerous cold war architecture with a wave of his hand. A US President who puts America first?
They can't allow it.
And that's really the essence of the fight, the issue that will determine the woof and warp
of American politics in the new millennium. The global Establishment has risen up against the
People. There's no telling what the outcome will be, but one thing I know for sure: I know what
side I'm on. Do you?
British intelligence services have a lot of things to explain now. But who will ask them ?
Notable quotes:
"... The nub of the British government's approach has been the shocking willingness of the corporate and state media to parrot repeatedly the lie that the nerve agent was Russian made, even after Porton Down said they could not tell where it was made and the OPCW confirmed that finding. ..."
"... What is certainly untrue is that only Russia has a motive. The obvious motive is to attempt to blame and discredit Russia. Those who might wish to do this include Ukraine and Georgia, with both of which Russia is in territorial dispute, and those states and jihadist groups with which Russia is in conflict in Syria. The NATO military industrial complex also obviously has a plain motive for fueling tension with Russia. ..."
"... There is of course the possibility that Skripal was attacked by a private gangster interest with which he was in conflict, or that the attack was linked to Skripal's MI6 handler Pablo Miller's work on the Orbis/Steele Russiagate dossier on Donald Trump. ..."
"... Plainly, the British governments statements that only Russia had the means and only Russia had the motive, are massive lies on both counts. ..."
"... Yet no motive has been adduced for an attack on Yulia or why they would attack while Yulia was visiting – they could have painted his doorknob with less fear of discovery anytime he was alone ..."
"... The incompetence of the assassination beggars belief when compared to British claims of a long term production and training programme. The Russians built the heart of the International Space Station. ..."
"... With Skripal being resettled by MI6, and a former intelligence officer himself, it beggars belief that MI6 did not fit, as standard, some basic security including a security camera on his house. ..."
"... Why did they both touch the outside doorknob in exiting and closing the door? Why did the novichok act so very slowly, with evidently no feeling of ill health for at least five hours, and then how did it strike both down absolutely simultaneously, so that neither can call for help, despite their being different sexes, weights, ages, metabolisms and receiving random completely uncontrolled doses. The odds of that happening are virtually nil. And why was the nerve agent ultimately ineffective? ..."
"... Why was the Detective Sergeant affected and nobody else who attended the house, or the scene where the Skripals were found? Why was Bailey only lightly affected by this extremely deadly substance, of which a tiny amount can kill? ..."
"... I am, with a few simple questions, demolishing what is the most ludicrous conspiracy theory I have ever heard – the Salisbury conspiracy theory being put forward by the British government and its corporate lackies. ..."
"... During a visit to Salisbury and Amesbury, the UK home secretary said: "We don't want to jump to conclusions." but they sure were with the first poisoning. Time will tell. ..."
Craig Murray: "The Holes in the Official Skripal Story"
... ... ...
" The nub of the British government's approach has been the shocking willingness of the
corporate and state media to parrot repeatedly the lie that the nerve agent was Russian made,
even after Porton Down said they could not tell where it was made and the OPCW confirmed that
finding. In fact, while the Soviet Union did develop the "novichok" class of nerve agents,
the programme involved scientists from all over the Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, Armenia
and Georgia, as I myself learnt when I visited the newly decommissioned Nukus testing facility
in Uzbekistan in 2002.
Furthermore, it was the USA who decommissioned the facility and removed equipment back to
the United States. At least two key scientists from the programme moved to the United States.
Formulae for several novichok have been published for over a decade. The USA, UK and Iran have
definitely synthesised a number of novichok formulae and almost certainly others have done so
too. Dozens of states have the ability to produce novichok, as do many sophisticated non-state
actors.
As for motive, the Russian motive might be revenge, but whether that really outweighs the
international opprobrium incurred just ahead of the World Cup, in which so much prestige has
been invested, is unclear." Craig Murray
What is certainly untrue is that only Russia has a
motive. The obvious motive is to attempt to blame and discredit Russia. Those who might wish to
do this include Ukraine and Georgia, with both of which Russia is in territorial dispute, and
those states and jihadist groups with which Russia is in conflict in Syria. The NATO military
industrial complex also obviously has a plain motive for fueling tension with Russia.
There is of course the possibility that Skripal was attacked by a private gangster interest
with which he was in conflict, or that the attack was linked to Skripal's MI6 handler Pablo
Miller's work on the Orbis/Steele Russiagate dossier on Donald Trump.
Plainly, the British governments statements that only Russia had the means and only Russia
had the motive, are massive lies on both counts.
The Russians had been tapping the phone of Yulia Skripal. They decided to attack Sergei
Skripal while his daughter was visiting from Moscow.
In an effort to shore up the government narrative, at the time of the Amesbury attack the
security services put out through Pablo Miller's long term friend, the BBC's Mark Urban, that
the Russians "may have been" tapping Yulia Skripal's phone, and the claim that this was strong
evidence that the Russians had indeed been behind the attack.
But think this through. If that were true, then the Russians deliberately attacked at a time
when Yulia was in the UK rather than when Sergei was alone. Yet no motive has been adduced for
an attack on Yulia or why they would attack while Yulia was visiting – they could have
painted his doorknob with less fear of discovery anytime he was alone. Furthermore, it is
pretty natural that Russian intelligence would tap the phone of Yulia, and of Sergei if they
could. The family of double agents are normal targets. I have no doubt in the least, from
decades of experience as a British diplomat, that GCHQ have been tapping Yulia's phone. Indeed,
if tapping of phones is seriously put forward as evidence of intent to murder, the British
government must be very murderous indeed.
Their trained assassin(s) painted a novichok on the doorknob of the Skripal house in the
suburbs of Salisbury. Either before or after the attack, they entered a public place in the
centre of Salisbury and left a sealed container of the novichok there.
The incompetence of the assassination beggars belief when compared to British claims of a
long term production and training programme. The Russians built the heart of the International
Space Station. They can kill an old bloke in Salisbury. Why did the Russians not know that the
dose from the door handle was not fatal? Why would trained assassins leave crucial evidence
lying around in a public place in Salisbury? Why would they be conducting any part of the
operation with the novichok in a public area in central Salisbury?
Why did nobody see them painting the doorknob? This must have involved wearing protective
gear, which would look out of place in a Salisbury suburb. With Skripal being resettled by MI6,
and a former intelligence officer himself, it beggars belief that MI6 did not fit, as standard,
some basic security including a security camera on his house.
The Skripals both touched the doorknob and both functioned perfectly normally for at least
five hours, even able to eat and drink heartily. Then they were simultaneously and
instantaneously struck down by the nerve agent, at a spot in the city centre coincidentally
close to where the assassins left a sealed container of the novichok lying around. Even
though the nerve agent was eight times more deadly than Sarin or VX, it did not kill the
Skripals because it had been on the doorknob and affected by rain.
Why did they both touch the outside doorknob in exiting and closing the door? Why did the novichok act so very slowly, with evidently no feeling of ill health for at least five hours,
and then how did it strike both down absolutely simultaneously, so that neither can call for
help, despite their being different sexes, weights, ages, metabolisms and receiving random
completely uncontrolled doses. The odds of that happening are virtually nil. And why was the
nerve agent ultimately ineffective?
Detective Sergeant Bailey attended the Skripal house and was also poisoned by the
doorknob, but more lightly. None of the other police who attended the house were
affected.
Why was the Detective Sergeant affected and nobody else who attended the house, or the scene
where the Skripals were found? Why was Bailey only lightly affected by this extremely deadly
substance, of which a tiny amount can kill?
Four months later, Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess were rooting about in public parks,
possibly looking for cigarette butts, and accidentally came into contact with the sealed
container of a novichok. They were poisoned and Dawn Sturgess subsequently died.
If the nerve agent had survived four months because it was in a sealed container, why has
this sealed container now mysteriously disappeared again? If Rowley and Sturgess had direct
contact straight from the container, why did they not both die quickly? Why had four months
searching of Salisbury and a massive police, security service and military operation not found
this container, if Rowley and Sturgess could?
I am, with a few simple questions, demolishing what is the most ludicrous conspiracy theory
I have ever heard – the Salisbury conspiracy theory being put forward by the British
government and its corporate lackies.
My next post will consider some more plausible explanations of this affair.
Has anyone considered if Rowley and Sturgess might in fact be the actual ones that put the
novichok on the Skripal's doorknob four months ago? Perhaps paid to do so by Israel or
Ukraine?
"Searches began on 6 July of Rowley's home and it was not until Wednesday (11th) that the
bottle was discovered by officers, who were battling searing sunshine and protective suits to
stop them being exposed to the lethal toxin." "...As a precaution Public Health England
continues to advise the public not to pick up any strange items such as syringes, needles,
cosmetics or similar objects made of materials such as metal, plastic or glass."
Obviously, the bottle was not simply lying around in plain sight. Would appear to be drug
related? Strange. Would be nice if the British were more forthcoming. Another interesting bit
is why are the British now, not jumping to conclusions?
"Sajid Javid has said there are no plans to impose fresh sanctions on Russia following the
latest nerve agent poisoning in Wiltshire.
During a visit to Salisbury and Amesbury, the UK home secretary said: "We don't want to
jump to conclusions." but they sure were with the first poisoning. Time will tell.
They are now saying it looked like a bottle of perfume. The story just gets weirder.
Novichok nerve agent that killed a mother-of-three in Salisbury was in a PERFUME bottle
she may have sprayed herself with, her poisoned lover's brother reveals
Charlie Rowley, 45, was left fighting for his life after he was exposed to Novichok
His partner Dawn Sturgess, 44, died after she was poisoned by the nerve agent
Matthew Rowley said the poison was in a perfume bottle his brother picked up ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...
So how did the homeless woman's partner come into contact with, but, nobody else? How long
does Novochok last, once made up? Hours or months?
Bases on VX (the most similar nerve agent to Novochok) it would last days, except if kept
sealed.
It's beginning to look like someone from Porton Down is the source, unless the perfume
bottle was used to transport the Novochok into the country and then tossed.
The fundamental flaw in the reasoning of this article is that it assumes the poisoning was
meant to be kept secret. If you are going to poison someone with Polonium or Novichuk you are
sending a distinct message about where the poison came from.
You could kill someone with alflatoxin and no one would know. There a loads of ways a
state player can kill people in an untraceable way,
So the purpose of the poisoning was to send a message - not to eliminate a threat,
Once you see that as the purpose of the poisoning, the question becomes is who wants to
tell the world that they can kill at long range and little detection with sophisticated
neurochemical weapons. . . .
"... But Britain recruited Skripal in 1996 when not only was the Soviet Union dead but Russia was ruled by the West's performing bear Boris Yeltsin. And during his presidency, Russia was passed-out on the floor with everyone picking its pockets. ..."
That the USSR was an existential threat to Western capitalism and colonialism and war
– of one kind or another – between these two camps was logical and inevitable. But
the Soviet Union is 30 years dead.
Indeed, Gordievsky through Macintyre can – if he's telling the truth – claim
that he helped bring about the (brief) end of history and the "final" victory. His claimed role
in the rise and rise of Gorbachev's relationship with Mrs Thatcher and, by extension, President
Reagan certainly hastened the downfall of the USSR.
But Britain recruited Skripal in 1996 when not only was the Soviet Union dead but Russia
was ruled by the West's performing bear Boris Yeltsin. And during his presidency, Russia was
passed-out on the floor with everyone picking its pockets.
Why was Britain still fighting the Cold War against Russia in 1996, and why is it still
fighting the Cold War against Russia now?
Just this week, the rather effete British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson – a
former fireplace salesman –
said he was sending 800 shivering British soldiers to the Arctic to be ready to fight
Russia there. Amidst the snow. And the ice.
As both Napoleon and Hitler must have said: " What could possibly go wrong? "
George Galloway was a member of the British Parliament for nearly 30 years. He
presents TV and radio shows (including on RT). He is a film-maker, writer and a renowned
orator.
The official story, says the expert, is "stupidity on stupidity."
I agree with him.
The question is: Why did the British government think that they could get away with such an
obvious hoax? The answer is that the people in Western countries don't know anything about
anything. They live in a world in which their reality is a product of the propaganda fed to
them by "news organizations" and Hollywood movies. They only receive controlled explanations.
Therefore, they know nothing about how anything really functions. Read the account by the
Israeli expert to understand the vast difference between the British government's hoax and the
reality of how an assassination is conducted.
The Israeli expert got me to wondering why the British government thought anyone would fall
for such a transparently false story. Having just read David Ray Griffin and Elizabeth
Woodworth's new book, 9/11 Unmasked , and David Ray Griffin's 2017 book, Bush and
Cheney: How They Runed America and the World , the answer became obvious. The British
government had watched the idiot Western populations fall for the official 9/11 conspiracy
story in which a few Saudi Arabians, who could not fly airplanes and without the support of any
intelligence agency, caused the entire security apparatus ot the United States to fail utterly,
and no one was held responsible for the total failure. The British government concluded that
anyone who could possibly believe such an obviously false story would believe anything.
I remember coming to that conclusion years ago before the official conspiracy theory in the
9/11 Commission Report was blown to pieces by thousands of scientists, structural engineers,
high-rise architects, military and civilian pilots, first responders on the scene, and a large
number of former high government officials both in the US and abroad.
At first I did not connect the zionist neoconservatives' plot, outlined in their public
writings (for example, Norman Podhorttz in Commentary ) to destroy 7 Middle Eastern
countries in five years (also described by General Wesley Clark) and their statement that they
needed a "new Pearl Harbor" to implement their plan, with the attack on the World Trade Center.
But as I watched the twin towers blow up floor by floor it was completely obvious that these
were not builldings falling down due to asymetrical structural damage and limited, low
temperature office fires that probably did not even warm the massive steel structure to the
point of being warm to the touch. When you watch the videos you see buildings blowing up. It is
as clear as day. You see each floor blow. You see steel beams and other debris fly out the
sides as projectiles. It is amazing that any human is so completely stupid as to think what he
is seeing with his own eyes are buildings falling down from structural damage. But it required
many years before half of the American people realized that the official account was pure
bullshit.
Today polls indicate that a majority of people do not believe the official 9/11 propaganda
any more than they believe the Warren Commission Report on the assassination of President John
F. Kennedy, the alleged Gulf of Tonkin attack, or the report from Admiral McCain (father of
John) erasing Israel's responsibility for the destruction of the USS Liberty and its crew
during LBJ's administration, or that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, or Iran
had nukes, or the many lies about about Syria, Libya's Gaddafi, or Somalia, or Yemen, or the
"Russian invasion of Georgia," the "Russian invasion of Ukraine." But at each time the idiot
population, no matter how many times they had learned that the governments lied to them
initially believed the next lie, thereby permitting the lie to become fact. Thus, the idiot
Western populations created their own world of controlled explanations.
Only a deranged person could believe anything any Western government says. But the Western
world has a huge number of deranged people. There are plenty of them to validate the next
official lie. The ignorant fools make it possible for Western governments to continue their
policy of lies that are driving the world to extinction in a war with Russia and China.
Perhaps I am being too hard on the insouciant Western populations. Ron Unz is no moron. Yet
he accepted the transparently false 9/11 story until he started to pay attention. Once he paid
attention, he realized it was false. http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-911-conspiracy-theories/
Like myself, Ron Unz has noticed that the 9/11 Truth movement has succeeded in totally
discrediting the official 9/11 story. But the unanswered question remains: Who did it?
Unz says it was Israel, not Bush & Cheney. This is also the position of Christopher
Bollyn. It seems certain that Israel was involved. We have the fact of the Mossad agents caught
celebrating as they filmed the collalpse of the WTC towers. Obviously, they knew in advance and
were set up ready to film. Later they were shown on Israeli TV where they stated that they had
been sent to film the destruction of the buildings.
We also have the fact of the large profits made by someone that the US government continues
to protect on shorting the stock of the airlines, the planes of which were allegely
hijacked.
In other words, the 9/11 attack was known in advance, as was the destruction of WTC building
7 as evidenced by the BBC reporter standing in front of the still standing building accouncing
its destruction about a half hour before it occurred.
Unz and Bollyn's case against Israel is powerful. I agree with Unz that George W. Bush was
not part of the plot. If he had been, he would have been on the scene directing America's
heroic response to the first, and only, terrorist attack on America. lnstead, Bush was moved
out of the way, and kept out of the way, while Cheney handled the situation.
I understand what Unz is doing by focusing attention on the main beneficiary of the hoax
9/11 story. However Cheney and his corporation, Halliburton, also benefitted. Halliburton
received large municifient US government contracts for services in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Cheney, as David Ray Griffen proves, achieved his aim of elevating the executive branch above
the US Constitution and statutory US law.
Moreover, it was impossible for Mossad to pull off such an attack without high level support
in the US government. Only a US official could have ordered the numerous simulations of the
attack underway in order to confuse the air traffic controllers and the US Air Force.
I understand what Unz is doing by focusing attention on the main beneficiary of the hoax
9/11 story. However Cheney and his corporation, Halliburton, also benefitted. Halliburton
received large municifient US government contracts for services in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Cheney, as David Ray Griffen proves, achieved his aim of elevating the executive branch above
the US Constitution and statutory US law.
Moreover, it was impossible for Mossad to pull off such an attack without high level support
in the US government. Only a US official could have ordered the numerous simulations of the
attack underway in order to confuse the air traffic controllers and the US Air Force.
The Israeli government could not have ordered the destruction of the crime scene, opposed by
the New York fire marshall as a felony. This required US government authority. The steel beams,
which showed all sorts of distortions that could only have been caused by nano-thermite were
quickly sent to Asia for reprocessing. The intense fires and molten rubble in the buildings'
remains six weeks after their collapse never received an official explanation. To this day, no
one has explained how low-temperature, smothered office fires that burned for one hour or less
melted or weakened massive steel beams and produced molten steel six weeks afterward.
Unz is correct that Israel made out like a bandit. Israel as a result of 9/11 got rid of
half of the constraints on its expansion. Only Syria and Iran remain, and the Trump regime is
pushing hard for Israel, even against Russia, a government that at its will can completely
destroy the United States and Israel, something that much of the world wishes would happen.
Unz is correct that right now the totally evil and corrupt US and Israeli governments have
the entire world on the path to extinction. However, he omits American responsibility, that of
the evil Dick Cheney, the Zionist neconservatives who are Israel's Fifth Column in America, and
the utter insouciance of the American people who do not show enough intelligence or awareness
to warrant their survival.
"... Last week the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian Foreign Ministry accused the U.S. of illegal biological weapon research in the Tbilisi laboratory : ..."
"... The documents record the deaths of 73 people over a short period of time, indicating a test of "a highly toxic chemical or biological agents with high lethality rate," said Igor Kirillov, commander of the Russian military branch responsible for defending troops from radiological, chemical and biological weapons. ..."
"... The U.S. rejects the claims but it does not explain the documents , what kind of research is done near Tbilisi, and the unusual secrecy and security around the laboratory. ..."
"... It is not only the Russians and Georgians who are concerned about secret U.S. biological warfare research. German and French scientists recently raised alarm over another dubious Pentagon research project. ..."
Recent evidence about deadly tests of biological substances in Tbilisi, Georgia raised
alarm about U.S. biological weapon research in foreign countries. European scientist are
extremely concerned about a dubious research program, financed by the Pentagon, that seems
designed to spread diseases to crops, animals and people abroad. The creation of such weapons
and of special ways to distribute them is prohibited under national and international
law.
The U.S. is running biological weapon research across the globe :
Bio warfare scientists using diplomatic cover test man-made viruses at Pentagon bio
laboratories in 25 countries across the world. These US bio-laboratories are funded by the
Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $ 2.1 billion military program–
Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in former Soviet Union
countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa.
Until the mid nineteen-seventies the U.S. military
tested biological warfare weapons on U.S. people , sometimes over large areas and on
specific races. After a Congress investigation revealed the wide ranging program such testing
was moved abroad.
Private companies use U.S. government controlled laboratories in foreign countries for
secret biological research under contract of the U.S. military, the CIA and the Department of
Homeland Security. Last month the Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva
reported of one of these U.S. controlled bio-laboratories:
The US Embassy to Tbilisi transports frozen human blood and pathogens as diplomatic cargo
for a secret US military program. Internal documents, implicating US diplomats in the
transportation of and experimenting on pathogens under diplomatic cover were leaked to me
by Georgian insiders. According to these documents, Pentagon scientists have been deployed
to the Republic of Georgia and have been given diplomatic immunity to research deadly
diseases and biting insects at the Lugar Center – the Pentagon biolaboratory in
Georgia's capital Tbilisi.
Al Mayadeen TV broadcasted a video reportage about the laboratory and
its deadly effects on Georgian 'patients'.
The question of what really might have taken place at the secretive US-sponsored research
facility hosted by Russia's southern neighbor was raised by the Russian military on
Thursday after they studied files published online by a former Georgian minister.
The documents record the deaths of 73 people over a short period of time, indicating
a test of "a highly toxic chemical or biological agents with high lethality rate," said
Igor Kirillov, commander of the Russian military branch responsible for defending troops
from radiological, chemical and biological weapons.
The U.S.
rejects the claims but it does not explain the documents , what kind of research is done near Tbilisi, and
the unusual secrecy and security around the laboratory.
It is not only the Russians and Georgians who are concerned about secret U.S.
biological warfare research. German and French scientists recently
raised alarm over another dubious Pentagon research project.
In October 2016 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced a new
project called Insect
Allies :
A new DARPA program is poised to provide an alternative to traditional agricultural threat
response, using targeted gene therapy to protect mature plants within a single growing
season. DARPA proposes to leverage a natural and very efficient two-step delivery system to
transfer modified genes to plants: insect vectors and the plant viruses they transmit. In
the process, DARPA aims to transform certain insect pests into "Insect Allies," the name of
the new effort.
The scenario DARPA describes is quite complicate. If a crop, for example maize, were
widely infected with some illness, a virus would be manipulated and applied to the crop. The
itself genetically modified virus would genetically modify the crop to 'cure' the illness.
Infected insects would be used to distribute the viruses across the fields.
The program is run
by the Biological Technologies Office (BTO) of DARPA. It does not come cheap. At least
$27 million have been committed to it. If the discussed program were for purely agricultural
purposes why would the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is part of
the Pentagon, propose and finance such research?
Scientist from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany,
and the Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier, France, along with legal
scholars from the University of Freiburg point out that the method DARPA wants to
apply makes little sense for the stated agricultural purposes.
[A]n ongoing research program funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) aims to disperse infectious genetically modified viruses that have been engineered
to edit crop chromosomes directly in fields.
...
In the context of the stated aims of the DARPA program, it is our opinion that the
knowledge to be gained from this program appears very limited in its capacity to enhance
U.S. agriculture or respond to national emergencies (in either the short or long term).
Furthermore, there has been an absence of adequate discussion regarding the major practical
and regulatory impediments toward realizing the projected agricultural benefits. As a
result, the program may be widely perceived as an effort to develop biological agents for
hostile purposes and their means of delivery , which -- if true -- would constitute a
breach of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).
It its response to the Science paper DARPA again insists that the program is for
purely agricultural purpose. But the response does not answer the questions the scientists
put up.
The mechanism of spreading infectious genetically modified viruses to genetically modify
and 'heal' plants in the fields is itself full of problems and dangers. To use insects for
distributing such viruses borders on insane.
If one has access to the targeted crop fields and if one has a genetically modified virus
to influence the plants why would one use insects to distribute it? Why not use the well
known targeted process of spraying the affected fields, just like it is widely done today?
Only when one does not have access to the fields, when these are situated in a foreign
country the U.S. has no access to, does it make sense to use insects for such purposes.
The idea that the real (and illegal) purpose of such U.S. research is biological warfare
is not far fetched at all.
During the Korea War the U.S.
dropped infected insects and rodents over north Korea and China to
infect people with deadly diseases. Various pathogens, including anthrax, were used
against the civilian population. During the Vietnam war the U.S. sprayed thousand of square
miles with poisonous defoliants. It tested biological weapons on
the people of Hawaii, Alaska, Maryland, Florida, Canada and Britain. In 2002 weaponized
anthrax spores from the U.S. biological warfare laboratory in Fort Derrick were used
to scare U.S. politicians into agreeing to the Patriot Act. At least five people were
killed. And why is the U.S. Air Force
looking for synovial tissue and RNA samples collected specifically from Caucasian people
in Russia?
Biological warfare programs are extremely dangerous. Not only to 'the enemy' but to ones
own population. Infectious diseases and pathogens can spread around the globe within a few
days. Genetic modifications can have unpredictable secondary effects. Viruses can jump over
the species barrier. These are the sound reasons why such weapons, and research into using
them, are prohibited.
The U.S. government should follow the law and stop all such programs. Even if only in the
self interest of protecting its very own people.
Posted by b on October 6, 2018 at 10:02 AM |
Permalink
Comments A picture speaks a thoudsand words. There are 49 bio-weapons research labs in 6
countries in close proximity to Russia.
The UK Porton Down labs are also involved in this process. They have conducted experiments
on the general public travelling on the London Underground. More recently, they have received
a nice £47 million funding boost for all their good work on the Skripal case.
"Biological warfare programs are extremely dangerous. Not only to 'the enemy' but to ones
own population."
This may explain the US BW research program interest in genetic material of RUssians. They
may hope to produce some kind of narrowly targetted (in theory) pathogen. Given the ethnic
diversity of the Russian Federation, Russian-ness is largely cultural rather than genetic.
Genetic effects would only likely to succeed in populations with a narrow genetic spread.
@ b who ended with:
"
The U.S. government should follow the law and stop all such programs. Even if only in the
self interest of protecting its very own people.
"
Your assumption is that the US government has the best interests of its citizens in mind. We
know the US government is under the control of the global elite and yes, they do not have the
best interests of global humanity at heart.
Western humans are being controlled by a parasite class that has historically operated in
this manner. It is only with the advent of the intertubes that information is shared widely
enough for these patterns of control to become clear. The mindset behind this control seems
to be monotheism with the center held by private finance. Monotheism was perverted enough in
in 1054 to insure that nowhere in Europe is the Crab Nebula supernova that was visible for 23
days and nights in the sky documented. This is a perverted mindset that denies reality so
thoroughly, eh?
The spawn of the monotheistic elite continue to act as though they really are better than
the rest of humanity and deserve to rule over everyone. They are having their position
challenged and seem to have no moral center other than to themselves.
My only positive point to this situation is that it clearly brings out the entitled from
under their rocks to push their bias. IF Western society cannot stand up and say that we
don't want to live like this, then I suspect our extinction is closer than many think
B: ... To use insects for distributing such viruses borders on insane .
If one has access to the targeted crop fields and if one has a genetically modified
virus to influence the plants why would one use insects to distribute it? Why not use the
well known targeted process of spraying the affected fields, just like it is widely done
today? Only when one does not have access to the fields, when these are situated in a foreign
country the U.S. has no access to, does it make sense to use insects for such
purposes.
It does NOT border on insanity, B, there is nothing remotely borderline about it. It is
insane, full stop. (Borderline insanity means it is on the border, could be on either
side).
Why not spray the fields? The compellingly obvious - and necessarily intended - feature of
the insects is their ability to spread out of control.
Maybe this is one of the clues to the complex and so multifaceted Skripal saga - the British
know the Russians had leads and would bring out this news, and were desperately trying to
destroy their credibility in advance.
"The U.S. government should follow the law and stop all such programs. Even if only in
the self interest of protecting its very own people."
Your assumption is that the US government has the best interests of its citizens in
mind. We know the US government is under the control of the global elite and yes, they do not
have the best interests of global humanity at heart.
Further than that - the elite expressly desire to reduce the global population -
including the US population - to a tiny fraction of what it is at present.
As for the "law", well we see what is happening these days: Russiagate-FBI-DoJ
criminality, US using terrorism as foreign policy, rapidly multiplying false flags, using
sanctions to ban legtimate trade of competitors, Bolton's threats to ICC, threats to blockade
Russia, ficticious sovereignty claims such as right to inspect Russian/Chinese ports and
right to build bases in Syria ...
"LAW" is rapidly evaporating away - very soon it will not exist at all, in the
West.
That appears to be a specific intention, and ties in with the mindless skripal fantasy/Syria
chemical weapons fantasy/virtual reality/"we create our own reality" bullshit.
[B: My appologies for the string of short posts, it was not intentional as such!]
The latest rash of hacking accusations against Russia appears timed to distract the public
from this highly disturbing information.
One way or another, the old white men who are the self appointed ruling elite week appear
determined to turn the planet into a monstrous, king sized Jonestown.
Psycho,
Which gets to the logical flaw in monotheism. A spiritual absolute would be the essence of
sentience from which life rises, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement from which humanity
fell. More the new born babe, than the wise old man. It is just that for social control, it
makes more sense to idolize wisdom over passion.
The deeper issue is that Western culture is ideals based, rather balance based, like Eastern
culture. The basis of civilization is story telling and the most memorable and repeated
stories are those with a focus, moral lesson and compelling narrative. So it becomes assumed
there must be some goal, destination, or ideal state to which we strive, even if it's just
the bottom line. Rather than to be in balance with nature and the community, absorbing and
radiating the energy of the present.
Which also goes to the nature of time. As we have this narrative thought process, being
mobile organisms, processing our motion, we think of time as a vector from past to future,
but the reality is change turning future to past. Potential>actual>residual. There is
only this state of dynamic energy and thermodynamics is a more elemental aspect of it than
time. Expansion/consolidation.
Thank you 'b' this subject is guaranteed to give us all nightmares on its own, but added in
to the rest of the bigger equation ! We run out of strong enough words to do it justice !
It's to much for one to bare. We need to share this burden or we will go under.
This kind of depravity has always been there in mankind -- - napalm,agent orange, white
phosphorus the human imagination is vast ! But now they have the power, technology, resources
opatunity and motivation, that is new !
We here at present can spread this story as much as we possibly can ! Far and wide.
"... Accountability is for the little people, immunity is for the ruling class. If this ethos seems familiar, that is because it has preceded some of the darkest moments in human history ..."
"... September began with John McCain's funeral – a memorial billed as an apolitical celebration of the Arizona lawmaker, but which served as a made-for-TV spectacle letting America know that everyone who engineered the Iraq war is doing just fine. ..."
"... The underlying message was clear: nobody other than the dead, the injured and the taxpayer will face any real penalty for the Iraq debacle. ..."
"... Meanwhile, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon garnered non-Onion headlines by floating the idea of running for president – a reminder that a decade after his firm played a central role in destroying countless Americans' economic lives, he remains not only unincarcerated and gainfully employed, but so reputationally unscathed that he is seen as a serious White House candidate. ..."
Accountability is for the little people,
immunity is for the ruling class. If this ethos seems familiar, that is because it has preceded some of the darkest moments in human
history
'If there are no legal consequences for profiteers who defrauded the
global economy into a collapse, what will deter those profiteers from doing that again?' Illustration: Mark Long/Mark Long for Guardian
US W hen the former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was
released from prison
a few weeks ago, the news conjured memories of a corporate scandal that now seems almost quaint – and it was also a reminder
that Enron executives were among the last politically connected criminals to face any serious consequences for institutionalized
fraud.
Since Skilling's conviction 12 years ago,
our society has been fundamentally altered by a powerful political movement whose goal is not merely another court seat, tax cut
or election victory. This movement's objective is far more revolutionary: the creation of an accountability-free zone for an ennobled
aristocracy, even as the rest of the population is treated to law-and-order rhetoric and painfully punitive policy.
Let's remember that in less than two decades, America has experienced the Iraq war, the financial crisis, intensifying economic
stratification, an opioid plague, persistent gender and racial inequality and now seemingly unending climate change-intensified disasters.
While the victims have been ravaged by these crime sprees, crises and calamities, the perpetrators have largely avoided arrest, inquisition,
incarceration, resignation, public shaming and ruined careers.
That is because the United States has been turned into a safe space for a permanent ruling class. Inside the rarefied refuge,
the key players who created this era's catastrophes and who embody the most pernicious pathologies have not just eschewed punishment
– many of them have actually maintained or even increased their social, financial and political status.
The effort to construct this elite haven has tied together so many seemingly disparate news events, suggesting that there is a
method in the madness. Consider this past month that culminated with the dramatic battle over the judicial nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.
September began with John McCain's funeral – a memorial billed as an apolitical celebration of the Arizona lawmaker, but which
served as a made-for-TV spectacle letting America know that everyone who engineered the Iraq war is doing just fine.
The event was attended by Iraq war proponents of both parties, from
Dick Cheney to
Lindsey
Graham to Hillary Clinton. The funeral featured a saccharine eulogy from the key Democratic proponent of the invasion, Joe Lieberman,
as well the resurrection of George W Bush. The
codpiece-flaunting
war president who piloted America into the cataclysm with
"bring 'em on" bravado,
"shock and awe" bloodlust and
"uranium from
Africa" dishonesty was suddenly portrayed as an icon of warmth and civility when he
passed a lozenge to Michelle Obama. The scene was depicted not as the gathering of a rogues gallery fit for a war crimes tribunal,
but as a
venerable
bipartisan reunion evoking
nostalgia for the supposed halcyon days – and Bush promptly used his newly revived image to
campaign
for Republican congressional candidates and
lobby
for Kavanaugh's appointment .
The underlying message was clear: nobody other than the dead, the injured and the taxpayer will face any real penalty for the
Iraq debacle.
Next up came the 10th anniversary of the financial crisis – a meltdown that laid waste to the global economy, while providing
lucrative taxpayer-funded bailouts to Wall Street firms.
To mark the occasion, the three men on whose watch it occurred – Fed chair Ben Bernanke, Bush treasury secretary Hank Paulson
and Obama treasury secretary Tim Geithner – did not offer an apology, but instead promised that another financial crisis will eventually
occur, and they
demanded lawmakers give public officials
more power to bail out big banks in the future.
In a similar bipartisan show of unity, former Trump economic adviser
Gary Cohn gave an interview in which he asked "Who broke the law?" – the implication being that no Wall Street executives were
prosecuted for their role in the meltdown because no statutes had been violated. That suggestion, of course, is undermined by
banks
'
own
admissions that they defrauded investors (that includes
admissions of fraud
from Goldman Sachs – the very bank that Cohn himself ran during the crisis). Nonetheless,
Obama's attorney
general, Eric Holder – who has now rejoined
his old corporate defense law firm – subsequently backed Cohn up by arguing that nobody on Wall Street committed an offense that
could have been successfully prosecuted in a court of law.
Meanwhile, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon garnered non-Onion headlines by
floating the idea
of running for president – a reminder that a decade after his firm played a central role in destroying countless Americans' economic
lives, he remains not only unincarcerated and gainfully employed, but so reputationally unscathed that he is seen as a serious White
House candidate.
Again, the message came through: nobody who engineered the financial crisis will pay any real price for wreaking so much havoc.
Then as
Hurricane Florence provided the latest illustration of climate change's devastation, ExxonMobil
marched into the supreme court to demand an end to a state investigation of its role denying and suppressing climate science.
Backed by 11 Republican attorneys general
, the fossil fuel giant had reason to feel emboldened in its appeal for immunity: despite
investigative reporting detailing the company's prior knowledge of fossil fuel's role in climate change, its executives had already
convinced
the Securities and Exchange Commission to shut down a similar investigation.
Once again, the message was unavoidable: in the new accountability-free zone, companies shouldn't be bothered to even explain
– much less face punishment for – their role in a crisis that threatens the survival of the human species.
... ... ...
The answer is nothing – which is exactly the point for the aristocracy. But that cannot be considered acceptable for the rest
of us outside the accountability-free zone.
David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an investigative journalist at Capital & Main. His latest book is Back to Our Future:
How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now
That the USSR was an existential threat to Western capitalism and colonialism and war
– of one kind or another – between these two camps was logical and inevitable. But
the Soviet Union is 30 years dead.
Indeed, Gordievsky through Macintyre can – if he's telling the truth – claim
that he helped bring about the (brief) end of history and the "final" victory. His claimed role
in the rise and rise of Gorbachev's relationship with Mrs Thatcher and, by extension, President
Reagan certainly hastened the downfall of the USSR.
But Britain recruited Skripal in 1996 when not only was the Soviet Union dead but Russia was
ruled by the West's performing bear Boris Yeltsin. And during his presidency, Russia was
passed-out on the floor with everyone picking its pockets.
Why was Britain still fighting the Cold War against Russia in 1996, and why is it still
fighting the Cold War against Russia now?
Just this week, the rather effete British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson – a
former fireplace salesman –
said he was sending 800 shivering British soldiers to the Arctic to be ready to fight
Russia there. Amidst the snow. And the ice.
As both Napoleon and Hitler must have said: " What could possibly go wrong? "
Ryan Chilcote: Since you brought up the subject of sanctions, as you know after the
Skripal poisoning, Russia is facing even more of them, perhaps as soon as November. What is
Russia prepared to do to change the trajectory of relations with the United States and the
West?
Vladimir Putin : We are not the ones introducing these sanctions against the United
States or the West. We are just responding to their actions, and we do this in very restrained,
careful steps so as not to cause harm, primarily to ourselves. And we will continue to do
so.
As regards the Skripals and all that, this latest spy scandal is being artificially
inflated. I have seen some media outlets and your colleagues push the idea that Skripal is
almost a human rights activist. But he is just a spy, a traitor to the motherland. There is
such a term, a 'traitor to the motherland,' and that's what he is.
Imagine you are a citizen of a country, and suddenly somebody comes along who betrays your
country. How would you, or anybody present here, a representative of any country, feel about
such a person? He is scum, that's all. But a whole information campaign has been deployed
around it.
I think it will come to an end, I hope it will, and the sooner the better. We have
repeatedly told our colleagues to show us the documents. We will see what can be done and
conduct an investigation.
We probably have an agreement with the UK on assistance in criminal cases that outlines the
procedure. Well, submit the documents to the Prosecutor General's Office as required. We will
see what actually happened there.
The fuss between security services did not start yesterday. As you know, espionage, just
like prostitution, is one of the most 'important' jobs in the world. So what? Nobody shut it
down and nobody can shut it down yet.
Ryan Chilcote : Espionage aside, I think there are two other issues. One is the use
of chemical weapons, and let's not forget that in addition to the Skripal family being affected
in that attack, there was also a homeless person who was killed when they came in contact with
the nerve agent Novichok.
Vladimir Putin: Listen, since we are talking about
poisoning Skripal, are you saying that we also poisoned a homeless person there? Sometimes I
look at what is happening around this case and it amazes me. Some guys came to England and
started poisoning homeless people. Such nonsense. What is this all about? Are they working for
cleaning services? Nobody wanted to poison This Skripal is a traitor, as I said. He was caught
and punished. He spent a total of five years in prison. We released him. That's it. He left. He
continued to cooperate with and consult some security services. So what? What are we talking
about right now? Oil, gas or espionage? What is your question?
Let's move on to the other oldest profession and discuss the latest developments in that
business. (Laughter.)
Funny how lowkey this topic is handled. It appeard in The Times. As the Times article is
behind a paywall. I am linking to the Irish Times:
MI5 can authorise agents to commit crimes, tribunal told . Maybe the UK should be
sanctioned.
Makes my fantasy go a little wild and wonder if there might be any connection to
Skripal.
I flicked on the beeb news channel as I dragged meself outta the pit this am and caught
the 'news' of the bellingcat claim that Ruslan Boshirov = Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga.
Now I'm fully cognisant of the fact that neither Russia nor Chepiga should feel obliged to
prove this claim is untrue, but since whichever way you slice it Chepiga is now 'blown', They
(Russia/Chepiga) may as well prove the claim is nonsense. The thing being that the boof heads
at MI6/CIA would also have worked that out, unless it was a particularly boofed, boofhead who
put this latest snippet together.
IMO in all likelihood Ruslan Boshirov = Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga is correct. Towards the
end of one of the supporting articles that sets out the 'proof' Bellingcat mutters something
rather odd which seems like it actually detracts from the story - if the ultimate target of
this revelation is Colonel Chepiga.
But who really cares about some obscure military intelligence mid-level bloke? (Colonel is
nowhere near the giddy heights of any military, something I discovered when working in the Oz
public service & I was seconded to the department of defence to do a job. Since I was
working with a bunch of uniformed saluters, it was claimed they would not "feel comfortable
working with someone of unknown status in the hierarchy". So I was told that my position in
the Public Service equated with the rank of colonel in the army. I can tell you, if it
weren't totally apparent, that I was just an average sh1tkicker)
No one cares about Chepiga, this entire saga is about getting the masses to accept without
any deep consideration, that "Putin" the figurehead who (according to western media)
micromanages everything evil about russia, only cares about destroying the life of Jo/Joe
Sh1tkicker where ever in the world Jo/Joe may be.
So the
last two paras of the burble runs thusly:
Bellingcat has contacted confidentially a former Russian military officer of similar rank
as Colonel Chepiga, in order to receive a reaction to what we found. The source, speaking
on condition of anonymity, expressed surprise that at least one of the operatives engaged
in the operation in Salisbury had the rank of colonel. Even more surprising was the
suspects' prior award of the highest military recognition.
In our source's words, an operation of this sort would have typically required a
lower-ranked, "field operative" with a military rank of "no higher than captain." The
source further surmised that to send a highly decorated colonel back to a field job would
be highly extraordinary, and would imply that "the job was ordered at the highest
level."
The logical flaw is obvious of course. If 'the job' had been ordered at the highest level
surely sending some bloke who had been riding a desk for the last six years is not how it
would handled, the most recently capable operative would be sent - either a relatively junior
officer or a young but experienced NCO.
However assuming Boshirov = Colonel Chepiga is correct, while he would never be sent to
supervise a hit on the ground much less carry it out; it doesn't take a great stretch to
ruminate on the possible tasks a military intelligence colonel would be sent to england
for.
There is one obvious task which would explain most credibly what he was in Salisbury for - to
give Sergey Skripal confidence that his repatriation was a genuine offer, not some half arsed
wish fulfillment plan dreamed up by Yulia and a low level intelligence operator eager to
climb into Yulia's pants.
Two colonels of the GRU, one a highly decorated hero and the other a dodgy turncoat who had
come to realise after the nonsense his immediate MI6 superior Pablo Miller, plus his big boss
"Mr Steele" had put out about Moscow golden showers, whilst insinuating he, Skirpal was party
to the fiction, that rapprochment between Russia and angland/amerika was never gonna happen.
He was never going to be able to know any of his grandchildren or see his motherland again
because usuk needed 'evil Russia' to distract their citizens away from the real evildoing 'at
home'.
Someone used a chess mataphor elsewhere in a thread, well I would say that if the Bellingcat
revelation that Ruslan Boshirov = Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga. if true sails close to a
checkmate.
If Russia confesses that Ruslan Boshirov does = Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, citizens in the
west would be denied any explanation as the fishwraps and talking heads would be too busy
celebrating Russia's alleged 'defeat' to include any other portion of what Russia had said,
especially not an exposition which dealt with everything from the fact that Chepiga & co
arrived too late on Sunday for their poisoned doorknob to have tainted the Skirpals who had
left the house for the last time hours before and that of all the english towns some idjit
chose to squirt this muck around Salisbury was the one where assassination by chemical weapon
was the town the least likely to give success since the proximity of Porton Downs guaranteed
that some not all staff at Salisbury Hospital would have been trained in chem weapon
detection and antidote.
On the other side of the coin - panic stations at MI6, on a quiet Sunday it has just been
uncovered that an asset was 'going over'. So some duty officer sent the thug on call for the
day over to Porton Downs to grab 'a little something' guaranteed to prevent any such
nonsense.
That's amazing example of contlling the nattarive and suppressing alternative sources. Should
go in all textbooks on the subject
Notable quotes:
"... Magnitsky did not disclose the theft. He first mentioned it in testimony in October 2008. But it had already been reported in the New York Times on July 24, 2008. In reality, the whistleblower was a certain Rimma Starova. She worked for one of the implicated shell companies and, having read in the papers that authorities were investigating, went to police to give testimony in April 2008 – six months before Magnitsky spoke of the scam for the first time (see here and here ). ..."
"... Why, then, did I report that about Magnitsky? Because at the time my sole source for the story was Team Browder, who had reached out to the Cyprus Mail and with whom I communicated via email. I was provided with 'information', flow charts and so on. All looking very professional and compelling. ..."
"... For the second article, I conversed briefly on the phone with the soft-spoken Browder himself, who handed down the gospel on the Magnitsky affair. Under the time constraints, and trusting that my sources could at least be relied upon for basic information which they presented as facts, I went along with it. I was played. But let's be clear: I let myself down too. ..."
"... Titled 'The Magnitsky Act – Behind The Scenes', it does a magisterial job of depicting how the director initially took Browder's story on faith, only to end up questioning everything. The docudrama dissects, disassembles and dismantles Browder's narrative, as Nekrasov – by no means a Putin apologist – delves deeper down into the rabbit hole. ..."
"... The point can't be stressed enough, as this very claim is the lynchpin of Browder's account. In his bestseller Red Notice, Browder alleges that Magnitsky was arrested because he exposed two corrupt police officers, and that he was jailed and tortured because he wouldn't retract. ..."
"... It gets worse for Nekrasov, as he goes on to discover that Magnitsky was no lawyer. He did not have a lawyer's license. Rather, he was an accountant/auditor who worked for Moscow law firm Firestone Duncan. Yet every chance he gets, Browder still refers to Magnitsky as 'a lawyer' or 'my lawyer'. ..."
"... The full deposition, some six hours long, is (still) available on Youtube . As penance for past transgressions, I watched it in its entirety. While refraining from using adjectives to describe it, I shall simply cite some examples and let readers decide on Browder's credibility. Browder seems to suffer an almost total memory blackout as a lawyer begins firing questions at him. He cannot recall, or does not know, where he or his team got the information concerning the alleged illicit transfer of funds from Hermitage-owned companies. ..."
"... According to Team Browder, in 2007 the 'Klyuev gang' together with Russian interior ministry officials travelled to Cyprus, ostensibly to set up the tax rebate scam using shell companies. But in his deposition, the Anglo-American businessman cannot remember, or does not know, how his team obtained the travel information of the conspirators. ..."
Before getting down to brass tacks, let me say that I loathe penning articles like this; loathe writing about myself or in the
first person, because a reporter should report the news, not be the news. Yet I grudgingly make this exception because, ironically,
it happens to be newsworthy. To cut to the chase, it concerns Anglo-American financier Bill Browder and the Sergei Magnitsky affair.
I, like others in the news business I'd venture to guess, feel led astray by Browder.
This is no excuse. I didn't do my due diligence, and take full responsibility for erroneous information printed under my name.
For that, I apologize to readers. I refer to two articles of mine published in a Cypriot publication, dated December 25, 2015 and
January 6, 2016.
Browder's basic story, as he has told it time and again, goes like this: in June 2007, Russian police officers raided the Moscow
offices of Browder's firm Hermitage, confiscating company seals, certificates of incorporation, and computers.
Browder says the owners and directors of Hermitage-owned companies were subsequently changed, using these seized documents. Corrupt
courts were used to create fake debts for these companies, which allowed for the taxes they had previously paid to the Russian Treasury
to be refunded to what were now re-registered companies. The funds stolen from the Russian state were then laundered through banks
and shell companies.
The scheme is said to have been planned earlier in Cyprus by Russian law enforcement and tax officials in cahoots with criminal
elements.
All this was supposedly discovered by Magnitsky, whom Browder had tasked with investigating what happened. When Magnitsky reported
the fraud, some of the nefarious characters involved had him arrested and jailed. He refused to retract, and died while in pre-trial
detention.
In my first article, I wrote: "Magnitsky, a 37-year-old Russian accountant, died in jail in 2009 after he exposed huge tax embezzlement
"
False . Contrary to the above story that has been rehashed countless times, Magnitsky did not expose any tax fraud, did not blow
the whistle.
The interrogation
reports show that Magnitsky had in fact been summoned by Russian authorities as a witness to an already ongoing investigation
into Hermitage. Nor he did he accuse Russian investigators Karpov and/or Kuznetsov of committing the $230 million treasury fraud,
as Browder claims.
Magnitsky did not disclose the theft. He first mentioned it in testimony in October 2008. But it had already been reported
in the New York Times
on July 24, 2008. In reality, the whistleblower was a certain Rimma Starova. She worked for one of the implicated shell companies
and, having read in the papers that authorities were investigating, went to police to give testimony in April 2008 – six months before
Magnitsky spoke of the scam for the first time (see
here
and here
).
Why, then, did I report that about Magnitsky? Because at the time my sole source for the story was Team Browder, who had reached
out to the Cyprus Mail and with whom I communicated via email. I was provided with 'information', flow charts and so on. All looking
very professional and compelling.
At the time of the first article, I knew next to nothing about the Magnitsky/Browder affair. I had to go through media reports
to get the gist, and then get up to speed with Browder's latest claims that a Cypriot law firm, which counted the Hermitage Fund
among its clients, had just been 'raided' by Cypriot police. The article had to be written and delivered on the same day. In retrospect
I should have asked for more time – a lot more time – and Devil take the deadlines.
For the second article, I conversed briefly on the phone with the soft-spoken Browder himself, who handed down the gospel
on the Magnitsky affair. Under the time constraints, and trusting that my sources could at least be relied upon for basic information
which they presented as facts, I went along with it. I was played. But let's be clear: I let myself down too.
In the ensuing weeks and months, I didn't follow up on the story as my gut told me something was wrong: villains and malign actors
operating in a Wild West Russia, and at the centre of it all, a heroic Magnitsky who paid with his life – the kind of script that
Hollywood execs would kill for.
Subsequently I mentally filed away the Browder story, while being aware it was in the news.
But the real red pill was a documentary by Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, which came to my attention a few weeks ago.
Titled 'The Magnitsky Act – Behind The Scenes', it does a magisterial job of depicting how the director initially took Browder's
story on faith, only to end up questioning everything. The docudrama dissects, disassembles and dismantles Browder's narrative, as
Nekrasov – by no means a Putin apologist – delves deeper down into the rabbit hole.
The director had set out to make a poignant film about Magnitsky's tragedy, but became increasingly troubled as the facts he uncovered
didn't stack up with Browder's account, he claims.
The 'aha' moment arrives when Nekrasov appears to show solid proof that Magnitsky blew no whistle.
Not only that, but in his
depositions
– the first one dating to 2006, well before Hermitage's offices were raided – Magnitsky did not accuse any police officers of being
part of the 'theft' of Browder's companies and the subsequent alleged $230m tax rebate fraud.
The point can't be stressed enough, as this very claim is the lynchpin of Browder's account. In his bestseller Red Notice,
Browder alleges that Magnitsky was arrested because he exposed two corrupt police officers, and that he was jailed and tortured because
he wouldn't retract.
We are meant to take Browder's word for it.
It gets worse for Nekrasov, as he goes on to discover that Magnitsky was no lawyer. He did not have a lawyer's license. Rather,
he was an accountant/auditor who worked for Moscow law firm Firestone Duncan. Yet every chance he gets, Browder still refers to Magnitsky
as 'a lawyer' or 'my lawyer'.
The clincher comes late in the film, with footage from Browder's April 15, 2015 deposition in a US federal court, in the Prevezon
case. The case, brought by the US Justice Department at Browder's instigation, targeted a Russian national who Browder said had received
$1.9m of the $230m tax fraud.
In the deposition, Browder is asked if Magnitsky had a law degree in Russia. "I'm not aware that he did," he replies.
The full deposition, some six hours long, is (still) available on
Youtube . As penance for past transgressions, I watched
it in its entirety. While refraining from using adjectives to describe it, I shall simply cite some examples and let readers decide
on Browder's credibility. Browder seems to suffer an almost total memory blackout as a lawyer begins firing questions at him. He
cannot recall, or does not know, where he or his team got the information concerning the alleged illicit transfer of funds from Hermitage-owned
companies.
This is despite the fact that the now-famous Powerpoint presentations – hosted on so many 'anti-corruption' websites and recited
by 'human rights' NGOs – were prepared by Browder's own team.
Nor does he recall where, or how, he and his team obtained information on the amounts of the 'stolen' funds funnelled into companies.
When it's pointed out that in any case this information would be privileged – banking secrecy and so forth – Browder appears to be
at a loss.
According to Team Browder, in 2007 the 'Klyuev gang' together with Russian interior ministry officials travelled to Cyprus,
ostensibly to set up the tax rebate scam using shell companies. But in his deposition, the Anglo-American businessman cannot remember,
or does not know, how his team obtained the travel information of the conspirators.
He can't explain how they acquired the flight records and dates, doesn't have any documentation at hand, and isn't aware if any
such documentation exists.
Browder claims his 'Justice for Magnitsky' campaign, which among other things has led to US sanctions on Russian persons, is all
about vindicating the young man. Were that true, one would have expected Browder to go out of his way to aid Magnitsky in his hour
of need.
The deposition does not bear that out.
Lawyer: "Did anyone coordinate on your behalf with Firestone Duncan about the defence of Mr Magnitsky?"
Browder: "I don't know. I don't remember."
Going back to Nekrasov's film, a standout segment is where the filmmaker looks at a briefing document prepared by Team Browder
concerning the June 2007 raid by Russian police officers. In it, Browder claims the cops beat up Victor Poryugin, a lawyer with the
firm.
The lawyer was then "hospitalized for two weeks," according to Browder's presentation, which includes a photo of the beaten-up
lawyer. Except, it turns out the man pictured is not Poryugin at all. Rather, the photo is actually of Jim Zwerg, an American human
rights activist beaten up during a street protest in 1961 (see
here and here ).
Nekrasov sits down with German politician Marieluise Beck. She was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(Pace), which compiled a report that made Magnitsky a cause celebre.
You can see Beck's jaw drop when Nekrasov informs her that Magnitsky did not report the fraud, that he was in fact under investigation.
It transpires that Pace, as well as human rights activists, were getting their information from one source – Browder. Later, the
Council of Europe's Andreas Gross admits on camera that their entire investigation into the Magnitsky affair was based on Browder's
info and that they relied on translations of Russian documents provided by Browder's team because, as Gross puts it, "I don't speak
Russian myself."
That hit home – I, too, had been fed information from a single source, not bothering to verify it. I, too, initially went with
the assumption that because Russia is said to be a land of endemic corruption, then Browder's story sounded plausible if not entirely
credible.
For me, the takeaway is this gem from Nekrasov's narration:
"I was regularly overcome by deep unease. Was I defending a system that killed Magnitsky, even if I'd found no proof that he'd
been murdered?"
Bull's-eye. Nekrasov has arrived at a crossroads, the moment where one's mettle is tested: do I pursue the facts wherever they
may lead, even if they take me out of my comfort zone? What is more important: the truth, or the narrative? Nekrasov chose the former.
As do I.
Like with everything else, specific allegations must be assessed independently of one's general opinion of the Russian state.
They are two distinct issues. Say Browder never existed; does that make Russia a paradise?
I suspect Team Browder may scrub me from their mailing list; one can live with that.
oncemore1 , 6 minutes ago
Soros and Browder are the same tribe. FULLSTOP.
Slipstream , 6 minutes ago
Wow. That's a big **** up. But at least this guy is a journalist with ethics. He got it
wrong and has said so, to set the record straight. This should be a case taught in every
journalism school in the world. Unfortunately, I don't see the Magnitsky Act being repealed
any time soon.
Usura , 8 minutes ago
Bill Browder is a lying ***
Thordoom , 12 minutes ago
Andrei Nekrasov now has webpage dedicated to The Magnitsky Act Behind the Scenes.
I watched the documentary too. The depositions of Browder were devastating to any notion
of him as truth-teller. And yet, he managed to dupe politicians and media around the
world.
Thordoom , 33 minutes ago
The only good thing Yeltsin did in his miserable life was to say " **** you " to Bill
Clinton in the end when he found out how they wanted to set him up with that 7 billion of IMF
money they stolen in order to put Boris Berezovsky in the charge of Russia as a president for
hire and stole anything that was not welded down. Yeltsin knowing that the only way for
Russia to survive was to put Vladimir Putin in charge to clense the unclean filth that
infested Russia in the 90s
resistedliving , 52 minutes ago
classic agitprop.
Don't trust Browder and his self-interests much but trust this guy less.
Browser knows he'll never see that money again and has spent his own funds on his one man
mission
Thordoom , 40 minutes ago
Stupid moron he is spending Knohorkovsky's money and HSBC bank money. Half of the UK and
US government officials and intl officials and Harward boys are deeply involved in this
looting of Russian people in the 90s.
RationalLuddite , 31 minutes ago
Classic Reverse blockade lie by you Restedliving. Good luck moving the middle on Browder .
He's just not that bright in lying so I suppose your Talmudic exegesis honed Accusatory
Inversion is worth a try.
Please keep it up. Seriously. "Agitprop"😄😄😄😄
You are like a Browder red-pill dispenser with every incoherent mendacious utterance.
Thank you mate :*
WTFUD , 29 minutes ago
Bruiser Browser Browder, ex light-heavyweight champion of La-La Potemkin Village,
Ninnyapolis, USA.
Shouldn't Fakebook be banning the US Government for a plethora of Fake News? Then again
it's a nice fit for these 2 entities, a cosy relationship.
The Paucity of Hope , 54 minutes ago
Nekrasov's movie has been disappeared, but was excellent. Also, look at The Forecaster,
about Martin Armstrong. It talks about Hermatage Capital and was blocked in the US and
Switzerland for several years.
Ahmeexnal , 57 minutes ago
Browder must hang!
chunga , 38 minutes ago
Not a single person in the US gov will even acknowledge this. None. Not one.
At the same time the US domestic affairs revolve around unsubstantiated stories of SC
nominee penis wagging, special prosecutors investigating **** actress affairs/bribery with
POTUS, FBI, DOJ off the rails, while at the same time asserting a moral authority to sanction
and/or attack other countries as though it's an obligation or entitlement.
Now that UK's "resettling" White Helmet Terrorists within its borders, I wonder if they'll
become the next victims of MI6 attempts to frame Russia for its assassinations using poison
gas?
Semi OT--Now that UK's
"resettling" White Helmet Terrorists within its borders, I wonder if they'll become the
next victims of MI6 attempts to frame Russia for its assassinations using poison gas? What do
UK-located MoA barflies think of May bringing her terrorists "home"? Plus, I thought there
was a housing crisis of sorts within UK, and such scarce housing's to be allocated to
terrorists?! What sort of light opera would Gilbert & Sullivan compose as a ripost?
Unfortunately, it appears Corbyn's remained quiet on this issue, although there's plenty of
other items of importance to UK citizens for him to use as issues to defeat Tories.
"... If Trump backs the British looneys in the UN security council in a day or two we can all be sure he is now a puppet on a British string and that point will be seen by USA voters. ..."
"... Any leader that lets a foreign nation, Britain, try to destroy his family, presidential campaign and now presidency by assembling and publishing a dirt dossier without response is a coward. If Trump wont stand up to Hillary Clinton, Theresa May, or any of the dossier conspirators, then he is useless. The USA voters see that no matter what the spin but the swing voters more than any other actually discriminate and make judgements based on actions ..."
"... They are in a quandary and only Trump can cement their support by going after the perpetrators NOW and telling the EU loonies like Britain and France to F off with their belligerent war mongering. I wouldn't count on it. ..."
More notions on USA election so excuse a repeat post all. I figure an enormous number of
voters reeled in horror at the prospect of a Hillary Clinton president and voted for Trump.
Will that horror revert to more democrat support now?
Are those swing voters now uncertain if the $hillary will stage a come back. Nothing
absolute has been stated and the demoncrats go through the motions of 'thinking about'
another stooge like creepy Joe Biden. The USA is not liberated from the 'Clinton option'
yet.
More to the point though is that repeatedly implied and sometimes stated 'certainty' that
the DOJ/FBI under its new Trumpian management has a thousand grand jury indictments pending
to be actioned in October or something. The Trumpers are certain that their hero is about to
slay the many headed dragon and they have been anticipating that move for some time. Sure
there appears to be sufficient evidence to draw and quarter a couple of seriously stupid
clowns.
Given Trumps kneeling to the British Skripal poisoning 'hate russia' hoax I suspect there
is no chance he will go after Christopher Steele or any of the senior demoncrat conspirers no
matter how much he would love to sucker punch Theresa May and her nasty colleagues. If
Trump backs the British looneys in the UN security council in a day or two we can all be sure
he is now a puppet on a British string and that point will be seen by USA voters.
Any leader that lets a foreign nation, Britain, try to destroy his family,
presidential campaign and now presidency by assembling and publishing a dirt dossier without
response is a coward. If Trump wont stand up to Hillary Clinton, Theresa May, or any of the
dossier conspirators, then he is useless. The USA voters see that no matter what the spin but
the swing voters more than any other actually discriminate and make judgements based on
actions .
They are in a quandary and only Trump can cement their support by going after the
perpetrators NOW and telling the EU loonies like Britain and France to F off with their
belligerent war mongering. I wouldn't count on it.
"... Steele also had extensive contacts with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie, who - along with Steele - was paid by opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the anti-Trump campaign. Trump called for the declassification of FBI notes of interviews with Ohr, which would ostensibly reveal more about his relationship with Steele. Ohr was demoted twice within the Department of Justice for lying about his contacts with Fusion GPS. ..."
"... Perhaps the Brits are also concerned since much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016 . Recall that Trump aid George Papadopoulos was lured to London in March, 2016, where Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud fed him the rumor that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. It was later at a London bar that Papadopoulos would drunkenly pass the rumor to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer (who Strzok flew to London to meet with). ..."
"... Papadopoulos accepted a flight to London and a $3,000 honorarium. He claims that during a meeting in London, Halper asked him whether he knew anything about Russian hacking of Democrats' emails. ..."
"... Papadopoulos had other contacts on British soil that he now believes were part of a government-sanctioned surveillance operation. - Daily Caller ..."
"... In total, Halper received over $1 million from the Obama Pentagon for "research," over $400,000 of which was granted before and during the 2016 election season. ..."
"... In short, it's understandable that the UK would prefer to hide their involvement in the "witch hunt" of Donald Trump since much of the counterintelligence investigation was conducted on UK soil. And if the Brits had knowledge of the operation, it will bolster claims that they meddled in the 2016 US election by assisting what appears to have been a set-up from the start . ..."
"... Steele's ham-handed dossier is a mere embarrassment, as virtually none of the claims asserted by the former MI6 agent have been proven true. ..."
"... Steele, a former MI6 agent, is the author of the infamous and unverified anti-Trump dossier. He worked as a confidential human source for the FBI for years before the relationship was severed just before the election because of Steele's unauthorized contacts with the press. ..."
"... That said, Steele hasn't worked for the British government since 2009, so for their excuse focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which occurred on UK soil, is curious. ..."
"... I find it interesting that the Theresa May Govt in UK has the temerity to interfere with US politics (until they got caught out!), yet can't find the spine to stand up to the EU. ..."
"... THE UNITED KINGDOM along with ISRAEL & SAUDI ARABIA have always been the ones behind US Politics making, pulling the strings behind the curtains since the Petrodollar Inception, The Greater Israel project & the NWO initiative - only this time around Trump was not the UK's pick... ..."
"... England dominates the offshore money laundering havens where the super rich hide their money and evade taxes. They need to be brought down. No more African dictators looting their nation's resources and hiding the money first in offshore banks and then in JP Morgan and Brit banks. ..."
"... It is a test. If Trump doesn't go ahead with declassification, we know for sure he is no better than the globalists and neocons whose goal has always been to destroy and depopulate America. ..."
"... 'focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which occurred on UK soil, is curious' ..."
"... Not at all. It's obvious - the problem ISN'T Steele. They're living in fear, as are many in DC and elsewhere, that Trump is going to pry the lid open and reveal at least some of their activities. If killing him would fix the problem, they would. It's too late, considering what Trump is threatening to do. I wonder if he'll back down, at least some? ..."
"... U.K. does not want the jurisdiction. U.S. spies lure you overseas then...compromise you. ..."
"... Duh. This Started In London! Britain is the "foreign country" involved in our elections. Wake up everyone. It's LONDONGATE ..."
"... May gonna owe Vlad an apology when Skripal is revealed to be Steele's source. Steele himself hadn't been to Russian in 15 years. Will he get life in prison for attempted murder? ..."
"... "t's hard to tell who's telling the truth and who isn't in this whole Russia narrative. Fact is, NOBODY is telling the truth. That is what I've determined after doing my own research.": https://youtu.be/2AA5BIfGj3g ..."
"... Trump made promises before being elected, then lied and sold America out, just like every other corrupted assklown politician. he is no different than clinton bush obama, just as arrogant, just as corrupt, and just as much a traitor. ..."
UK Begged Trump Not To Declassify Russia Docs; Cited "Grave Concerns" Over Steele
Involvement
by Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/23/2018 - 11:15 4.6K SHARES
The British government "expressed grave concerns" to the US government over the
declassification and release of material related to the Trump-Russia investigation, according
to the New
York Times . President Trump ordered a wide swath of materials "immediately" declassified
"without redaction" on Monday, only to
change his mind later in the week by allowing the DOJ Inspector General to review the
materials first.
The Times reports that the UK's concern was over material which "includes direct references
to conversations between American law enforcement officials and Christopher Steele," the former
MI6 agent who compiled the infamous "Steele Dossier." The UK's objection, according to former
US and British officials, was over revealing Steele's identity in an official document,
"regardless of whether he had been named in press reports."
We would note, however, that Steele's name was contained within the Nunes Memo
- the House Intelligence Committee's majority opinion in the Trump-Russia case.
Steele also had
extensive contacts with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie, who - along with Steele
- was paid by opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the anti-Trump campaign. Trump called for
the declassification of FBI notes of interviews with Ohr, which would ostensibly reveal more
about his relationship with Steele. Ohr was demoted twice within the Department of Justice for
lying about his contacts with Fusion GPS.
Perhaps the Brits are also concerned since much of the espionage performed on the Trump
campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016 . Recall that Trump aid George Papadopoulos
was lured to London in March, 2016, where Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud fed him the rumor
that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. It was later at a London bar that Papadopoulos would
drunkenly pass the rumor to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer (who Strzok flew to London to
meet with).
Also recall that CIA/FBI "informant" (spy) Stefan Halper met with both Carter Page
and Papadopoulos in
London.
Halper, a veteran of four Republican administrations, reached out to Trump aide George
Papadopoulos in September 2016 with an offer to fly to London to write an academic paper on
energy exploration in the Mediterranean Sea.
Papadopoulos accepted a flight to London and a $3,000 honorarium. He claims that during a
meeting in London, Halper asked him whether he knew anything about Russian hacking of
Democrats' emails.
Papadopoulos had other contacts on British soil that he now believes were part of a
government-sanctioned surveillance operation. - Daily Caller
In total, Halper received over $1 million from the Obama Pentagon for "research," over
$400,000 of which was granted before and during the 2016 election season.
In short, it's understandable that the UK would prefer to hide their involvement in the
"witch hunt" of Donald Trump since much of the counterintelligence investigation was conducted
on UK soil. And if the Brits had knowledge of the operation, it will bolster claims that they
meddled in the 2016 US election by assisting what appears to have been a
set-up from the start .
Steele's ham-handed dossier is a mere embarrassment, as virtually none of the claims
asserted by the former MI6 agent have been proven true.
Steele, a former MI6 agent, is the author of the infamous and unverified anti-Trump
dossier. He worked as a confidential human source for the FBI for years before the
relationship was severed just before the election because of Steele's unauthorized contacts
with the press.
He shared results of his investigation into Trump's links to Russia with the FBI beginning
in early July 2016.
The FBI relied heavily on the unverified Steele dossier to fill out applications for four
FISA warrants against Page. Page has denied the dossier's claims, which include that he was
the Trump campaign's back channel to the Kremlin. - Daily Caller
That said, Steele hasn't worked for the British government since 2009, so for their excuse
focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which occurred on UK
soil, is curious.
StychoKiller , 54 minutes ago
I find it interesting that the Theresa May Govt in UK has the temerity to interfere with
US politics (until they got caught out!), yet can't find the spine to stand up to the EU. If
I were Trump, not only would the shoe be dropping re: UK Govt involvement in US politics, but
said shoe would be making an imprint across her face! (stoopid twat!)
texantim , 1 hour ago
I say release the docs and put sanctions on UK.
BitchesBetterRecognize , 1 hour ago
So the Motherland ******* up with the ex-colony yet again, huh?
THE UNITED KINGDOM along with ISRAEL & SAUDI ARABIA have always been the ones behind
US Politics making, pulling the strings behind the curtains since the Petrodollar Inception,
The Greater Israel project & the NWO initiative - only this time around Trump was not the
UK's pick...
Oh, but those "civilized" Allies backstabbing each other for more power grip on the
USA....
Baron von Bud , 2 hours ago
England dominates the offshore money laundering havens where the super rich hide their
money and evade taxes. They need to be brought down. No more African dictators looting their
nation's resources and hiding the money first in offshore banks and then in JP Morgan and
Brit banks.
Many hedge funds are deep into this game. I'd wager on Carlyle Group and the Bush
clan. Billions of people can't get ahead because the super rich are ******* crooks running
the banks and governments. They don't pay taxes but force a small dry cleaner to pay 45% in
fed/state taxes. These criminals include Hillary Clinton and many members of congress.
Feinstein, Pelosi, Maxine and many more of both parties need to be investigated. How do they
get so rich on a congressman's salary. Deep into tax evasion and payoffs? Release the
documents and let MI6 hang.
Malvern Joe , 3 hours ago
It is a test. If Trump doesn't go ahead with declassification, we know for sure he is no
better than the globalists and neocons whose goal has always been to destroy and depopulate
America. It would represent the biggest sellout of this country since the creation of the Fed
in 1913, He will go down as the biggest fraud ever and his base will deport his *** to the
sums of India where he can defecate in public.
Bricker , 3 hours ago
You dont get to supply a rogue agent, that was probably told to do it in the first place,
and then tell Trump not to do it out of harm, harm is all you BRIT DEEP STATES deserve
Moving and Grooving , 3 hours ago
'focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which occurred on
UK soil, is curious'
Not at all. It's obvious - the problem ISN'T Steele. They're living in fear, as are many
in DC and elsewhere, that Trump is going to pry the lid open and reveal at least some of
their activities. If killing him would fix the problem, they would. It's too late,
considering what Trump is threatening to do. I wonder if he'll back down, at least some?
The sheer corruption of the Global Government is on display here, revealing itself, if you
watch for it. Whether planned or not, the last 6 months or so have been astonishing to watch.
The entire media has been shown to be liars, academia is shown to be an expensive provider of
unprepared students, the corporate world is furiously rent-seeking and finding new ways to
destroy humanity, and government is too busy selling Americans out to write a budget. In all
countries around the world, adjusting for national status. Lawsuits in the west, machetes in
the third world.
Ban KKiller , 4 hours ago
U.K. does not want the jurisdiction. U.S. spies lure you overseas then...compromise you.
John C Durham , 4 hours ago
Duh. This Started In London! Britain is the "foreign country" involved in our elections.
Wake up everyone. It's LONDONGATE .
Anunnaki , 4 hours ago
May gonna owe Vlad an apology when Skripal is revealed to be Steele's source. Steele himself hadn't been to Russian in 15 years. Will he get life in prison for attempted murder?
PeaceForWorld , 4 hours ago
"t's hard to tell who's telling the truth and who isn't in this whole Russia narrative.
Fact is, NOBODY is telling the truth. That is what I've determined after doing my own
research.": https://youtu.be/2AA5BIfGj3g
I really like this woman "Shut the **** up!". She is a former Bernie supporter just like
me. She has turned against Democrats just like me. She doesn't trust any of the Establishment
parties.
Buddha71 , 4 hours ago
Trump made promises before being elected, then lied and sold America out, just like every other
corrupted assklown politician. he is no different than clinton bush obama, just as arrogant,
just as corrupt, and just as much a traitor. he has broken the promises upon which he was
elected, just like all the other fkn liars before him. no different. just a pos. he has not
made america great again, just more of the same, unemployment is a lie, it is closer to
17%.
"... There was no sign of nerve agents being used, but The Sun claimed to have 'security sources' which told them rat poison may have been used against the couple, while claiming King was fighting for his life. Soon after the hospital confirmed that actually both had been discharged. ..."
"... Then the BBC reported that King, who was reportedly found foaming at the mouth in the restaurant's toilet, is a "convicted criminal who once hoaxed Prince Charles" and had previously been convicted of "distributing indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children." ..."
"... Then the Daily Mirror reported that King is an alleged drug dealer, and Shapiro is a high-class escort who told friends she was a " honeytrap spy ..."
"... Like any newspaper, we were keen to talk to those at the centre of the incident and give them the opportunity to share with the public their version of events ..."
"... Like this story? Share it with a friend! ..."
Russian-born Anna Shapiro and her British husband Alex King were at the center of another
poisoning scare in Salisbury last Sunday in an incident that appeared at first to echo the
attack on ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the very same city.
The details were compelling, a reported poisoning in another Italian eatery chain in
Salisbury (this time Prezzo), a Russian was involved, and the police closed off streets and
deployed specialists in hazmat suits.
The story also carried a hint of too-good-to-be-true, but The Sun was so seduced by
Shapiro's claim that Putin was after her, it ran a front page splash. The fact she was willing
to claim " Putin wants me dead " while at the same time doing a sexy photo shoot
probably helped.
There was no sign of nerve agents being used, but The Sun claimed to have 'security
sources' which told them rat poison may have been used against the couple, while claiming King
was fighting for his life. Soon after the hospital confirmed that actually both had been
discharged.
However, other details began to emerge after the Sun splashed. The police, who have not
suggested any crime actually took place, admitted one of their lines of inquiry into what
happened in Salisbury's Prezzo is now whether it may have been a hoax.
Then the BBC
reported that King, who was reportedly found foaming at the mouth in the restaurant's
toilet, is a "convicted criminal who once hoaxed Prince Charles" and had previously been
convicted of "distributing indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children."
Then the
Daily Mirror reported that King is an alleged drug dealer, and Shapiro is a high-class
escort who told friends she was a " honeytrap spy " used by Israel's Mossad to seduce
men.
Essentially what appeared to be an extremely questionable story from the very start seems to
be disintegrating, so why would a national newspaper decide to run this story at all without
doing a basic background checks?
The obvious conclusion is simply that it's too easy to make any accusation you like about
Russia because readers are willing to believe anything in the current political climate.
The Sun said in a statement: " Like any newspaper, we were keen to talk to those at the
centre of the incident and give them the opportunity to share with the public their version of
events ."
But were they keen to check whether any of it was accurate?
@Mr. Hack I understand perfectly what I read, and even make a direct quotation:
Those in power in Kiev had several times already attempted to draw Moscow into the civil
war, directly and through a NATO intervention
I then ridicule such mularkey for what it is, unsubstantiated ' gibberish
'.
You want to defend this BS then go to it, otherwise put up or shut up! :-)
The same goes for Skeptikal. Here is a British 'method' of slandering the non-obedient
Russians. In terms of dishonesty, it is about the same as the US/EU/Ukrainian version of the
MH17 tragedy:
"The Holes in the Official Skripal Story," by Craig MURRAY:
"The nub of the British government's approach has been the shocking willingness of the
corporate and state media to parrot repeatedly the lie that the nerve agent was Russian made,
even after Porton Down said they could not tell where it was made and the OPCW confirmed that
finding. In fact, while the Soviet Union did develop the "novichok" class of nerve agents,
the programme involved scientists from all over the Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, Armenia
and Georgia, as I myself learnt when I visited the newly decommissioned Nukus testing
facility in Uzbekistan in 2002."
"... The fake story that May has been pushing is that it is "highly likely" that the Kremlin ordered a hit on the former British spy Sergei Skripal (and his daughter) using a "Russian-made" chemical weapon called "Novichok." In turn, from what we already knew, it is highly likely that this story is a complete and utter fake. ..."
The Brits have just provided my previous article, The Truthers and The Fakers, with a tidy
little case study: the very next day after I published it Theresa May's government stepped into
its role as one of the world's premier Fakers and unleashed the next installment of fake news
on the Skripal poisoning. We can use this as training material in learning how to spot and
discard fakes.
The fake story that May has been pushing is that it is "highly likely" that the Kremlin
ordered a hit on the former British spy Sergei Skripal (and his daughter) using a
"Russian-made" chemical weapon called "Novichok." In turn, from what we already knew, it is
highly likely that this story is a complete and utter fake. As I explained in the previous
article, it is not our job to establish what really happened. We would be unable to do so with
any degree of certainty without gaining access to state secrets. But we don't need to; all we
need to do is establish with a reasonable degree of certainty that the British government's
story is a foolishly, incompetently concocted fabrication. Doing so will then allow us to
properly classify the British press, which repeats this nonsense as fact, and the British
public, which accepts it unquestioningly at face value. Then we can drop the erroneous
appellation "great" -- because great nations don't act so stupidly
A confidential report by Belgian investigators confirms that British intelligence services
hacked state-owned Belgian telecom giant Belgacom on behalf of Washington, it was revealed on
Thursday (20 September).
The report, which summarises a five-year judicial inquiry, is almost complete and was
submitted to the office of Justice Minister Koen Geens, a source close to the case told AFP,
confirming Belgian press reports
The matter will now be discussed within Belgium's National Security Council, which
includes the Belgian Prime Minister with top security ministers and officials.
Contacted by AFP, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office and the cabinet of Minister
Geens refused to comment .
####
NO. Shit. Sherlock.
So the real question is that if this has known since 2013, why now? BREXIT?
So much of mainstream journalism has descended to the level of a cult-like formula of bias,
hearsay and omission. Subjectivism is all; slogans and outrage are proof enough. What matters
is 'perception'...
The death of Robert Parry earlier this year felt like a farewell to the age of the reporter.
Parry was "a trailblazer for independent journalism", wrote Seymour Hersh, with whom he shared
much in common.
Hersh revealed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the secret bombing of Cambodia, Parry
exposed Iran-Contra, a drugs and gun-running conspiracy that led to the White House. In 2016,
they separately produced compelling evidence that the Assad government in Syria had not used
chemical weapons. They were not forgiven.
Driven from the "mainstream", Hersh must publish his work outside the United States. Parry
set up his own independent news website Consortium News, where, in a final piece following a
stroke, he referred to journalism's veneration of "approved opinions" while "unapproved
evidence is brushed aside or disparaged regardless of its quality."
Although journalism was always a loose extension of establishment power, something has
changed in recent years. Dissent tolerated when I joined a national newspaper in Britain in the
1960s has regressed to a metaphoric underground as liberal capitalism moves towards a form of
corporate dictatorship.
This is a seismic shift, with journalists policing the new "groupthink", as Parry called it,
dispensing its myths and distractions, pursuing its enemies.
Witness the witch-hunts against refugees and immigrants, the willful abandonment by the
"MeToo" zealots of our oldest freedom, presumption of innocence, the anti-Russia racism and
anti-Brexit hysteria, the growing anti-China campaign and the suppression of a warning of world
war.
With many if not most independent journalists barred or ejected from the "mainstream", a
corner of the Internet has become a vital source of disclosure and evidence-based analysis:
true journalism sites such as wikileaks.org, consortiumnews.com, wsws.org, truthdig.com,
globalresearch.org, counterpunch.org and informationclearinghouse.com are required reading for
those trying to make sense of a world in which science and technology advance wondrously while
political and economic life in the fearful "democracies" regress behind a media facade of
narcissistic spectacle.
Propaganda Blitz
In Britain, just one website offers consistently independent media criticism. This is the
remarkable Media Lens -- remarkable partly because its founders and editors as well as its only
writers, David Edwards and David Cromwell, since 2001 have concentrated their gaze not on the
usual suspects, the Tory press, but the paragons of reputable liberal journalism: the BBC, The
Guardian , Channel 4 News.
Cromwell and Edwards (The Ghandi Foundation)
Their method is simple. Meticulous in their research, they are respectful and polite when
they ask why a journalist why he or she produced such a one-sided report, or failed to disclose
essential facts or promoted discredited myths.
The replies they receive are often defensive, at times abusive; some are hysterical, as if
they have pushed back a screen on a protected species.
I would say Media Lens has shattered a silence about corporate journalism. Like Noam Chomsky
and Edward Herman in Manufacturing Consent, they represent a Fifth Estate that deconstructs and
demystifies the media's power.
What is especially interesting about them is that neither is a journalist. David Edwards is
a former teacher, David Cromwell is an oceanographer. Yet, their understanding of the morality
of journalism -- a term rarely used; let's call it true objectivity -- is a bracing quality of
their online Media Lens dispatches.
I think their work is heroic and I would place a copy of their just published book,
Propaganda Blitz , in every journalism school that services the corporate system, as they all
do.
Take the chapter, Dismantling the National Health Service, in which Edwards and Cromwell
describe the critical part played by journalists in the crisis facing Britain's pioneering
health service.
The NHS crisis is the product of a political and media construct known as "austerity", with
its deceitful, weasel language of "efficiency savings" (the BBC term for slashing public
expenditure) and "hard choices" (the willful destruction of the premises of civilized life in
modern Britain).
"Austerity" is an invention. Britain is a rich country with a debt owed by its crooked
banks, not its people. The resources that would comfortably fund the National Health Service
have been stolen in broad daylight by the few allowed to avoid and evade billions in taxes.
Using a vocabulary of corporate euphemisms, the publicly-funded Health Service is being
deliberately run down by free market fanatics, to justify its selling-off. The Labour Party of
Jeremy Corbyn may appear to oppose this, but is it? The answer is very likely no. Little of any
of this is alluded to in the media, let alone explained.
Edwards and Cromwell have dissected the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, whose innocuous
title belies its dire consequences. Unknown to most of the population, the Act ends the legal
obligation of British governments to provide universal free health care: the bedrock on which
the NHS was set up following the Second World War. Private companies can now insinuate
themselves into the NHS, piece by piece.
Where, asks Edwards and Cromwell, was the BBC while this momentous Bill was making its way
through Parliament? With a statutory commitment to "providing a breadth of view" and to
properly inform the public of "matters of public policy," the BBC never spelt out the threat
posed to one of the nation's most cherished institutions. A BBC headline said: "Bill which
gives power to GPs passes." This was pure state propaganda.
Media and Iraq Invasion
Blair: Lawless (Office of Tony Blair)
There is a striking similarity with the BBC's coverage of Prime Minister Tony Blair's
lawless invasion of Iraq in 2003, which left a million dead and many more dispossessed. A study
by the University of Wales, Cardiff, found that the BBC reflected the government line
"overwhelmingly" while relegating reports of civilian suffering. A Media Tenor study placed the
BBC at the bottom of a league of western broadcasters in the time they gave to opponents of the
invasion. The corporation's much-vaunted "principle" of impartiality was never a
consideration.
One of the most telling chapters in Propaganda Blitz describes the smear campaigns mounted
by journalists against dissenters, political mavericks and whistleblowers.
The Guardian' s campaign against the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is the most
disturbing. Assange, whose epic WikiLeaks disclosures brought fame, journalism prizes and
largesse to The Guardian , was abandoned when he was no longer useful. He was then subjected to
a vituperative – and cowardly -- onslaught of a kind I have rarely known.
With not a penny going to WikiLeaks, a hyped Guardian book led to a lucrative Hollywood
movie deal. The book's authors, Luke Harding and David Leigh, gratuitously described Assange as
a "damaged personality" and "callous." They also disclosed the secret password he had given the
paper in confidence, which was designed to protect a digital file containing the U.S. embassy
cables.
With Assange now trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy, Harding, standing among the police
outside, gloated on his blog that "Scotland Yard may get the last laugh."
The Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore wrote, "I bet Assange is stuffing himself full of
flattened guinea pigs. He really is the most massive turd."
Moore, who describes herself as a feminist, later complained that, after attacking Assange,
she had suffered "vile abuse." Edwards and Cromwell wrote to her: "That's a real shame, sorry
to hear that. But how would you describe calling someone 'the most massive turd'? Vile
abuse?"
Moore replied that no, she would not, adding, "I would advise you to stop being so bloody
patronizing." Her former Guardian colleague James Ball wrote, "It's difficult to imagine what
Ecuador's London embassy smells like more than five and a half years after Julian Assange moved
in."
Such slow-witted viciousness appeared in a newspaper described by its editor, Katharine
Viner, as "thoughtful and progressive." What is the root of this vindictiveness? Is it
jealousy, a perverse recognition that Assange has achieved more journalistic firsts than his
snipers can claim in a lifetime? Is it that he refuses to be "one of us" and shames those who
have long sold out the independence of journalism?
Journalism students should study this to understand that the source of "fake news" is not
only trollism, or the likes of Fox News, or Donald Trump, but a journalism self-anointed with a
false respectability: a liberal journalism that claims to challenge corrupt state power but, in
reality, courts and protects it, and colludes with it. The amorality of the years of Tony
Blair, whom The Guardian has failed to rehabilitate, is its echo.
"[It is] an age in which people yearn for new ideas and fresh alternatives," wrote Katharine
Viner. Her political writer Jonathan Freedland dismissed the yearning of young people who
supported the modest policies of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as "a form of narcissism."
"How did this man .," brayed the Guardian 's Zoe Williams, "get on the ballot in the first
place?" A choir of the paper's precocious windbags joined in, thereafter queuing to fall on
their blunt swords when Corbyn came close to winning the 2017 general election in spite of the
media.
Complex stories are reported to a cult-like formula of bias, hearsay and omission: Brexit,
Venezuela, Russia, Syria. On Syria, only the investigations of a group of independent
journalists have countered this, revealing the network of Anglo-American backing of jihadists
in Syria, including those related to ISIS.
Leni Riefenstahl (r.) (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)
Supported by a "psyops" campaign
funded by the British Foreign Office and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the
aim is to hoodwink the Western public and speed the overthrow of the government in Damascus,
regardless of the medieval alternative and the risk of war with Russia.
The Syria Campaign, set up by a New York PR agency called Purpose, funds a group known as
the White Helmets, who claim falsely to be "Syria Civil Defense" and are seen uncritically on
TV news and social media, apparently rescuing the victims of bombing, which they film and edit
themselves, though viewers are unlikely to be told this. George Clooney is a fan.
The White Helmets are appendages to the jihadists with whom they share addresses. Their
media-smart uniforms and equipment are supplied by their Western paymasters. That their
exploits are not questioned by major news organizations is an indication of how deep the
influence of state-backed PR now runs in the media. As Robert Fisk noted recently, no
"mainstream" reporter reports Syria.
In what is known as a hatchet job, a Guardian reporter based in San Francisco, Olivia Solon,
who has never visited Syria, was allowed to smear the substantiated investigative work of
journalists Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett on the White Helmets as "propagated online by a
network of anti-imperialist activists, conspiracy theorists and trolls with the support of the
Russian government."
This abuse was published without permitting a single correction, let alone a right-of-reply.
The Guardian Comment page was blocked, as Edwards and Cromwell document. I saw the list of
questions Solon sent to Beeley, which reads like a McCarthyite charge sheet -- "Have you ever
been invited to North Korea?"
So much of the mainstream has descended to this level. Subjectivism is all; slogans and
outrage are proof enough. What matters is the "perception."
When he was U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus declared what he called "a
war of perception conducted continuously using the news media." What really mattered was not
the facts but the way the story played in the United States. The undeclared enemy was, as
always, an informed and critical public at home.
Nothing has changed. In the 1970s, I met Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's film-maker, whose
propaganda mesmerized the German public.
She told me the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above", but on
the "submissive void" of an uninformed public.
"Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie?" I asked.
"Everyone," she said. "Propaganda always wins, if you allow it."
Propaganda Blitz by David
Edwards and David Cromwell is published by Pluto Press.
I gave up on the Guardian's comment site myself, 10 years ago, as the censorship on there
made it pointless. Has something changed?
There was one prolific commenter there, MrPikeBishop, who was so popular, he was even
commissioned to write articles above the line. Then one day, bam, he is banned, and his entire
posting history gone. That did it for me; little emperors not fit to clean his boots, just
rubbed him out. I spat on the site that day and never went back. Proclaiming themselves the
bastion of free speech, when they actually the enemies of it.
Actually, I was caught out here in the UK, by the demise of the old five pound note, and
then the ten pound note, because I stopped reading and watching MSM years ago. It's worth it,
to get their irritating buzzing out of my head.
Back to the linked Guardian article; this is indeed interesting – these questions
asked by the journalist:
– Who really did shoot down this plane? Was it an accident or did France and/or Israel
attack?
– Are Russia publicly accepting a false narrative to avoid having to retaliate?
– Do they even understand how close we're coming to global war, whenever a NATO country
operates in Syria?
– How long can we rely on Russian common sense to avoid WWIII?
The questions raised: Who really did shoot down this plane? Was it an accident or did France
and/or Israel attack? If France are attacking Russia/Syria what prompted this? What do they
have to gain? Is it possible for Syria to "accidentally" bring down an allied plane? Don't they
have IFFs? Are Russia publicly accepting a false narrative to avoid having to retaliate? Will
Russia retaliate against Israel? They have claimed that right already. What will they expect to
extract as a quid pro quo on this issue? How will the media report this? Will they call
it a "near miss"? That's surely what it was. Do they even understand how close we're coming to
global war, whenever a NATO country operates in Syria? How long can we rely on Russian common
sense to avoid WWIII?
I notice you don't advocate that Russia should have immediately retaliated militarily. All
the things you do advocate (well, most) – quite rationally – would not have shown
any results as yet, so we don't know they haven't been done, do we?
But, to repeat, you don't defeat a man who is trying to lure you into a fight by punching
him in the face. Intelligence is underrated by the non-intelligent. Subtlety is unappreciated
by the crass. The Russian govt's actions tend to be both subtle and intelligent –
whether you approve of them or not, and so can go unappreciated by many on all sides of the
debate.
As to ascendancy – Syria was intended to be a new Libya by now. That this has
been avoided, that the various terrorists are in retreat, that the country remains largely
functional, and all without direct confrontation between east and west (so far), is an
achievement anyone with any intelligence should recognise, and which the Russia government
has every right to be proud of.
Forgive me, but people have been saying variants of "if Putin doesn't DO SOMETHING HUGE
right now he's going to burn" for at least the last four years, and they are still saying it,
despite the fact he hasn't burned (and neither have we), and, if their sage advice had been
followed, we might all be cinders on a dead and cindered planet right now.
The only reason it hasn't come to that yet is that the ground was not prepared fully before.
Russia is slowly being pushed back to the ropes, the average Western citizen is being
conditioned to racially hate Russians (did you read Nikki Haley's comment today that Russians
are culturally conditioned to lie and cheat?) and the consent is being steadily manufactured.
As I said in my original comment, by showing "restraint" and not that he has teeth, Putin is
encouraging his country's enemies. Personally, I don't give a damn about what he does
about people he doesn't like, but he's not a private citizen; he is in control of Russia, for
good or ill. Most of my Russian friends, all of the far left variety, despise him,
incidentally, but that's neither here nor there. The simple fact is that if Russia is to
avoid a big war it has to actively deter one, not act like someone attempting to disarm an
armed drunk by logical words and sweet reason. That is not going to work.
If the Russians got a cruise missile down the funnel of the French frigate Auvegne (assuming
there is a funnel) what do you think NATO would do? Would they shrug and say it serves Macron
right or would they take off the safety locks and blast Russia from every direction in order
to protect their partner who had been so 'wrongly' attacked? Haven't they been waiting for
the chance for years? Aren't they already loaded up expecting the 'chemical weapons' shout to
go up this very week? It would be vey foolish of Russia to take the bait of these
provocations and it makes for uneasy reading when Westerners, sitting comfortably in safety,
complain that Russians aren't prepared to die for us in large enough numbers to keep them
safe. You first guy!
When provoked so blatantly you need to look to see what the guy is hiding behind his back. In
this case the West had built up their forces for a full scale attack on Syria as soon as the
White Helmets released their video of choking children filmed a week or so ago. Putin
disappointed them by coming to an agreement with Turkey that means the jihadis are further
isolated and pushed into possible conflict with radicals.
The time scales of the agreement are vague/unknown but it's unlikely we will see a Jihadi
Caliphate set up under Turkish protection.
Like the Syrians it's the crazy foreign fighters that alarm the Turks, the Chinese
especially of whom there are 6000 heavily armed in the South. Turkey is keen to see the
extremists pushed South making it difficult for them to enter Turkey. Putin's reaction is far
more sensible than firing the gun for a major conflict which Russia is most unlikely to
win.
Russia is still on track to squeeze the jihadis into smaller and smaller areas where they
might be eliminated. It might make liberals happy to see Russia sacrifice herself a la 1941
but it's not going to help anybody except their enemies.
You can't help thinking Putin knows exactly what he's doing.
There can never be a non-nuclear war between the US and Russia. Every strategist worth
anything knows this. It's the belief – created by the PNAC neocons – that this
isn't true that drives the hardcore nuts in Washington and London and elsewhere.
This is the problem. They are delusional and believe they can fight a limited war with
Russia. Those who know they are wrong, and that any such war would go nuclear very very fast
are stuck in a profound dilemma. – How to defend oneself and one's interests while
avoiding the conflict the lunatics want, which will destroy life on earth?
Answers on a post card please for anyone who thinks they can do better than the current
Russian govt is doing.
It's a complex web.. one has to bear this in mind.. the inter-relationships.. the
connections.. Putin for example has to tread the razor edge and fight with one hand tied
behind his back due to the Zionist influence atop the Russian hierarchy .
S-200 uses the SAHR guidance system. The radar signal is fairly wide, and if multiple objects
fall within the signal, the one with the largest cross-section will be targeted. The Russian
IL is much larger than the American F-16. Larger missiles like the 200's 5V21 also tend to
hit from above (they come down in a parabolic arc after the motors burned out). So if the
F-16's stayed a little behind and below the IL they'd basically guarantee the IL get's
killed.
As "Partisangirl" claims, but does not properly understand, Russia integrated Syrian AD
into their network some time ago. The purpose of such a integration was to avoid similar
accidents.
One problem: That was only for the newer stuff.
A Pantsir, for example, can be told where targets are and what to shoot at by a larger
system (they work in a pyramid hierarchy). S-200s are older than h*ll though. It's basically
a dumb system from the 60's. (even dumber than a BUK)
What it'll do is spot a target, fire the missile and then when the missile "thinks" it's in
the right area (the kill box), it's seeker head goes active (it's a semi active seeker). It
starts looking for radar 'reflections' and then homes in on the biggest one it can see. It
doesn't actually know what it's looking at and doesn't care. Just goes for the shiniest thing
it can detect.
My favourite part is how all these lies are held up as if they merit discussion and as if
they deserve to be given equal treatment with what actually happened. It's like holding a
"discussion" as to whether or not Aliens rule the Earth.
I tend to agree with you, on the whole, Mulga, about issues to do with Israel, though perhaps
not so stridently. But on this occasion I think Matt is honestly telling things how he sees
it.
On the other hand, one should ask why Israel is arbitrarily attacking targets in a
sovereign country that is not threatening it. Of course, the answer is that this is what
Israel does with impunity – witness USS Liberty among many others. On this occasion, it
appears, from what I have read, that Israel was targeting the delivery of Iranian S300 copies
to Syria – that is weapons to defend from this kind of attack in future. In reality,
far from attacking Israel, Syria has even done nothing about recovering territory lost to
Israel in 1967, though in international law Israel – that Israel signed up to –
it should be given back to Syria. A few days ago, Israel attacked Damascus airport during an
international fair with many visitors and potential for massive loss of life. It seems clear
that Israel is trying (probably with US approval) to provoke a response.
Putin always keeps his eye on the long term view but it is time for him to put a stop to
this activity if he is to maintain credibility with his allies and his voters. This attack
will serve to weaken Putin's hitherto Israel friendly stance unless he wants to lose support
in Russia. Putin is the best friend Israel has in Russia. It seems that Russian military is
saying that there will be a response – much stronger than Putin.
On the other hand – re my previous comment, Matt, IAF was clearly using the Russian
ELINT plane as cover. It is tantamount to using civilians as human shields. Though the crew
were Russian military, they were not involved in the action, apparently, and Israel had
agreed not to target Russian assets in Syria. One cannot absolve Israel on this and the
Russian military know it. They will be looking to Putin to permit a response.
Then you surely would not object if Russia were to ask Israel to hand over the pilots
involved so they can explain in a Russian military court or a similar setting their actions
and the thinking and expectations that motivated them to hide their jets in the Ilyushin
transport plane's radar shadow.
Yes, there is a large element of theatre at play in this conflict. What many people don't
want to accept is that they have no way of knowing what the entire truth is. All the
information about situations and events comes from partisan organizations with vested
interests. Expecting the side one personally favours to present objective truths is wishful
thinking at best, downright delusional at worst.
The post-truth era means everybody walks around believing they have 'figured out' the
truth, no hard evidence required, but they can't all be right can they?
Not so long ago Netanyahu was pleading with Putin [successfully] not to supply the S300 anti
aircraft system [defensive] to Syria, at the same time Israel was the first country to get a
fleet of F35's [offensive] from the US. Putin defers far to much to the US/Israel, we now see
the results. Incidentally how come Saudi Arabia can buy the S400 system, when they were one
of the instigators of Syrian regime change. Russia's "partners" want Syria destroyed, the
warmonger McCain always said the US should take on Syria and that Russia would 'do nothing',
was he right?
Let's recall the realities here and not succumb to hysteria. One of the reasons these
provocations are happening is that Russia is winning in Syria, militarily and politically.
Loading...
Harry has touched on an important point: that Russia and Israel are becoming closer and
closer strategic Russophone partners. Russia was the first country in the world to recognise
W Jerusalem as Israel's capital (before even Trump). There was only one foreign dignitary at
the May 9th Victory Parade their growing economic, military and cultural ties (Customs Union
negotiations and visa free travel for instance) cannot be ignored.
The IDF's 200 strikes in 18 months must lead to serious consideration of tacit Russian
approval because they could be quite quickly stopped without it? But that would escalate the
situation. Where does Iran stand in this, because VVP made quite clear to Netanyahu that Iran
was Russia's principle strategic partner in the region. Is that set to change?
Netanyahu has met VVP what, three times this year, behind closed doors. What was said, and
what agreements were made? It is also reputed that they have a direct one-to-one encrypted
comms network (though I can't confirm it was activated). But that they are in regular contact
is undoubted.
There is a lot more going on beneath the surface than first meets the eye. VVP's relations
with Netanyahu blurs the boundaries and greys the narrative. The fact that VVP is saying it
"looks accidental" doesn't ring true it looks anything other than accidental to me. Was there
a communication breakdown as VVP is in Hungary?
I do not know, and based on what we have been told, neither does anyone else. The FS
Auvergne fired missiles just as the Il-20 HQ went off screen. They weren't firing at the IDF,
I wouldn't be too sure they were "window dressing" for them either. Whatever went on, we are
being kept in the dark. Not precipitating WW3 is a good thing. Other than that, Russia's
foreign policy and ME relations are a 3D chess game that we know little of the motivation
behind: but I can infer that Russia's strategic needs are primary. At what point can that be
labelled imperialist?
Are you expecting to be spoon fed? And by the biased BBC, Guardian, etc!
It's pretty clear that Assad has won with Putin's support. China is on side too as
evidenced by recent military manoeuvres. What is happening now is the US, UK, France, Israel,
Turkey, Saudi just saving face and been allowed the odd small success or two.
However, Israel royally fucked up last night and Netanyahu will lose a plane or three if
he tries it again.
You didn't really read my comment: this "odd small success " has happened 200 times in the
last 18 months with the downing of how many IDF planes 1? Russia providing S-300s, or S-400s,
or upgrading the 1960's SAM 2s would secure Syrian airspace. But these supplies are not
forthcoming. Because Israel will not allow them.
The situation is a lot more complex: and no, I don't want to be spoonfed by the BBC. The
Saker posits a "Zionist 5th Column" in Russia that VVP has to accommodate. You seem to want a
simplistic ZioNATO v Russia narrative, all I am saying it is a lot more nuanced than that.
And I didn't get that from the Graun!
200 IDF strikes in 18 months, that could be stopped by turning on their S-400s, would be an
instance.. Israel has lobbied successfully to prevent Syria from securing its own airspace.
The majority of these attacks are to prevent Assad acquiring what Haaretz terms "lethal
weaponry" a euphemism for Iranian supplied air defences that could secure Syrian airspace. As
could a Russian declared NFZ (though the IDF would just standoff over Lebanon or the Med, and
not penetrate Syrian airspace). Or Russian supplied S-300s.
So my answer is yes and no. The Russophone alliance of Russia and Israel seems to be
ascendant over Syrian sovereignty. Or it was, until Monday. There appears to have been a
breakdown in the de-confliction agreement, or a deliberate misuse and provocation by Israel.
The jury is out on that one for the moment. If the attacks are stopped, I would tend to agree
with you.
There is the small matter of the international silence surrounding the FS Auvergne firing
missiles concurrent with the downing of the Il-20 HQ. These either hit the Il-20 or Latakia.
Has anyone considered the Il-20 WAS the target? That there was no accident, but a deliberate
targeting? Did the IDF or French take out the Russian early warning system and electronic
warfare capability to leave Latakia vulnerable? I don't know, and Rothschild Macron said no!
It is worth considering though, I feel.
Integrated into the systems view of militaristic, imperialistic, and sub-imperialistic,
and extractivist proliferation: it hardly matters who did what when. They are not giving us
an insight into their collective insanity and power games, where the stakes are humanities
very survivability. Russia only seemed to remember on Monday that the serial numbers on the
MH-17 BUK, means it was made in 1986. What else have they forgotten? What else do they not
know?
Humanity has no strategic allies within the global neoliberal ruling class. Arming the
world is a "pro-conflict policy", wouldn't you agree? Where militaristic proliferation can't
facilitate peace: the only possible de-confliction becomes system change? There are good and
bad actors within the current globally hegemonic cultural system: VVP is possibly the best,
so it would be unfair to heap the woes of an essentially evil system upon him especially in
isolation. So it must fall to those outside the transnational globally integrated system to
call out where this insanity will lead. That's you and me?
What I am suggesting is rather than the inevitably favourable comparison of VVP, and well,
just about anyone else let's look at the bigger picture. International World Capitalism, as
Guattari termed it, has faced us with the choice of three suicides. Without a radical
transformation of the oppressed consciousness (a la Guattari, Deleuze, Freire, Bookchin,
Naess, but better still the secular Buddha) there will soon enough come the day that does not
dawn Monday night was a foreshadowing of that very day?
The idea a head of state can function as a moral paragon is naive of course. Putin pursues
Russia's interests, not world peace and brotherhood. But at the same time we can't ignore the
fact he does so while adhering to the requirements of international law far more than the
west does. In that sense, he has some claim to respect from those who value ethical conduct.
Whatever his motives may be this fact deserves to be stated and made clear.
"Israel is unlikely to freely use Syrian airspace in the wake of the crash of a Russian
Il-20 military aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea, Yakov Kedmi, a former high-ranking
Israeli intelligence official, told Sputnik.
"There was an agreement between Israel and Russia that the actions of Israel in Syria's
airspace would not endanger lives of Russian troops. Israel breached this commitment What
happens next will depend on the position of Israel. Most likely, Israel will no longer be
able to enjoy the same freedom in the sky of Syria as it did before the incident," Kedmi
said.
"Israel's attack in itself, regardless of the consequences, was an irresponsible step,
because there is not a single facility on the territory of Syria that might have been used by
Iran and whose destruction would have justified an attack on it, which could endanger the
Russian troops," Kedmi said."
The US must be the worst nation on the face of the Earth. Everywhere it goes, death and
destruction follow. To top it all off, the blatant hypocrisy is too much to handle. America
is treacherous and duplicitous in the extreme. It has supported terrorists of all stripes in
the Middle East and elsewhere for its own selfish geopolitical reasons. It is an entity not
to be trusted, ever!
Regarding (the long tradition of ) British-French-Israeli collusion
"Not only Russian and (allegedly) Israeli and French aircraft and missiles were in the
air. Civilian radar also tracked British Royal Air Force aircraft, which, unusually, had
switched on their transponders and gone into holding patterns – most likely to avoid
being somehow involved in the exchange of fire over Latakia." (source: Haaretz)
we should remember Sykes-Picot and "Operation Revised" (the 1956 Suez-deception)
"The documentary evidence does not leave any room for doubt that at Sèvres, during
the three days in late October 1956, an elaborate war plot was hatched against Egypt by the
representatives of France, Britain and Israel. The Protocol of Sèvres is the most
conclusive piece of evidence for it lays out in precise detail and with a precise time-table
how the joint war against Egypt was intended to proceed and shows foreknowledge of each
other's intentions .
The central aim of the plot was the overthrow of Gamal Abdel Nasser. This aim is not
explicitly stated in the protocol but it emerges clearly and unambiguously from all the
records of the discussions surrounding it. Yet each of the three partners had a very
different perspective on this war plot, and it was not at all clear how even the agreed aim
was to be achieved.
The French were the most straight-forward, unwavering and unabashed advocates of military
force. As far as they were concerned, Colonel Nasser supported the Algerian rebels and that,
along with his nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, was enough to justify a war to
overthrow him. For their part, the French did not need any further pretext for taking
military action. It was the British, unwilling to incur Arab hostility by appearing as ally
of Israel, who needed a pretext and Israel was able and willing to provide it but only at a
price. Israel also required the elimination of Nasser's air force, for which task Britain
alone had the heavy bomber bases sufficiently near at hand."
I was also struck by the Haaretz report that "Something strange was definitely in the air
over Syria on Monday night with British and French forces reportedly present." I hope this
open thread may bring more information on this alleged NATO involvement. I am beginning to
think this incident may have rather more actors than we've been told. Loading...
Yes – agreed. FUKUS ships have moved closer to the Syrian coast in the last few days,
presumably in anticipation of an attack (chemical or otherwise) that they could justify a
response to. The Russians have been doing a great job in the (non-Western) media of
predicting potential chemical fake attacks and thereby defusing them. The one minute warning
from Israel suggests the possibility (no more than that) that the Israelis saw the ELINT
plane approaching the airfield and quickly decided to use it as cover for whatever reason.
As I've said in other posts, the Israelis have narrowed Putin's options. Of FUKUS +I they
are the easiest to pick off.
A very different and is some ways attractive theory is presented here:
I am not totally convinced – Matt's view on the capability of the Syrian SAMs seems
more convincing and it is not clear that Russian fighters could have scrambled in time,
especially as the Israelis had agreed not to target Russian assets, but if true it perhaps is
a clever – nay Machiavellian – way of opening up options for Putin vis-a-vis his
Israeli/Russian Jewish oligarchs and hanging the Israelis out to dry.
Is there any information about whether the Auvergne did or didn't fire missiles? The Syrians
(and Russians?) said they had witnessed the firing of missiles which seemed to be aimed at
the same government buildings as that being attacked by Israel which suggests collusion.
Loading...
The US and NATO's compliant poodles are clearly willing to risk WWIII as they think Russia
will simply back down when they instigate open warfare and regime change in Syria. My own
belief is that poor honest broker Russia has been left to decide the fate of world peace.
Personally, for all our futures, I believe Russia must declare a no fly zone over Syria
– anyone entering to bomb will be at mercy of S400. Otherwise this will continue and if
the US gets Syria it will be Iran next and WWIII – that is, armageddon.
The entire of the West has now become simply a huge collective criminal enterprise operating
completely outside the bounds of international law and threatening to bring about armageddon
in the process. Of course one would never know this by reading or watching Western media
where our clueless psychopathic leaders are portrayed as gallantly fighting for "human
rights" and "democracy" through "regime change" and endless slaughter.
BTL SyrPer Auslander on September 18, 2018 · at 7:54 am EST/EDT
Israeli plane apparently passed just in front of the plane, SAA got a lock, Israeli
doglegged left, missile lost lock and chose the biggest target ..our plane. Israel violated
protocol, called one minute before the attack, not enough time for our bird to get out of the
way. The french frigate was window dressing.
Here are a couple of quotes that show how far the system has been rigged/corrupted:
"one of the things we need to do is give young Jewish people the confidence to be proud of
their identity – as British, Jewish and Zionist too .. There is no contradiction
between these identities and we must never let anyone try to suggest that there should be
..
"You can also count on my commitment to Israel's security .. I am clear that we will always
support Israel's right to defend itself."
– UK Prime Minister Theresa May, at the United Jewish Israel Appeal
"I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them (Israel). It
just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all
the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people
understood what a grip these people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms.
Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on."
– U.S. Navy Admiral and former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Thomas Moorer
The significance of direct military involvement by Israel and France is that the facade of a
"civil war" (albeit by proxy) can no longer be maintained. The only thing that prevents it
from being a regular war between nations is the omission of a declaration.
Is it possible for Syria to "accidentally" bring down an allied plane? Don't they have
IFFs?
Yup, and kinda. It's perfectly possible to do it and IFF doesn't really work the way a lot
of people think. (IFF transponder beacon works by transmitting a signal to the ground station
or launcher).
If the ground station recognises the beacon it labels the aircraft as friendly and either
denies launch permission or warns the operator beforehand.
However with a system like the S-200 that will not actually matter. The SA-5 (S-200) is an
old system from the 60's which uses a semi active radar homing missile and how it works is
quite simple.
When the ground system detects a target it illuminates the target with it's radar like a
torch and launches the missile.
The missile then follows the radar reflection from the target until it gets close enough
to detonate, goes bang, shoots plane down.
However the beam from the radar 'torch' can be quite wide (miles wide), F-16's are quite
small, IL-20's quite big.. and the missile itself is pretty dumb.
As such by hiding in behind the larger aircraft the smaller aircraft can almost guarantee
an incoming missile will prioritise the large aircraft reflection and kill that instead. It
doesn't actually matter if the missile was launched against the smaller target in the first
instance or if IFF came into play. The missile itself is too dumb to care. It just goes for
the largest thing it can see.
Thanks for clearing that up: but it raises the question that the Il-20 was on a pre-planned
flight path known in advance to both Russian and Syrian air traffic control (whom I believe
are sitting next to each other?) Knowing what you have just posted (which I do not doubt) it
can hardly be termed "accidental"?
I suspect the FS Auvergne fired its Aster missiles, but I'm not expecting a clarification
of that. The situation is greyed by the burgeoning Russian-Israeli Russophone alliance. A
simple narrative will not be forthcoming, I suspect.
The IL-20's been on station flying figure 8's on constant rotation for months so it's flight
and landing path would be known to everyone with half assed radar or even functional
eyeballs.
Putin can't afford to get it wrong – for everybody's sake. His power is limited. He has
done an excellent job in defeating the West in Syria but how could he react to missiles from
the French frigate without triggering a massive NATO attack not just on Syria but Russia? In
the current climate and the West's readiness it could happen in hours. He has always
emphasised he puts Russian interests first – and those included eliminating thousands
of Russian Jihadis before they returned home to create mayhem. He has never said he'll take
on the World. So the French missiles were a mirage and the plane an accident? Well that's
better than an even bigger war maybe?
If the French and Israeli's attacked at the same time then they must have liased with each
other. Or conspired is another way of putting it. Shades of 1956? But nowadays there wouldn't
be the slightest outrage at such a collusion; it's oar for the course. And where is the
missing partner, the UK? "No longer up to it" the French would say. "Too busy" say the Brits.
NB which bit of Syria are the French after this time? Or do they see it descending into the
chaos of a Libya, their last successful destabilisation.
Note Russian and IDF planes in direct line from s-200 being fired ..with French frigate
..looks like deliberate coordination to provide cover for each .but if frigate attacked then
IDF planes available to directly attack Bashir in Damascus .and frigate to provide a source
of provocation for excuse for Nato forces to launch their massive attack they desparately
wish to do .especially as Putin agreed no military attack in Idlib ..and Russian MoD
presentation yesterday it was a Ukraine BUK .in fact it is tempting to say Nato did this to
get back at Russian MoD and punish them for this and expose in any way Russia's belief in
trust and agreements and hotlines as a laughing stock ..and they have succeeded .a Russian
plane shot down by an outdated Russian missile launched by Syria and Russia failing to supply
s-300 but Turkey and everyone else can have s-400 which might ? have not ended up like
this.
And did not Russia promise to deal with the "launch source" of any more missiles against
Syria since the previous lot? Surely their are Russians in Latakia
The elephant in the room is Iran .no responses from them yet even though Israel uses excuses
to say it is defending itself from them and continues to attack what tjey call Iranian assets
or anything they might vaguely claim have any connections to Iran ..does Iran follow Putins
example to keep calm and carry on .thinking their"partnership" is being put to the test as of
course it is in order to provoke it to invite a response by usa and associates .does it say
to Putin enough is enough we are going to do our thing as you have said Russia is only in
Syria to protect its own interests so cannot we do the same ..what options covert or overt
does Iran have one wonders ..
One question you didn't ask is whether this act, which appears to be an Israeli provocation
assisted by the French, is related to the Sochi talks/agreement? Seems that supporters of the
Syrian Opposition, of which France is right behind Turkey, might not like the agreement,
partly because it stalls the plans for a "Syrian gas attack" by removing the pretext.
However I think the wider question is why and how has France been involved in this, described
on SBS as "Israeli and French forces conducting aerial attacks on Syrian State assets"?
Israel is a law unto itself, but France's intervention without any pretext whatsoever is a
blatant war crime and escalation. The whole thing looks like a provocation, and one wonders
when Russia will break. If Putin was unhappy having to make a peace agreement with the psycho
Erdogan, he will be more unhappy now.
If Russia was 'obliged' to retaliate to Israeli or French attacks its inherent weaknesses
would be exposed. It remains a relatively poor country and Putin must be well aware it can't
take on the US, Israel, the KSA and the other Gulf Emirs as well as France and the UK. It's
done a fantastic job saving Syria but it can't take on The Rest of the World. If it has
accepted Syrian missile defences brought it down that may well be the way out of a bigger war
– this time.
I agree, Paul X. These are not only perilous waters, but untested to boot. In fact not one of
the military powers you cite has had its strength tested against a non third world adversary.
I know there are infantile tendencies crying "bring it on!" – as though speaking of a
long awaited prize fight involving their heavyweight boxer of choice – but saner voices
can only express alarm and profound dismay at what Western rulers seem bent on dragging us
into. I say enough of this macho nonsense about who would prevail. I do take some comfort in
the possibility –
https://www.unz.com/tsaker/book-review-losing-military-supremacy-the-myopia-of-american-strategic-planning-by-andrei-martyanov/-
that US military power is overstated, but it is comfort of the bleakest possible kind.
Loading...
The point is this, Russia can take on the whole World if it had to, but it would be a pyrrhic
victory, because to do so would require nuclear weapons which no nation could survive.
However, Russia has many allies, the largest of which is China, so it probably would only be
taking on one major opponent, the US and a few of its erstwhile allies (France, Britain
etc.), not by any stretch of the imagination, the whole World!
China is even weaker than Russia and not long ago said it was 10 years behind the US in
military terms and it's hard to see they'd welcome a bit of sacrifice to pull Putin's
chestnuts out of the fire. That Alliance is for the future. Right now a full blooded NATO
response would be quite enough. Many in America would be delighted if Russia used a nuke;
total annihaltion of Russia would follow, something they've been dying to do for 75 years.
And of course they might go for the First Strike.
The British Foreign Office almost immediately reacted to the RT scoop with its usual bluster:
"Lies and obfuscation!"
Interesting accusation off HM government is that!
Since March 4 of this year, the British side has stated that:
Yulia Skripal
brought "Novichok" in her suitcase.
The Skripals were poisoned with buckwheat.
The Skripals were poisoned with bouquet of flowers at the cemetery. T
he Skripals were
poisoned with an UAV drone.
The Skripals were poisoned through air conditioning in the car.
The Skripals were poisoned with an aerosol.
The Skripals were poisoned by Mikhail Savitskis
(aka "Gordon") group, consisting of 6 killers.
The killer/s poured "Novichok"onto a door
handle.
The Skripals were poisoned with "Novichok" in a form of a gel.
The Skripals were
poisoned with a perfume bottle (so it seems "Novichok" is still liquid).
The killer/s poured
"Novichok" in a public toilet.
The killer/s poured "Novichok" in a hotel room.
The Skripals
were poisoned by 2 GRU* agents.
"Novichok" is a "5–8 times more lethal than VX nerve agent" and "the most
deadly ever made", though it can't kill even 2 people.
*There has, in fact, been no such organization known as the GRU in Russia since 2010, when
the official name of the unit was changed from ″GRU″ [
Главное
разведывательное
управление -- Glavnoye
razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye ], namely "The Main intelligence Agency", to "The Main
Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation", or
″GU″ [Главное
управление
Генерального
штаба
Вооружённых
Сил Российской
Федерации -- Glavnoye upravleniye
General'nogo shtaba Vooruzhyonnykh Sil Rossiiskoi Federatsii ].
The Russian Embassy in London has been keeping a record of all the scenarios presented in
the UK by the Govt/MSM and at the last count it was stated that there were 40 different,
often contradictory, unproven scenarios.
Last week, the UK Ambassador to the UN, she who resembles a drag-queen well past his
sell-by date, namely the inimitable Karen Pierce, attempted to take the piss out of Russia by
stating at the UNSC that Russia had put forward 40 different accounts of what had happened,
which ludicrous proposals simply proved how lacking in credibility the Russian government
allegations are.
The reality was, however, that in presenting such accounts, Russia was taking the piss out
of Her Majesty's Government and the sensationalist, Russophobic, warmongering British press
and their more than 40 accounts of what happened in Salisbury last March.
The delectable Karen seemed unaware of this fact.
Recall, that Pierce is the woman, a high ranking British diplomat, no less, who believes
that Russia (i.e. the Russian Federation that came into existence in 1991) was founded on
many of Karl Marx's precepts.
Exactly! For Simonjan this unexpected interview was the scoop of the century.
The Russian press is going wild with this story.
One blogger wrote that some of the utterances of the 2 gopniki are rapidly becoming "winged
phrases" compared only to snippets from Griboedov's "Woe from Wit".
Best example: "We returned to Salisbury to complete this business."
Simonjan (suspiciously): "What business?"
Gopnik: "To see the cathedral
"... The Gvmt. *slowly* latched onto the meme 'the Russians did it' thru pol. opportunism (Syria etc.) and/or as a cover up for some ugly and dismaying stuff. At every step of the way, they tardily re-calibrated, 'fixed' the narrative to jell with that script. A good ex. is DS Bailey: he was at first affected as a first responder to the Bench Scene, but much later, that was denied, and he was poisoned because he stole comatose Sergei's keys and went to his home where he "most likely" touched a Novichoked doornob. (Note the doornob tale leaves the door open (sic) to some mundane passers-by doing nefarious deeds.) ..."
"... After examining endless planeloads of Russian travellers to the UK, and thousands of hours of CCTV, they turned up these two (and kept their jobs and kiddies safe! Yay! ) ..."
"... The only link between the pair and the Skripal 'event' is the stated fact that 'minuscule traces of Novichok' were found in the Hotel in London they stayed in. This is complete BS, see for ex. even the Daily Mail! ..."
Petrov - Boshirov. To me they were utterly convincing. Mostly because they were absolutely
terrified and utterly naive about doing a TV interview and answering questions.
RT, the interviewer and setting - an office - and the number of cameras were their
conditions, I have read, and I believe it. They wanted to appear in public, rather than hide
(no doubt following some excellent advice, and Putin's public assurance, saying he hoped they
would come forward..) but had little idea beyond that except that they wanted to avoid being
Center in a media circus - storm. (They need a PR expert and top-class lawyer.)
Why their gayness / not or what business they run legally or not-so-much and lots of other
topics are invoked and puzzled over is because ppl simply cannot believe what happened here.
(Imho!)
(Some weird event, possibly fabricated, organised by X, or strange happenstance, or
whatever) .. sent Sergei and Yulia 'queer -- ill', as well as DS Bailey, and later, Dawn and
Charlie (All connected to some 'event' that remains cloudy.)
The Gvmt. *slowly* latched onto the meme 'the Russians did it' thru pol. opportunism
(Syria etc.) and/or as a cover up for some ugly and dismaying stuff. At every step of the
way, they tardily re-calibrated, 'fixed' the narrative to jell with that script. A good ex.
is DS Bailey: he was at first affected as a first responder to the Bench Scene, but much
later, that was denied, and he was poisoned because he stole comatose Sergei's keys and went
to his home where he "most likely" touched a Novichoked doornob. (Note the doornob tale
leaves the door open (sic) to some mundane passers-by doing nefarious deeds.)
The investigators behind the computers acted under orders and under the imposed
assumption
"Some Russian undercover(s) flew in on or around March 1,2,3, and poisoned a door in
Salisbury, find a match."
After examining endless planeloads of Russian travellers to the UK, and thousands of hours
of CCTV, they turned up these two (and kept their jobs and kiddies safe! Yay! )
The only link between the pair and the Skripal 'event' is the stated fact that 'minuscule
traces of Novichok' were found in the Hotel in London they stayed in. This is complete BS,
see for ex. even the Daily Mail!
"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
-- The Empire Strikes Back
Since Vladimir Putin brought up Bill Browder's name in Helsinki, events have escalated to a
fever pitch. Russia is under extreme attack the U.S./European financial and political
establishment.
Danske's report on these allegations are due on Wednesday.
No matter what they say, however, the die has been cast.
Danske is being targeted for termination by the U.S. and possible takeover by the European
Central Bank.
There's precedent for this but let me lay out some background first.
The Oldest
Trick
Browder's complaint says the money laundered is in connection with the reason why he was
thrown out of Russia and the $230 million in stolen tax money which Browder's cause
célèbre , the death of accountant Sergei Magnitsky, hangs on.
That crusade got the Magnitsky Act passed not only in the U.S. but all across the West, with
versions on the books in Canada, Australia the EU and other places.
Danske's shares have been gutted in the wake of the accusation.
The U.S. is now investigating this complaint and that shouldn't come as much of a shock.
The Treasury Department can issue whatever findings it wants, and then respond by starving
Danske of dollars, known as the "Death Blow" option the threat of which was plastered
all over the pages of the Wall St. Journal on Friday.
Note this article isn't behind the Journal's pay-wall. They want everyone to see this.
Browder filed complaints both in Demmark and in Estonia, and the Estonian government was
only too happy to oblige him.
The Devil Played
To see the whole picture I have to go back a littler further.
Back in March, Latvian bank, ABLV, was targeted in a similar manner, accused of laundering
money. Within a week the ECB moved in to take control of the bank even though it wasn't in
danger of failing.
It was an odd move, where the ECB exercised an extreme response utilizing its broader powers
given to it after the 2008 financial crisis, like it did with Spain's Banco Popular in
2017.
Why? The U.S. was looking for ways to cut off Russia from the European banking system. And
the ECB did its dirty work.
I wrote about this
back in May in relation to the Treasury demanding all U.S. investors divest themselves of
Russian debt within thirty days.
It threw the ruble and Russian debt markets into turmoil since Russian companies bought a lot
of euro-denominated debt after the Ruble Crisis of 2014, having been shut off from dollars.
ABLV was a conduit for many Russian entities to keep access to Europe's banks, having been
grandfathered in as clients when the Baltics entered the Euro-zone.
So, now a replay of ABLV's seizure is playing out through Browder's money laundering
complaint against Danske.
Was Convincing Everyone
The goal of this lawsuit is two-fold.
The first is to undermine the faith in the Danish banking system. Dutch giant ING is also
facing huge AML fines.
This is a direct attack on the EU banking system to being it under even more stringent
government control.
The second goal, however, is far more important. As I said, the U.S. is desperate to cut
money flow between the European Union and Russia, not just to stop the construction of
Nordstream 2, but to keep Russia's markets weak having to scramble for euros to make coupon
payments and create a roll-over nightmare.
Turkey is facing this now, Russia went through it in 2014/15.
So, attacking a major bank like Danske for consorting with dirty Russians and using Mr.
Human Rights Champion Browder to file the complaint is pure power politics to keep the EU
itself from seeking rapprochement with Russia.
Anti-Money Laundering laws are tyrannical and vaguely worded. And with the Magnitsky Act and
its follow-up, CAATSA, in place, they help support defining money laundering to include
anything the U.S. and the EU deem as supporting 'human rights violations.'
Seeing the trap yet?
Now all of it can be linked through simple accusation regardless of the facts. The bank gets
gutted, investors and depositors get nervous, the ECB then steps in and there goes another
tendril between Russia and Europe doing business.
And that ties into Browder's minions in the European Parliament, all in the pay of Open
Society Foundation, issued a threat of invoking Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty to Cyprus over
assisting Russia investigate Browder's financial dealings there.
Why? Violations of Mr. Browder's human rights because, well, Russia!
What's becoming more obvious to me as the days pass is that Browder is an obvious asset of
the U.S. financial and political oligarchy, if not U.S. Intelligence. They use his humanitarian
bona fides to visit untold misery on millions of people simply to:
1) cover up their malfeasance in Russia
2) wage hybrid war on anyone willing to stand up to their machinations.
He Didn't Exist
Because when looking at this situation rationally, how does this guy get to run around
accusing banks of anything and mobilize governments into actions which have massive
ramifications for the global financial system unless he's intimately connected with the very
people that operate the top of that system?
How does this no-name guy in the mid-1990's, fresh 'off the boat' as it were, convince
someone to give him $25 million in CASH to go around Russia buying up privatization vouchers at
less than pennies on the dollar?
It simply doesn't pass a basic sniff test.
Danske is the biggest bank in Denmark and one of the oldest in Europe. The message should be
clear.
If they can be gotten to this way, anyone can.
Just looking at the list of people named in the Magnitsky Act, a list given to Congress by
Browder and copied verbatim without investigation, and CAATSA as being 'friends of Vladimir'
it's obvious that the target isn't Putin himself for his human rights transgressions but anyone
in Russia with enough capital to maintain a business bigger than a chain of laundromats in
Rostov-on-Don.
Honestly, even some in the U.S. financial press said it looked like they just went through
the Moscow phone book.
But, here the rub. In The Davos Crowd's single-minded drive to destroy Russia, which has
been going on now for close to two generations in various ways, they are willing to undermine
the very institutions on which a great deal of their power rests.
The more Browder gets defended by people punching far above his weight, the more obvious it
is that there is something wrong with his story. Undermining the reputation of the biggest bank
in Denmark is a 'playing-for-keeps' moment.
But, it's one that can and will have serious repercussions over time.
It undermines the validity of government institutions, exposing corruption that proves we
live in a world ruled by men, not laws. That the U.S. and EU are fundamentally no different in
their leadership than banana republics.
And that's bad for currency and debt markets as capital always flows to where it is treated
best.
But, it's one that can and will have serious repercussions over time. The seizure of ABLV
and 2017's liquidation of Spain's Banco Popular were rightly described by Martin Armstrong as
defining moments where no one in their right mind would invest in a European banks if there was
the possibility of losing all of your capital due to a change in the political winds
overnight.
Using the European Parliament to censure Cyprus via Article 7 over one man's financial
privacy, which no one is guaranteed in this world today thanks to these same AML and KYC laws,
reeks of cronyism and corruption of the highest degree.
If you want to know what a catalyst for the collapse of the European banking system looks
like, it may well be what happens this week if Danske tries to fight the spider's web laid down
by Bill Browder and his friends in high places.
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hanekhw , 1 minute ago
Browder, the Clintons, Soros and the EU were made for each other weren't they? They've
been screwing us publicly for what, over two generations? And without a condom! We've gotten
how many FTDs (financially transmitted diseases) from these people? They never unzip their
flys.
geno-econ , 1 hour ago
According to Browder, Putin is worth over $100 Billion most of it stashed away in foreign
banks through intermediates and relatives. If true, it will bring down Putin and many western
banks. Perhaps a Red Swan is about to take off exposing an unsustainable .financial system
and corrupt political enterprise on both sides of the divide sur to cause chaos. Ironically,
Putin who represents Nationalism in Russia is under attack by Globalists accusing Putin of
Capitalistic Greed utilizing western banks Suicidal !
hanekhw , 16 minutes ago
Browder, the Clintons, Soros and the EU were made for each other weren't they? They've
been screwing us publicly for what, over two generations? And without a condom! We've gotten
how many FTDs (financially transmitted diseases) from these people? They never unzip their
flys.
zeroboris , 24 minutes ago
They use his humanitarian bona fides
Browder's bona fides? LOL
monad , 8 minutes ago
Minion (((Browder))) snitches on his masters. Nowhere to hide.
Vanilla_ISIS , 18 minutes ago
Someone should just kill this dude. Browder has certainly earned it.
roadhazard , 14 minutes ago
But what about the money laundering.
Panic Mode , 15 minutes ago
You better run. Your buddy McCain is gone and see who else will fight for you.
pndr4495 , 42 minutes ago
Somehow - Mnuchkin's desire to sell his Park Ave. apartment fits into this tale of
intrigue and bullshit.
markar , 47 minutes ago
Send this guy Browder a polonium cocktail. It's on me.
TahoeBilly2012 , 1 hour ago
((Browder)) ??
Clogheen , 37 minutes ago
Yes. Did you really need to ask?
geno-econ , 1 hour ago
According to Browder, Putin is worth over $100 Billion most of it stashed away in foreign
banks through intermediates and relatives. If true, it will bring down Putin and many western
banks. Perhaps a Red Swan is about to take off exposing an unsustainable .financial system
and corrupt political enterprise on both sides of the divide sur to cause chaos. Ironically,
Putin who represents Nationalism in Russia is under attack by Globalists accusing Putin of
Capitalistic Greed utilizing western banks Suicidal !
Max Cynical , 1 hour ago
I watch the banned documentary...The Magnitsky Act - Behind the Scenes.
Only the slimiest rats get into the club of "Can Do No Wrong" and these types of gigs.
Thaxter , 1 hour ago
This documentary is first class, a really absorbing look into the mind of the sociopath
Browder, a pathological, absolutely shameless liar and a very stupid and weak person. To
understand the influence that this insignificant invertebrate yields, look to his father,
Earl Russell Browder, who was the leader of the Communist Party in the United States during
the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s.
blindfaith , 22 minutes ago
Look no further than our own political circus to see that mighty hands pull the strings.
Like all strings, they will fray and break...eventually.
Jim in MN , 1 hour ago
Yes well the Big Question for us now is the degree to which the President is in control of
any of this.
Recall, dear ZH fighters, how we worked out a sound strategy for the Trump Administration
in the early days. Key aspects were to leave the generals and the bankers alone for a couple
of years. This would allow immigration, trade, health care and deregulation including tax
reform to form the early core wins, along with Supreme Court nominees of course.
Lo, cometh the Deep State and its frantic attempts to both save and conceal itself.
One key tentacle was to rouse the intelligence community into an active enemy of the
POTUS. This partially fouled up the 'leave the generals alone' strategy.
Another is to try to force war with the emergent Eurasian hegemony comprised of China and
Russia. This is seen all across the 'hinterland' of Russia.
The USA has no vital strategic interests in Eurasia at this juncture of history. Everyone
should be clear on that.
The USA's logical and sane policy stance is to support peace, free and fair trade, and
stable democracy, including border controls and the rule of law through LEADING BY
EXAMPLE.
So for Trump to continue to allow the financial sector Deep State traitors to operate
against a peaceful Eurasia is becoming increasingly intolerable.
Where to from here?
BandGap , 1 hour ago
Keep opening it up to scrutiny.
This article opened my eyes, I did not fully understand why Russia was all over Browder
except the stealing aspect, but bigger yet, why he was being protected by the EU/US.
No wonder Putin wants to work with the Donno. Taking Browder out and exposing this
manipulation works for both sides.
LA_Goldbug , 40 minutes ago
If Browder is a surprise to you then look at Khodorkovsky (there is more of these types
from he came from).
Because when looking at this situation rationally, how does this guy get to run around
accusing banks of anything and mobilize governments into actions which have massive
ramifications for the global financial system unless he's intimately connected with the very
people that operate the top of that system?"
Exactly. He was sent by the Anglo-Zionist Tribe otherwise he would be a nobody.
JacquesdeMolay , 1 hour ago
Also, a very good book on the topic: "suppressed and banned by the CIA's supplier, Amazon,
The Grand Deception: The Browder Hoax is a highly intelligent, frank and entertaining
take-down of one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the US public and the world
– The Magnitsky Act. Krainer's study of Bill Browder's book and actions is a riveting,
unflinching expose of what might end up being pivotal in revealing one of this decade's big
hoaxes."
The west going on attack mode against Cyprus to protect Browder. Cyprus is cooperating
with Putin on his financial dealings which all flowed through Cyprus. Lots of skeletons there
that implicate many more important people than Browder
'Assume, for the sake of argument, that powerful, connected people in the intelligence community and in politics worried that a
wildcard Trump presidency, unlike another Clinton or Bush, might expose a decade-plus of questionable practices. Disrupt long-established
money channels. Reveal secret machinations that could arguably land some people in prison.
'What exactly might an "insurance policy" against Donald Trump look like?'
All this leads me back to the suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making it
possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie Ohr's sudden
interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele.
Notable quotes:
"... A great deal of evidence, I think, suggests that practically all those involved in 'Russiagate' were caught totally unprepared by Trump's victory, that they then went rushing around like headless chickens, and that part of this process involved a decision being taken to publish the dossier, without consulting British intelligence. If people like Younger were not consulted, then it would seem to me unlikely that Steele was. ..."
"... And I have immense difficulty seeing how any competent media lawyer would not have recommended, at the minimum, the redaction of the names of Aleksej Gubarev and his company from the final December 2016 memorandum. This would have made legal action unlikely, without greatly diminishing the effect of the claims. ..."
"... But if this was so, and if what they thought was accurate information was actually disinformation, the likely conduit would not have been through Steele, but from FSB cybersecurity people to their FBI counterparts. ..."
"... It it is I think material that intelligence agencies commonly include a great variety of people, ranging from very able analysts and operators to complete dolts. So, the CIA has employed both Philip Giraldi and John Brennan, MI6 both Alastair Crooke and also Christopher Steele and Alex Younger. ..."
"... It is however somewhat revealing that one now finds Giraldi and Crooke appearing on a Russian site, 'Strategic Culture Foundation', while Brennan and Younger are treated as authoritative figures by the MSM. ..."
"... My strong suspicion is that 'Russiagate' is a kind of nemesis, arising from the fact that key figures in British and American intelligence have, over a protracted period of time, got involved in intrigues where they are way out of their depth. The unintended consequences of these have meant that people like Brennan and Younger, and also Hannigan, have ended up having to resort to desperate measures to cover their backsides. ..."
"... There are many aspects to this story that don't make any sense to me if one looks at it from a rational perspective. One of course being concerns about libel litigation and the related legal discovery that you note. The second being no real contingency planning in the event Hillary loses the election. Admittedly they must have bought the media line and Nate Silver's forecast of a greater than 75% probability of a Hillary win. ..."
"... The purported "arms length" relationships don't make any sense. There's Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson playing a central role. They hire Nellie Ohr, a possible CIA asset and the wife of Bruce Ohr, the 4th highest ranking official at the DOJ. ..."
"... Glenn Simpson also hires Christopher Steele who he knows from previous "spook" associations. Steele had numerous and continuous communications including telephone, Skype, email and personal meetings with Bruce and Nellie Ohr during all this. ..."
"... Then there is Mifsud and Halper. Apparently both are CIA and FBI assets. ..."
"... You have Brennan ginning up concerns giving super secret and individual briefings to the Gang of 8 in Congress. There's Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the minority leader on the Senate Intelligence Committee texting and calling Adam Waldman, Deripaska's US attorney about setting up clandestine meetings with Steele. ..."
"... Not to be left behind there's Sen. McCain doing the same. His top aide even travels to London to meet Steele. And then there's Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page busily spending every waking moment texting each other about every twist and turn in all the political games being played. Of course there's Admiral Rogers investigating unusual searches by FBI officials and contractors on the NSA database. And he briefs President-elect Trump at Trump Tower which prompts the entire transition team to move to Trump's golf course in NJ. ..."
"... In fact the IG report on the Clinton "investigation" states that many at the FBI were accepting "gifts" from various media personalities for a quid pro quo ..."
"... There's Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr's direct boss who testifies he knew nothing about Ohr being a conduit to Strzok for Steele. Of course he knew nothing but signed the FISA application on Carter Page. ..."
"... At this point I don't buy that Christopher Steele dug up real intelligence from his contacts at the highest levels of the Russian government, which caught Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Lynch's pants on fire, who then launched a formal investigation of Russia collusion with Trump. Many things just don't pass the smell test. Now of course I have no qualifications nor experience in spookdom. ..."
"... I agree that it (and Skripalmania) are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time. ..."
"... I ask because, if one tries to look at it in a non-partisan way, the Western IC seemed to be a failure when it came to predicting Russian reactions in the Donbass, the Crimea, and it seems in Syria. I link this to various comments from Colonel Lang indicating that true experts were replaced over the years by less experienced and knowledgeable people. Does being "highly politicised" mean that they're not up to much when it comes to minding the shop? ..."
"... I thought I detected a protest against the politicisation of the US in the world some years ago. And we must not forget that Gen Flynn (DIA) and Adm Rogers (NSA) acted strongly against this. Flynn was the first casualty of the Trump/Russia hysteria and the Clapper claque tried to fire Rogers. ..."
"... I was born in the Depression and have seen vitriolic politics but never have seen such a massive opposition by the media, the pundits and the establishment of both parties. Over 500 print publications endorsed Hillary. Only some 20 endorsed Trump. Yet he confounds the pundits by winning the election. Clearly many voters are at odds with the political media class. ..."
"... I think there is an ideological background to this, on which the piece by Alastair Crooke – himself former MI6 – to which Patrick Armstrong links, and the piece by James George Jatras to which Crooke links, are both to the point. The 'end of history' crowd thought they were inhabiting a realised utopia, and cannot cope with the fact that their dream is collapsing. ..."
"... In relation to the millenarian undercurrents on which Crooke focuses, however, it is also worth noting that a traditional conservative suspicion has been that millenarianism is naturally linked to antinomianism: the belief that the moral law is not binding on the elect. ..."
"... It is obviously possible that Ohr did not report up the chain of command, and if so, he and his wife become pivotal figures in the conspiracy. Alternatively, it could be that Rosenstein is lying – in which case, we have large questions about who else is implicated, and specifically whether the termination of Steele by the FBI was anything more than a ruse. ..."
"... 'Yet, Simpson allegedly acknowledged that most of the information Fusion GPS and British intelligence operative Christopher Steele developed did not come from sources inside Moscow. "Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.," Ohr scribbled in his notes.' ..."
"... And it confirms my strong suspicion that the dossier is actually a composite product, much of it assembled at Fusion, which could indeed contain material from a range of people from the former Soviet space, who could living in the United States, Britain, or elsewhere – Ukraine and the Baltics being obvious possibilities. ..."
"... So Sergei Skripal and Sergei Millian, neither of whom fit the description by Simpson, have been mentioned as possible sources, and there is also the very curiously ambiguous role of Rinat Akhmetshin. ..."
"... All these people, obviously, could simply have fabricated material or retailed gossip, and Steele himself was involved in fabricating material on an industrial scale to cover up what actually happened to Alexander Litvinenko. ..."
"... All this leads me back to the suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making it possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie Ohr's sudden interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele. ..."
"... Apparently that organisation is doing rather well in sustaining the claiming that 'fair report privilege' could circumvent any requirement to prove truth – and a key question now is whether documents which the DOJ is being forced to produce will establish that the dossier was being used by officials in ways that would trigger the privilege as of 10 January 2017. ..."
"... That said, what Ohr reports Simpson as telling him raises fundamental questions about how anyone could have relied upon the dossier for anything – and should push people back to actually asking hard questions about its origins. ..."
"... To add: Steele was on the FBI's payroll, in addition to being on Fusion GPS's payroll. And on the payroll of Her Majesty's Government. After he got caught leaking to the media he was apparently "fired" by the FBI. But he was continuing to communicate and brief through Bruce Ohr at the DOJ. ..."
"... I think the circle of Glenn Simpson. Chris Steele, Bruce & Nellie Ohr, Adam Waldman. Peter Strzok, and Sen. Mark Warner will be very interesting to pursue. ..."
"... The other circle that should be investigated is the Brennan, Clapper, Lynch, Comey, Yates, Susan Rice. ..."
"... No investigation can exclude the active participation of key people from the media complex including people like Comey's good friend Benjamin Wittes. ..."
"... In its original version, the 'Statement of Principles' explained, among other things, that the Society: 'Believes that only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate, and that any international organization which admits undemocratic states on an equal basis is fundamentally flawed.' ..."
"... Ironically, it was shortly after the publication of the dossier that Anatol Lieven published in the 'National Interest' an article entitled 'Is America Becoming a Third World Country?' (See https://nationalinterest.or... .) ..."
"... Also in June, Sergei Karaganov published a piece in 'Russia in Global Affairs', of which he is publisher, entitled 'Ideology of Eastward Turn.' ..."
"... I do not think Karaganov's article is simply a reflection of changes in Russian attitudes. The changes, it seems to me, are global. ..."
"... I do think that we in the West really blew it. In 1990, we could have said, in all humility, that our way of life (IMO the key word is pluralism) had proven more survivable. So we should welcome the others into the tent. Instead, we were right and that was that. ..."
"... Just as you're asking about the origins of the dossier I wonder if it was orchestrated or something that evolved organically? If it was orchestrated, then who was the mastermind? Did Brennan, Clapper and Come sit down and hatch it or was Simpson the brains? What is astounding is the scale. So many people involved. Were they all motivated by ideology or by the need to protect their racket? ..."
"... It seems there are many sub-plots. There's the Deripaska, Steele, Waldman, Mueller, Sen. Warner angle. Then there's the Simpson, Steele, Ohr, Strzok, Page, McCabe angle. There's also the Simpson, Steele, media reporters angle. Then there's the whole Mifsud, Halper, Carter Page, Papadopolous, Downer bit. There's the Comey, Rosenstein, Yates, Strzok FISA application piece. Then there's all the stuff happening in the UK including Hannigan's resignation as soon as Trump is elected. Of course the whole Mueller appointment and the obstruction of justice thread to tie Trump's hand. There are so many elements. Who initiated and coordinated? Was each element separate? ..."
"... Together, these methods are likely to have produced a mass of information. It is important to remember, for example, that at the time of his mysterious death on 23 March 2013 Boris Berezovsky was negotiating to return to Russia, and that his head of security, Sergei Sokolov did return, with a 'cache' of documents. ..."
"... The purpose was to demonstrate that Alexei Navalny was the instrument of a 'régime change' plot in which William Browder was acting as an agent of MI6. ..."
"... An important role in the Apelbaum piece is played by the private security company Hakluyt. A quick look at the entries on Wikipedia and Powerbase will make clear that, if there is a British 'deep state', this is likely to be at its core. ..."
"... It is against this background that on has to see a specific claim which Apelbaum makes, for which I do not think any evidence is produced, about two figures whose role in 'Russiagate' is clearly central. So Luke Harding is described as 'A Guardian reporter and a Hakluyt and Orbis contractor' (note word.) Meanwhile, Edward Baumgartner is described as 'Co-founder of Edward Austin. Contractor at Orbis and Hakluyt.' ..."
"... That Harding is corrupt, as also Sir Robert Owen's 'Inquiry' into the death of the late Alexander Litvinenko, I can prove. When Owen's report was published in January 2016, a preliminary response by me was posted here on SST, which among other things listed some of the evidence establishing that the interviews supposedly recorded with Litvinenko by Detective Inspector Brent Hyatt immediately before his death were blatant forgeries. ..."
"... In relation to that part of the evidence discussed in my January 2016 post which exposes the fumbling attempts by Steele and his colleagues to cover up the truth about when and how Litvinenko travelled into central London on the day he was supposedly killed, most of this had been among a mass of material submitted by me to the Inquiry Team, which I have e-mails to prove was read. ..."
"... Further study of Owen's report has confirmed my suspicion that a strong 'prima facie case' of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice exists against very many of those involved in it. ..."
"... At the same time, materials produced on the Russian side have confirmed my suspicion that the reason why Steele and others have been able to get away with their cover-up is that the Russian intelligence services are no more enthusiastic than their British counterparts about having anything like the whole truth about how Litvinenko lived and died made public. ..."
"... Additionally, the text itself displays an odd parallelism with his assertion regarding the Steele Dossier- that is, the likelihood of multiple authors, of diverse origins. ..."
"... My curiosity about who Apelbaum might be is reinforced by the fact that the intimations he gives about his background in his responses to comments, while not incompatible with what he has said in the past, do not sit so easily with it. ..."
"... So, questions naturally arise about Apelbaum's intelligence career, in particular, who he is likely to have been employed by, and associated with, in the past, and whether he is still involved with any of those agencies which have employed him. ..."
"... 'Also, there is a large Hakluyt/Orbis "commercial intelligence" network in the US that regularly services political and federal agencies and has the power to summon Nazgűls the likes of John Brennan. So Steele is not the new kid on the block, he has been doing this type of work long before 2016. This is also why he has such a cozy relationship with the brass at the DOJ and state.' ..."
"... This is that he, the Ukrainian nationalist former KGB person Yuri Shvets, the convicted Italian disinformation peddler Mario Scaramella, and quite possibly the sometime key FBI expert on Mogilevich, Robert 'Bobby' Levinson, were involved in trying to suggest that Mogilevich was an instrument of a plot by Putin to equip Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb.' ..."
"... In his prepared statement, Lugovoi claimed that his supposed victim used to say that everyone in Britain were ''retards', to use the translation submitted in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, or 'idiots', to use that by RT. And according to this version, the British believed in everything that 'we' – that is, the Berezovky group – said was happening in Russia. ..."
"... Whether or not Litvinenko expressed this cynical contempt, the credulity with which the claims of the 'information operations' people around Berezovsky have been accepted – well illustrated by Owen's report and perhaps most ludicrous in Harding's journalism – makes clear it is justified. ..."
"... Perhaps then, cartoons about Trump as a puppet, with the strings pulled by another puppet representing Manafort, whose strings are in turn pulled by Putin, should be replaced by ones in which Mueller is seen as a puppet manipulated by the ghost of Boris Berezovsky. ..."
"... But that is the irony. The relationship with Berezovsky blew up in the faces of all concerned, when in the wake of the successsful corruption of the investigation into the death of Litvinenko by him and his 'information operations' people, he attempted to recoup his fortunes by suing Roman Abramovich, and got taken to pieces by Lord Sumption. ..."
"... The 'Vesti Nedeli' piece uses what Elizaveta Berezovskaya says in support of the claim that Berezovsky was murdered by British 'special forces', because he was planning to return to Russia, and he 'knew too much about them.' ..."
"... One of the things I've never understood about the Trump Dossier story is the lack of any forensic analysis of its content and style anywhere in the media, even the alt media. Who was supposed to have actually written it? Steele? The style does not match someone of his background and education, and the formatting and syntax were atrocious. The font actually varied from "report" to "report." It certainly did not give me the impression of being the product of a high-end, Belgravia consultancy. ..."
"... I wonder whether it was produced by an American of one sort or another and then "laundered" by being accorded association with the UK firm. Given that Steele just happened to be hired by the USG to help in the anti-FIFA skulduggery, he and his firm seem very much to be a concern that does dirty little jobs that need discretely to be done, though in this case, the discretion was undermined. ..."
"... Most of the memos were issued before October and Fusion/Simpson authorized Steele to release information to the FBI starting in July. The question is why the memos were released after the election when a release before the election would have been enough to sink Trump. Instead the FBI and presumably those paying Fusion on Hillarys behalf sat on it, and Comey comes out days before the election ..."
"... Kind of looks like they all wanted Trump in office and the disclosure was to give Trump the excuse needed to back track on his promises to improve relations with Russia and blame that on pressure from the Deep State and Russia Gate. ..."
"... Looking at Trumps history with Sater (FBI/CIA asset) and his political aspirations that began following his Moscow visit in 1987 it seems likely Trump has been a Deep State asset for 30 years and fed intelligence to CIA/FBI on Russian oligarchs and mafia . Indeed he may well have duped Russians into believing he was working for them when in fact it was the CIA/FBI who had the best Kompromat with US RICO laws that could have beggared him ..."
"... One thing to remember about the FBI is Sy Hersh. Hersh claims the FBI has been sitting on a report for two years that fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the Wikileaks DNC email leaker (or one of them, at least.) ..."
"... I suspect the decision to publish the dossier was political. It was required to enable Clapper, Brennan, and others to opine on national media and create further media hysteria prior to the vote as well as to justify the counter-intelligence investigations underway. They were throwing the kitchen sink to sink Trump's electoral chances. I don't think a lot of thought was given about the legal ramifications. ..."
"... This seems to be a pattern. Leak information. Then use the leaked story to justify actions like apply for a FISA warrant or fan the media flames. ..."
"... I find it incredulous that former leaders of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies have gained paid access to powerful media platforms and they have used it to launch vicious attacks on a POTUS. ..."
"... I find it amazing that McCabe and Peter Strzok are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars on social media platforms. ..."
"... If the GOP retains the House and Jim Jordan becomes speaker, then there may be a possibility that Sessions, Rosenstein and Wray may be fired and another special counsel appointed who will then convene a grand jury. ..."
My strong impression is that nobody on the British side vetted the dossier for publication. A striking feature of the early news
coverage is that there appeared to be total confusion, with some of the reporting suggesting that the sources quoted wanted to hang
him out to dry, others that they wanted to defend him.
An interesting aspect is that not only were anonymous sources linked to MI6 quoted on both sides of the argument -- which could
have been explained by disagreements within the organisation: in different stories, not however far apart in date, its head, Sir
Alex Younger, was portrayed as holding radically different views.
When CNN publicised the existence of the dossier on 10 January 2017, the same day that it was published by 'BuzzFeed', it suggested
that the author was British. The following day, the WSJ named Steele.
On 13 January, Martin Robinson, UK Chief Reporter for 'Mail Online', published a report whose headlines seem worth quoting in
full:
'I introduced him to my wife as James Bond': Former spy Chris Steele's friends describe a "show-off" 007 figure but MI6 bosses
brand him "an idiot" for an "appalling lack of judgement" over the Trump "dirty dossier": Intelligence expert Nigel West says friend
is like Ian Fleming's famous character; He said: "He's James Bond. I actually introduced him to my wife as James Bond'; Mr West says
Steele dislikes Putin and Kremlin for ignoring rules of espionage; Angry spy source calls him 'idiot' and blasts decision to take
on the Trump work; Current MI6 boss Sir Alex Younger is said to be livid about reputation damage.'
On 15 January, however, Kim Sengupta, Defence Editor of the 'Independent', produced a report headlined: 'Head of MI6 used information
from Trump dossier in first public speech; Warnings on cyberattacks show ex-spy's work is respected.'
A great deal of evidence, I think, suggests that practically all those involved in 'Russiagate' were caught totally unprepared
by Trump's victory, that they then went rushing around like headless chickens, and that part of this process involved a decision
being taken to publish the dossier, without consulting British intelligence. If people like Younger were not consulted, then it would
seem to me unlikely that Steele was.
This leads me on to another puzzle about the dossier to which I have been having a difficulty finding a solution. Long years
ago I was reasonably familiar with libel law in relation to journalism. Anyone who 'served indentures', as very many of us did in
those days, had to study it. Later, I got involved in a protracted libel suit -- successfully, I hasten to add -- in relation to
a programme I made, and had the sobering experience of having a top-class libel barrister requiring me to justify every assertion
I had made.
In the jargon then, a crucial question when an article, or programme, was being 'vetted' before publication was whether it represented
a 'fair business risk.' This involved both the technical legal issues, and also judgements as to whether people were likely to sue,
and how if they did the case would be likely to pan out.
On the face of things, one would not have expected that people at 'BuzzFeed' would have gone ahead and make the dossier public,
without having it 'vetted' by competent lawyers. And I have difficulty seeing how, if they did, the advice could have been to publish
what they published.
I have some difficulty seeing how the advice could have been to include the memorandum with the claims about the Alfa Group oligarchs,
unless either these could be seriously defended or it was assumed that contesting them effectively would involve revealing more 'dirty
linen' than these wanted to see aired in public.
And I have immense difficulty seeing how any competent media lawyer would not have recommended, at the minimum, the redaction
of the names of Aleksej Gubarev and his company from the final December 2016 memorandum. This would have made legal action unlikely,
without greatly diminishing the effect of the claims.
Trying to make sense of why such an obvious precaution was not taken, I find myself wondering whether, in fact, the reason may
have been that the people responsible for the dossier may have actually believed this part of it at least.
If that is so, however, the most plausible explanation I can see is that while other claims in the dossier may well be total fabrication,
either by the people at Fusion and Steele or by some of their questionable contacts, this information at least did come from what
Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr et al thought were reliable Russian government sources.
But if this was so, and if what they thought was accurate information was actually disinformation, the likely conduit would
not have been through Steele, but from FSB cybersecurity people to their FBI counterparts.
I think that the cases involving Karim Baratov and Dmitri Dokuchaev and his colleagues may be much more complex than is apparent
from what looks to me like patent disinformation put out both on the Western and Russian sides.
It it is I think material that intelligence agencies commonly include a great variety of people, ranging from very able analysts
and operators to complete dolts. So, the CIA has employed both Philip Giraldi and John Brennan, MI6 both Alastair Crooke and also
Christopher Steele and Alex Younger.
It is however somewhat revealing that one now finds Giraldi and Crooke appearing on a Russian site, 'Strategic Culture Foundation',
while Brennan and Younger are treated as authoritative figures by the MSM.
If you want to get a clear picture of quite how low-grade the latter figure is, incidentally, it is worth looking at the speech
to which Kim Sengupta refers.
A favourite line of mine comes in Younger's discussion of the -- actually largely mythical -- notion of 'hybrid warfare': 'In
this arena, our opponents are often states whose very survival owes to the strength of their security capabilities; the work is complex
and risky, often with the full weight of the State seeking to root us out.'
Leaving aside the fact that this is borderline illiterate, what it amazing is Younger's apparent blindness to clearly unintended
implications of what he writes. If indeed, the 'very survival' of the Russian state 'owes to the strength of [its] security capabilities',
the conclusions, seen from a Russian point of view, would seem rather obvious: vote Putin, and give medals to Patrushev and Bortnikov.
My strong suspicion is that 'Russiagate' is a kind of nemesis, arising from the fact that key figures in British and American
intelligence have, over a protracted period of time, got involved in intrigues where they are way out of their depth. The unintended
consequences of these have meant that people like Brennan and Younger, and also Hannigan, have ended up having to resort to desperate
measures to cover their backsides.
There are many aspects to this story that don't make any sense to me if one looks at it from a rational perspective. One
of course being concerns about libel litigation and the related legal discovery that you note. The second being no real contingency
planning in the event Hillary loses the election. Admittedly they must have bought the media line and Nate Silver's forecast of
a greater than 75% probability of a Hillary win.
The purported "arms length" relationships don't make any sense. There's Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson playing a central
role. They hire Nellie Ohr, a possible CIA asset and the wife of Bruce Ohr, the 4th highest ranking official at the DOJ.
Glenn Simpson also hires Christopher Steele who he knows from previous "spook" associations. Steele had numerous and continuous
communications including telephone, Skype, email and personal meetings with Bruce and Nellie Ohr during all this. They even
have discussions about Deripaska and about his visa application to visit the US. Bruce is a conduit to Strzok at FBI. Glenn Simpson
also is part of these discussions with Steele and the Ohrs.
Simpson also arranges for Steele to brief "reporters" like David Corn and others at the NY Times, WaPo, WSJ, Politico and others.
Then there is Mifsud and Halper. Apparently both are CIA and FBI assets. They are communicating with Carter Page and
Papadopolous, who in turn is drinking and yapping with Aussie ambassador Downer.
You have Brennan ginning up concerns giving super secret and individual briefings to the Gang of 8 in Congress. There's
Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the minority leader on the Senate Intelligence Committee texting and calling Adam Waldman, Deripaska's
US attorney about setting up clandestine meetings with Steele. There's Sen. Harry Reid passing on the Steele "dossier" to
Comey.
Not to be left behind there's Sen. McCain doing the same. His top aide even travels to London to meet Steele. And then
there's Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page busily spending every waking moment texting each other about every twist and turn in
all the political games being played. Of course there's Admiral Rogers investigating unusual searches by FBI officials and contractors
on the NSA database. And he briefs President-elect Trump at Trump Tower which prompts the entire transition team to move to Trump's
golf course in NJ.
Oh, there is also Nellie Ohr setting up ham radio to avoid detection in her communications with Steele. Then we have everyone
leaking and spinning to their "cohorts" in the premier media like the NY Times, CNN and WaPo.
Comey even has his buddy a professor and ostensibly his legal counsel on the payroll of the FBI as a contractor with access
to all the sensitive databases leaking to the media.
Andy McCabe has his legal counsel Lisa Page spin stories around his wife's huge campaign contributions from Clinton consigliere
McAuliffe.
In fact the IG report on the Clinton "investigation" states that many at the FBI were accepting "gifts" from various media
personalities for a quid pro quo.
As if all this was not enough there's AG Loretta Lynch, meeting with Bill Clinton on a tarmac ostensibly to discuss their grandkids.
Not to forget there were these "unmaskings" of surveillance information by Susan Rice, Samantha Power.
There's Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr's direct boss who testifies he knew nothing about Ohr being a conduit to Strzok for Steele.
Of course he knew nothing but signed the FISA application on Carter Page. Then there are the FISC judges who never believed
their mandate required them to verify the evidence before issuing sweeping surveillance warrants. Now all this is what I as an
old farmer and winemaker have read. Those more in tune would easily add to these convoluted machinations.
I don't know how to make sense of all this. All I see is the extent of effort to prevent Donald Trump from being elected and
after he won from governing. The most obvious observation is that the leadership in our law enforcement and intelligence agencies
are so busy politicking spinning and leaking they have neither the time or the inclination let alone competence to do their real
job for which they get paid a handsome wage and sterling benefits.
At this point I don't buy that Christopher Steele dug up real intelligence from his contacts at the highest levels of the
Russian government, which caught Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Lynch's pants on fire, who then launched a formal investigation of
Russia collusion with Trump. Many things just don't pass the smell test. Now of course I have no qualifications nor experience
in spookdom.
If you have any speculative theories that connects some of the dots it would be my great pleasure to read.
I agree that it (and Skripalmania) are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised
not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time.
Confident that their horse is going to win the race and that the media will cover it all up and nobody will ever hear anything
about anything. Now that the unexpected happened, they're just spinning and denying faster hoping the Dems win in Nov and stop
all the investigations. And, they're getting nervous wondering who's going to sell out whom next. Up and down, around and around.
Gerbils -- there really isn't anything very consistent, planned or thought-out.
"I agree that it (and Skripalmania) are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised
not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time."
I believe your summary of what's happening is more accurate than Alastair Crooke's as set out in the article linked to.
But bright or not, what are these people in the IC doing being "highly politicised"? Does that not render them considerably
less efficient?
I ask because, if one tries to look at it in a non-partisan way, the Western IC seemed to be a failure when it came to
predicting Russian reactions in the Donbass, the Crimea, and it seems in Syria. I link this to various comments from Colonel Lang
indicating that true experts were replaced over the years by less experienced and knowledgeable people. Does being "highly politicised"
mean that they're not up to much when it comes to minding the shop?
I thought I detected a protest against the politicisation of the US in the world some years ago. And we must not forget
that Gen Flynn (DIA) and Adm Rogers (NSA) acted strongly against this. Flynn was the first casualty of the Trump/Russia hysteria
and the Clapper claque tried to fire Rogers.
Usually the incumbent party loses the mid-term election. The Democrats lost big in Obama's first mid-term. The Republicans
won the House and gained six senators. While the punditry claims a Blue Wave and Nate Silver is giving the Dems the odds. I'm
not so sure. I think the GOP will increase their majority in the Senate putting any conviction of Trump out of question.
I was born in the Depression and have seen vitriolic politics but never have seen such a massive opposition by the media,
the pundits and the establishment of both parties. Over 500 print publications endorsed Hillary. Only some 20 endorsed Trump.
Yet he confounds the pundits by winning the election. Clearly many voters are at odds with the political media class.
Yeah. My bet is that the Repubs hold onto both. 1) the economy is getting better 2) what do the Dems have to offer other than
this crazy Trump/Russia thing?
Economy will slow down sharply in 2019 but there should be enough momentum to help with the mid-terms. Trump needs to stop
with the endless sanction stuff. The House does look like a close one.
At a very general level, a 'speculative theory' which I have been mulling over for some time was rather well set out in a commentary
in 'The Hill' on 9 August by Sharyl Attkisson, which opens:
'Let's begin in the realm of the fanciful.
'Assume, for the sake of argument, that powerful, connected people in the intelligence community and in politics worried that
a wildcard Trump presidency, unlike another Clinton or Bush, might expose a decade-plus of questionable practices. Disrupt long-established
money channels. Reveal secret machinations that could arguably land some people in prison.
'What exactly might an "insurance policy" against Donald Trump look like?'
And Attkisson goes on to outline precisely the developments that appear to have happened.
I think there is an ideological background to this, on which the piece by Alastair Crooke – himself former MI6 – to which
Patrick Armstrong links, and the piece by James George Jatras to which Crooke links, are both to the point. The 'end of history'
crowd thought they were inhabiting a realised utopia, and cannot cope with the fact that their dream is collapsing.
In relation to the millenarian undercurrents on which Crooke focuses, however, it is also worth noting that a traditional
conservative suspicion has been that millenarianism is naturally linked to antinomianism: the belief that the moral law is not
binding on the elect. And in turn, according to a familiar skeptical view, antinomianism can easily end up in in straightforward
rascality.
On the rascality – to which Attkisson is pointing – I am working on how parts of the picture can be fleshed out. A few preliminary
points raised by your remarks.
As you note, 'There's Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr's direct boss who testifies he knew nothing about Ohr being a conduit to Strzok
for Steele.' So, we know that Ohr and Steele were conspiring together to ensure that the latter could continue to be intimately
involved in the Mueller investigation, despite the FBI termination,
It is obviously possible that Ohr did not report up the chain of command, and if so, he and his wife become pivotal figures
in the conspiracy. Alternatively, it could be that Rosenstein is lying – in which case, we have large questions about who else
is implicated, and specifically whether the termination of Steele by the FBI was anything more than a ruse.
If, as seems to me likely, although not certain, the second possibility is closer to the truth than the former, then before
Ohr testifies on 28 August before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees he will have to consider whether he is prepared
to 'take the rap' for his superiors, or 'sing sweetly.'
The fact that in a report in 'The Hill', I think on the same day as the Attkisson piece, John Solomon was quoting from Ohr's
handwritten notes of a meeting with Glenn Simpson in December 2016 makes me wonder whether he may not already have made a decision.
A key paragraph from the report:
'Yet, Simpson allegedly acknowledged that most of the information Fusion GPS and British intelligence operative Christopher
Steele developed did not come from sources inside Moscow. "Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes
from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.," Ohr scribbled in his notes.'
There is I think a need for caution here. There is no guarantee that Simpson was telling the literal truth to Ohr, or indeed
the latter reproducing with absolute accuracy with he was told (handwritten notes can be disposed of easily, but they can also
be rewritten.)
One is I think on firmer ground in relation to what it suggests was not the case – that there is any substance whatsoever in
the ludicrous story of someone running a private security company in London sending out hired employees who then gain access to
top Kremlin insiders, with these, of course, telling them precisely what they actually think.
And it confirms my strong suspicion that the dossier is actually a composite product, much of it assembled at Fusion, which
could indeed contain material from a range of people from the former Soviet space, who could living in the United States, Britain,
or elsewhere – Ukraine and the Baltics being obvious possibilities.
So Sergei Skripal and Sergei Millian, neither of whom fit the description by Simpson, have been mentioned as possible sources,
and there is also the very curiously ambiguous role of Rinat Akhmetshin.
All these people, obviously, could simply have fabricated material or retailed gossip, and Steele himself was involved
in fabricating material on an industrial scale to cover up what actually happened to Alexander Litvinenko.
That said, I continue to think it possible that both the second and final memoranda may incorporate some 'glitter', as well
as 'chickenfeed' fed from FSB cybersecurity people to their FBI counterparts, to hark back to George Smiley says to the Minister,
quite possibly included in the hope that the BS involved would be reproduced in contexts where it could provoke legal action.
All this leads me back to the suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making
it possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie
Ohr's sudden interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele.
It could then be that Steele has been, in effect, hoist with his own petard, in that he is having to sustain the fiction that
he had some kind of grounds for making the claims about Aleksej Gubarev and XBT. How far this matters, at least in relation to
the action bought against 'BuzzFeed' in Florida, remains moot at the moment.
Apparently that organisation is doing rather well in sustaining the claiming that 'fair report privilege' could circumvent
any requirement to prove truth – and a key question now is whether documents which the DOJ is being forced to produce will establish
that the dossier was being used by officials in ways that would trigger the privilege as of 10 January 2017.
That said, what Ohr reports Simpson as telling him raises fundamental questions about how anyone could have relied upon
the dossier for anything – and should push people back to actually asking hard questions about its origins.
Mr Habakkuk, you mention "ambiguous role of Rinat Akhmetshin" - I am not sure if you meant Akhmetov.
I am surprised and curious about you mentioning him - if you meant Akhmetov - because that is one name among all the oligarchs
which has so far not been prominent. Thank you for your posts, these posts and the SST comments could and should serve as help
to the congressional investigations and hearings.
To add: Steele was on the FBI's payroll, in addition to being on Fusion GPS's payroll. And on the payroll of Her Majesty's
Government. After he got caught leaking to the media he was apparently "fired" by the FBI. But he was continuing to communicate
and brief through Bruce Ohr at the DOJ.
I think the circle of Glenn Simpson. Chris Steele, Bruce & Nellie Ohr, Adam Waldman. Peter Strzok, and Sen. Mark Warner
will be very interesting to pursue.
The other circle that should be investigated is the Brennan, Clapper, Lynch, Comey, Yates, Susan Rice.
No investigation can exclude the active participation of key people from the media complex including people like Comey's
good friend Benjamin Wittes.
Younger isn't the brightest bulb in the box, is he?
"If you doubt the link between legitimacy and effective counter-terrorism, then – albeit negatively – the unfolding tragedy
in Syria will, I fear, provide proof. I believe the Russian conduct in Syria, allied with that of Assad's discredited regime,
will, if they do not change course, provide a tragic example of the perils of forfeiting legitimacy. In defining as a terrorist
anyone who opposes a brutal government, they alienate precisely that group that has to be on side if the extremists are to
be defeated. Meanwhile, in Aleppo, Russia and the Syrian regime seek to make a desert and call it peace. The human tragedy
is heart-breaking"
Those were indeed some of the most inane comments in an inane piece.
But then, if you read an interview given to Jay Elwes of 'Prospect' magazine in May last year by Younger's predecessor Sir
Richard Dearlove, who looks to have been a significant background presence in what has been going on, you will find that, although
he is much more coherent than than his successor, it is almost as inane.
As it happens, Dearlove was one of the signatories of the 'Statement of Principles' of something called the 'Henry Jackson
Society.'
This was founded in 2005, in Cambridge, by a group in whom acolytes of an historian called Maurice Cowling were prominent –
Dearlove is himself a graduate in history from that university.
In its original version, the 'Statement of Principles' explained, among other things, that the Society: 'Believes that
only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate, and that any international organization which admits undemocratic
states on an equal basis is fundamentally flawed.'
Ironically, it was shortly after the publication of the dossier that Anatol Lieven published in the 'National Interest'
an article entitled 'Is America Becoming a Third World Country?' (See
https://nationalinterest.or...
.)
Among other things, he harked back to the way that, in 1648, a century and a half of bloody ideological strife in Europe had
been ended with a recognition that the legitimacy of different state forms had to be accepted, if a kind of 'war of all against
all' was to be avoided.
And Lieven went on to reflect on the way that, at what was then widely seen as the end of the Cold War, the abandonment of
universalisitic pretensions by Russia and China was interpreted as justifying an embrace of these by the the West.
This, he went on to argue, had actually had the paradoxical effect of relegitimising 'régimes' which do not conform to Western
'democratic' models, concluding by noting what appears to our new, quasi-Soviet, preference for not letting experience interfere
with ideological dogma:
'Finally – even after the catastrophes of Iraq and Libya – there is almost no awareness among US policymakers of the fact that
US attempts to change the regimes of other countries are likely to be seen not only by the elites of those countries but also
by their populations as leading to – and intended to lead to – the destruction of the state itself, leading to disaster for its
society and population. When the Communist regime in the USSR collapsed (though only in part under Western pressure), it took
the Soviet state with it. The Russian state came close to following suit in the years that followed, Russia was reduced to impotence
on the world stage, and large parts of the Russian and other populations suffered economic and social disaster. Remembering their
own past experiences with state collapse, warlordism, famine and foreign invasion, Chinese people looked at this awful spectacle
and huddled closer to the Chinese state – one that they may dislike in many ways, but which they certainly trust more than anything
America has to offer – especially given the apparent decay of democracy throughout the West.'
I read with interest your piece back in June entitled 'Putin Once Dreamed the American Dream', reprinting Charles Heberle's
account of the 'Transforming Subjects Into Citizens' project, and the attitude of some people close to Putin to it.
One of the things which struck me was that the question why the American Revolution succeeded, and so many others failed, which
was concerning the intellectuals to whom Heberle talked, is one of the central questions of modern political thought, from Tocqueville
on.
(Indeed, the question of the preconditions for what might be called 'constitutional' government, has been central to 'republican'
thought, ever since it was revived by Italian thinkers, including prominently Machiavelli, when the 'Renaissance' made them reactivate
and rework debates from ancient Rome and Greece.)
However, to hark back to the anxieties expressed by Lieven, nothing in the analysis of the great French thinker necessary guarantees
that the success of 'Democracy in America' is stable and permanent, or indeed that the relatively civilised order of the post-war
'Pax Americana' is necessarily durable in Western Europe.
Also in June, Sergei Karaganov published a piece in 'Russia in Global Affairs', of which he is publisher, entitled 'Ideology
of Eastward Turn.' A paragraph that struck me:
'Russian society should by no means abdicate from its mostly European culture. But it should certainly stop being afraid,
let alone feel ashamed, of its Asianism. It should be remembered that from the standpoint of prevailing social mentality and
society's attitude to the authorities Russia, just as China and many other Asian states, are offspring of Chengiss Khan's Empire.
This is no reason for throwing up hands in despair or for beginning to despise one's own people, contrary to what many members
of intelligencia sometimes do. It should be accepted as a fact of life and used as a strength. The more so, since amid the
harsh competitive environment of the modern world the authoritarian type of government – in the context of a market economy
and equitable military potentials – is certainly far more effective than modern democracy. This is what our Western partners
find so worrisome. Of course, we should bear in mind that authoritarianism – just like democracy – may lead to stagnation and
degradation. Russia is certainly confronted with such a risk.'
Unlike you, I cannot claim serious expertise on Russia. But, as a reasonably alert generalist television current affairs producer,
I took note of the indications which were emerging in the course of 1987 that the Gorbachev 'new thinking' was underpinned by
a realisation that Soviet institutions and ideas had become fundamentally dysfunctional, to which you have referred repeatedly
over the years.
And, after long tedious months trying interest the powers that were in British broadcasting in what was happening, I ended
up producing a couple of programmes for BBC Radio in February/March 1989 in which we interviewed some of the leading 'new thinkers',
among them Karaganov's then immediate superior at the Institute of Europe, Vitaly Zhurkin.
At the Institute for the USA and Canada, by contrast, we did not interview its head, Georgiy Arbatov, but his deputy, Andrei
Kokoshin, and one of the latter's mentors on military matters and collaborators General-Mayor Valentin Larionov, who I later realised
had earlier been one of the foremost Soviet nuclear strategists. (At the Institute for World Economy and International Relations,
we interviewed Arbatov's son, Alexei.)
Talking to these people we got a sense, although it had to be fleshed out later, of the scale of the disillusion with Soviet
models, and indeed – which began to frighten me not long after – of the way many of them were romanticising the West.
What Karaganov now writes is I think a hardly very surprising reaction to the way that the Western powers responded to the
'new thinking.' Moreover, it seems to me that the disillusionment involved is in no sense particular Russian, but rather global.
If one regards 'democracy' as though it were quoted on the stock exchange, before 1914 there were very many buyers, including
among the Russian élite. By 1931, in very many places, including large sections of the 'intelligentsia' in Western countries,
it was a sellers' market, to put it mildly.
After 1945, a kind of long 'bull market' in 'democracy' started: for very good reasons.
The – largely but very far from entirely – peaceful retreat and collapse of Soviet power was to a very significant extent the
product of this. The subsequent behaviour of Western élites has generated a vicious 'bear market', a fact they appear unable to
understand.
I do not think Karaganov's article is simply a reflection of changes in Russian attitudes. The changes, it seems to me,
are global.
I do think that we in the West really blew it. In 1990, we could have said, in all humility, that our way of life (IMO
the key word is pluralism) had proven more survivable. So we should welcome the others into the tent. Instead, we were right and
that was that.
PS, in light of the Henry Jackson society and all Younger's references to "values" this one rather stands out "A vital lesson
I take from the Chilcot Report is the danger of group think."
Yeah. Group think, the very opposite of what I mean by pluralism.
Sharyl Atkinson describes well the conspiracy. When one steps back and look at all the machinations we know now, it seems incredible.
Just as you're asking about the origins of the dossier I wonder if it was orchestrated or something that evolved organically?
If it was orchestrated, then who was the mastermind? Did Brennan, Clapper and Come sit down and hatch it or was Simpson the brains?
What is astounding is the scale. So many people involved. Were they all motivated by ideology or by the need to protect their
racket?
It seems there are many sub-plots. There's the Deripaska, Steele, Waldman, Mueller, Sen. Warner angle. Then there's the
Simpson, Steele, Ohr, Strzok, Page, McCabe angle. There's also the Simpson, Steele, media reporters angle. Then there's the whole
Mifsud, Halper, Carter Page, Papadopolous, Downer bit. There's the Comey, Rosenstein, Yates, Strzok FISA application piece. Then
there's all the stuff happening in the UK including Hannigan's resignation as soon as Trump is elected. Of course the whole Mueller
appointment and the obstruction of justice thread to tie Trump's hand. There are so many elements. Who initiated and coordinated?
Was each element separate?
There's no doubt a political thriller movie could be made.
I guess the comedy part is that there actually exist people with medically functioning brains, who are somehow able to contort
such a worldview...Aleppo as peaceful 'desert' indeed...who knew that having bearded fanatics in charge is somehow 'better'...[and
not 'heart-breaking']...
Some here may find blogpost from March of this year interesting as it speaks to the production of the Steele dossier. I have
not seen it mentioned here before and a site search produced no results.
https://apelbaum.wordpress....
Some sections seem to have gotten David Cay Johnston's hackles up.
I had seen Yaacov Apelbaum's piece referred to by Clarice Feldman in a post on the 'American Thinker' site a few days back,
but not looked at it properly.
It is indeed fascinating, and clearly repays a closer study than I have so far had time to give it. I was however relieved
to find that what Apelbaum writes 'meshes' quite well with my own views of the likely authorship of the dossier.
A question I have is whether the monumental amount of labour involved in producing it can really be the work of a single IT
person – however wide-ranging his abilities and interests. My suspicion is that there may be input from Russian intelligence.
This is not said in order to discredit Apelbaum's work. In matters where I have had occasion critically to examine claims from
official Russian sources, I have found several unsurprising, but recurring, patterns. Sometimes, the information provided can
be shown to be essentially accurate, and it is reasonably clear how it has been obtained.
At other times, claims are made which information from other sources suggests either are, or may well be, true, but the 'sources
and methods' involved are deliberately obscured, making evaluation more difficult.
And then, there are many occasions when what one gets is quite patently a mixture of accurate information and disinformation.
Analysing these can be very productive, if one can both sift out the accurate information, and attempt to see what the disinformation
is designed to obscure.
One thing of which I am absolutely certain is that the networks which are outlined by Apelbaum are precisely those which Russian
intelligence will have spent a great deal of time and ingenuity penetrating.
This will have been attempted by 'SIGINT' and surveillance methods, and also through infiltrating agents and turning people.
(There are often grounds to suspect that some of those most vociferously denouncing Putin are colluding with Russian intelligence.)
Together, these methods are likely to have produced a mass of information. It is important to remember, for example, that
at the time of his mysterious death on 23 March 2013 Boris Berezovsky was negotiating to return to Russia, and that his head of
security, Sergei Sokolov did return, with a 'cache' of documents.
Some of these were used back in April 2016 in a 'Vesti Nedeli' edition presented by Dmitry Kiselyov, who manages Russia's informational
programming resources, and an accompanying documentary on the 'Pervyi Kanal' station.
The purpose was to demonstrate that Alexei Navalny was the instrument of a 'régime change' plot in which William Browder was
acting as an agent of MI6.
There is a good discussion of this, which highlights some of the problems with the documents, by Gilbert Doctorow, and Sokolov
appears to have been involved in some murky activities since.
But whatever the credibility or lack of it of the material, its appearance illustrates a general pattern, where the political
disintegration of the London-based opposition to Putin has meant that more and more people involved in it have been supplying
information to the Russians.
If, as I strongly suspect, there is fire beneath the smoke in those Russian television programmes, and if a great part of a
series of projects of a related kind orchestrated in conjunction by elements in American and British intelligence were actually
large run from this side, this will be creating headaches for people in Washington, as well as London.
An important role in the Apelbaum piece is played by the private security company Hakluyt. A quick look at the entries
on Wikipedia and Powerbase will make clear that, if there is a British 'deep state', this is likely to be at its core.
It is against this background that on has to see a specific claim which Apelbaum makes, for which I do not think any evidence
is produced, about two figures whose role in 'Russiagate' is clearly central. So Luke Harding is described as 'A Guardian reporter
and a Hakluyt and Orbis contractor' (note word.) Meanwhile, Edward Baumgartner is described as 'Co-founder of Edward Austin. Contractor
at Orbis and Hakluyt.'
That Harding is corrupt, as also Sir Robert Owen's 'Inquiry' into the death of the late Alexander Litvinenko, I can prove.
When Owen's report was published in January 2016, a preliminary response by me was posted here on SST, which among other things
listed some of the evidence establishing that the interviews supposedly recorded with Litvinenko by Detective Inspector Brent
Hyatt immediately before his death were blatant forgeries.
If this is the case, then questions are raised about how much of the apparently compelling forensic evidence is forged – and
close examination suggests that key parts of it are.
In relation to that part of the evidence discussed in my January 2016 post which exposes the fumbling attempts by Steele
and his colleagues to cover up the truth about when and how Litvinenko travelled into central London on the day he was supposedly
killed, most of this had been among a mass of material submitted by me to the Inquiry Team, which I have e-mails to prove was
read.
Likewise, also in January 2016, I sent the key relevant evidence on this crucial matter to Harding and senior figures at the
'Guardian', and have reason to believe it was read.
Further study of Owen's report has confirmed my suspicion that a strong 'prima facie case' of conspiracy to pervert the
course of justice exists against very many of those involved in it.
At the same time, materials produced on the Russian side have confirmed my suspicion that the reason why Steele and others
have been able to get away with their cover-up is that the Russian intelligence services are no more enthusiastic than their British
counterparts about having anything like the whole truth about how Litvinenko lived and died made public.
Given the central role which Steele has now assumed in what looks like one of the biggest political scandals in American history,
and the fact that in his book 'Collusion' Harding was again coming out in support of him, it would be of the greatest possible
interest if indeed the latter had combined being a senior 'Guardian' correspondent with being paid by both Orbis and – even more
important – Hakluyt.
And, particularly given the peculiar ambiguities of the role both of Fusion GPS and Baumgartner in the 'Trump Tower' meeting,
it would be of great interest if the latter could be tied not only to Fusion, but to Orbis and – again even more important – Hakluyt.
This in turn might be relevant in trying to make sense of whether the fact that he and Simpson appear to have been working
against Trump and Browder at the same time was or was not part of an elaborate ploy to give credibility to 'information operations'
against the former.
There are accordingly two possibilities. It may be that, while much else in the Apelbaum material can be shown to be accurate,
such accurate information is being used to give credibility to disinformation.
Alternatively, he is being used as a conduit for accurate and really explosive information about the British end of 'Russiagate',
which he is unlikely to have unearthed all by himself, and the actual sources of which are – for very understandable reasons –
being obscured.
Thank you for your reply. You have given me much to think about and I am very grateful that you took the time to respond in
such a comprehensive manner, and that you have provided me and others here with some really compelling information and notions.
In particular, the issue of sources and methods you note seems spot on. The author(s)'s information gathering methodologies
and expertise are certainly not those of the laiety. In fact in the comments below his post YA mentions intelligence work.
Additionally, the text itself displays an odd parallelism with his assertion regarding the Steele Dossier- that is, the
likelihood of multiple authors, of diverse origins.
One thing that did catch my eye was a response he made to David Cay Johnston's pissy request for a retraction about Jacoby
involvement. YA included a quote in Latin from Cicero's accusations against Cataline. Here is the English: What is there that
you did last night, what the night before -- where is it that you were -- who was there that you summoned to meet you -- what
design was there which was adopted by you, with which you think that any one of us is unacquainted?
While this sort of riposte isn't exactly hyper-erudite, it ain't chopped liver either. What I mean to say is that exceptional
cyber skills, algorithm coding (I'm guessing crawlers) are not commonly coupled with that sort of classical formation. His recourse
to various biblical quotes suggests an unusual level of education as well. And no way is he younger than 38 or so.
At any rate, thank you for the article and your kind and informative reply.
Thanks. I have now read both a good few of Apelbaum's earlier posts, and also the comments on his discussion of the dossier.
Given the importance of his analysis of that document closer study is clearly needed of all this material, but I have some preliminary
reactions.
My curiosity about who Apelbaum might be is reinforced by the fact that the intimations he gives about his background in
his responses to comments, while not incompatible with what he has said in the past, do not sit so easily with it.
In a July 2010 post, he explained that: 'In my previous life, I was a civil engineer. I worked for a large power marine construction
company doing structural design and field engineering.' According to the account he gave then, he subsequently shifted to software
development.
What he now tells us is that: 'As far as how I first started, I do have an intelligence background and have been developing
OSINT/cyber/intelligence platforms for many years.'
That makes sense in terms of the analysis, which – whatever other inputs there may or may not have been – looks to me like
the work of someone who has a serious background in these kinds of methodology, and moreover, is clearly not any kind of 'Fachidiot.'
So, questions naturally arise about Apelbaum's intelligence career, in particular, who he is likely to have been employed
by, and associated with, in the past, and whether he is still involved with any of those agencies which have employed him.
Even if he is not, questions would obviously rise about present connections arising from past work. This is in addition to
the possibility that the logic of events may have provoked him to collaborate with those who might earlier have been his adversaries.
Reading Apelbaum's work, I am reminded of another interesting intervention in an embittered argument relating to the Middle
East and the post-Soviet space, from what turned out to be an unexpected source.
In the period following the 'false flag' sarin attack at Ghouta on 21 August 2013 an incisive demolition of the conventional
wisdom was provided in the 'crowdsourced' investigation masterminded by one 'sasa wawa' on a site entitled 'Who Attacked Ghouta?'
And then, in December 2016, an Israeli high technology entrepreneur called Saar Wilf, a former employee of Unit 8200, that
country's equivalent of the NSA or GCHQ, who had subsequently made a great deal of money when he and his partner sold their company
to Paypal, co-founded a site called 'Rootclaim.'
The site, it was explained, was dedicated to applying Bayesian statistics to 'current affairs' problems. This is a methodology,
whose modern form owes much to work done at Bletchley Park in the war, which is invaluable in 'SIGINT' analysis and also combating
online fraud.
At the outset, 'Rootclaim' posted a recycled version of some of the key material from the 'Who Attacked Ghouta?' investigation.
So, it seems likely, if not absolutely certain, that Saar Wilf and 'sasa wawa' are one and the same.
Following the Salisbury incident on 4 March, a blogger using the name 'sushi' produced a series of eleven posts under the title
'A Curious Incident' on the 'Vineyard of the Saker' blog.
Again, there are some very clear resemblances to 'sasa wawa' and Saar Wilf, which made me wonder whether the same person may
be reappearing under yet another 'moniker.'
While the 'flavour' of Apelbaum seems to be different, the combination of what looks like serious technical expertise in IT
techniques relating to intelligence with broad general intellectual interests looks to me similar.
I was amused by the combination of his quotation of the words from John 8:32 etched into the wall of the original CIA headquarters
– 'And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free' – and the following remarks:
'The June 2016 start date of Steele's contract with Fusion GPS is the start of the "billable" activity, not the beginning of
the research. Steele and Simpson/Jacoby have been collaborating on Trump/Russia going back to 2009.
'Also, there is a large Hakluyt/Orbis "commercial intelligence" network in the US that regularly services political and
federal agencies and has the power to summon Nazgűls the likes of John Brennan. So Steele is not the new kid on the block, he
has been doing this type of work long before 2016. This is also why he has such a cozy relationship with the brass at the DOJ
and state.'
As it happens, I think that many of the collaborations involved may have started significantly earlier than this. In his response
to David Cay Johnston, Apelbaum links to an April 2007' WSJ' article by Simpon and Jacoby which, among other things, deals with
Semyon Mogilevich.
This is behind a paywall, but, fortunately, the fact that Ukrainian nationalists have had an obvious interest in treating it
as a source of reliable information has meant that it is easily accessible.
It should I think be clear from my January 2016 post why I find this particularly interesting, in that it has to be interpreted
in the context of a crucial 'key' to the mystery of the death of Alexander Litvinenko.
This is that he, the Ukrainian nationalist former KGB person Yuri Shvets, the convicted Italian disinformation peddler
Mario Scaramella, and quite possibly the sometime key FBI expert on Mogilevich, Robert 'Bobby' Levinson, were involved in trying
to suggest that Mogilevich was an instrument of a plot by Putin to equip Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb.'
So, I then come back to the question of whether this notion of a 'large Haluyt/Orbis "commercial intelligence" network in the
US', playing the role of Sauron with Brennan, perhaps, as the 'Witch-king of Angmar', does or does not have substance.
If it does, there would be very good reasons for a variety of people, with a range of different attitudes to events in the
post-Soviet space and the Middle East, to think that they had an interest in collaborating with Russian intelligence against a
common enemy.
If it does not, then there is a real possibility that Apelbaum may be involved in using accurate intelligence to disseminate
inaccurate. (It seems to me that he is much too intelligent to be a plausible candidate for the role of 'useful idiot.')
One further point that may, or may not, be relevant. Many of the most influential American and British Jews, for reasons which
I find somewhat hard to understand, seem to have decided that the heirs of the architects of the Lvov pogrom are nice and cuddly.
So, for example, Chrystia Freeland, the unrepentant granddaughter of the notorious Nazi collaborator Michael Chomiak, has been
able to end up as Canadian Foreign Minister because made a successful journalistic career on the London 'Financial Times', a paper
with a strong Jewish presence.
That the editorial staff of such a paper thought it appropriate to have someone like Freeland as their Moscow correspondent
gives you a good insight into how moronic British élites have become. This may well be relevant, in trying to evaluate claims
about Hakluyt and other matters.
In relation to Apelbaum, it may be quite beside the point that other Jews from a Russian/East European background, both in
Russia, Israel, and the United States, have very different views on Ukraine, Russia, and the dangers posed – not least to Israel
– by jihadists. It is however a fact which needs to be born in mind, when one comes across people whose views cut across conventional
dividing lines in the United States and Britain.
Beside the point in relation to Apelbaum, I am confident, but also needing to be kept in mind, is the possibility that elements
in the United States 'intelligence community', seeing the 'writing on the wall', may think it appropriate to shift from trying
to pass the buck by blaming the Russians to doing so by blaming the Brits.
It seems apparent that Putin's reordering of the Russian economy after the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, Republic
Bank's difficulites and the death of Edmund Safra left a bitter taste in the mouths of many who had hoped to exercise rentier
rights over the Russian economy and resources. Why so much US resources and energy have been committed to recovering a contested
deed is a real conundrum.
I was unaware of Freeland's grandfather and his lamentable CV. Thank you. It's funny that you mentioned both the Ghouta post
and the Vineyard of the Saker. I recall reading those and thinking- this is not like common fare on the intertubes.
Your last points about failings in the quality of elite decision-making is extremely important. This dynamic of the dumb (US,
UK, EU) at the wheel is, for me, the most frightening feature of the current state of play. In the worst moments I fear we are
all on a bus driven by a drunk monkey, careening through the Andes. It's going to hurt all the way to the bottom.
Again, I am very grateful for your replies and all the great information and thought.
I think the question of why large elements in both American and British élites got so heavily invested, in essence, in supporting
the oligarchs who refused Putin's terms in what turned into a kind of 'bare knuckles' struggle they were always likely to lose
is a very interesting one.
It has long seemed to me that, even if one looked at matters from the most self-interested and cynical point of view, this
represented a quite spectacular error of judgement. And, viewing the way in which 'international relations' are rearranging themselves,
I am reasonably confident that this was one matter on which I got things right.
A central reason for this, I have come to think, is that Berezovsky and the 'information operations' people round him – Litvinenko
is important, but the pivotal figure, the 'mastermind', if you will, was clearly Alex Goldfarb, and Yuri Shvets and Yuri Felshtinsky
both played and still play important supporting roles – were telling people in the West what these wanted to hear.
It is a truth if not quite 'universally acknowledged', at least widely recognised by those who have acquired some 'worldly
wisdom', that intellectually arrogant people, with limited experience of the world and a narrow education, can commonly be 'led
by the nose' by figures who have more of the relevant kinds of intelligence and experience, and few scruples.
This rather basic fact is central to understanding the press conference on 31 May 2007 where the figure whom the Berezovsky
group and Christopher Steele had framed in relation to the death of Litvinenko, Andrei Lugovoi, responded to the Crown Prosecution
Service request for his extradition.
In his prepared statement, Lugovoi claimed that his supposed victim used to say that everyone in Britain were ''retards',
to use the translation submitted in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, or 'idiots', to use that by RT. And according to this version,
the British believed in everything that 'we' – that is, the Berezovky group – said was happening in Russia.
Whether or not Litvinenko expressed this cynical contempt, the credulity with which the claims of the 'information operations'
people around Berezovsky have been accepted – well illustrated by Owen's report and perhaps most ludicrous in Harding's journalism
– makes clear it is justified.
What moreover became very evident, when Glenn Simpson testified to the House Intelligence and Senate Judiciary Committees,
was that he was once again recycling the Berezovsky's group's version of Putin 'sistema' as the 'return of Karla.'
Given what has been emerging on the ways in which Fusion GPS and Steele were both integrated into networks involving top-level
people in the FBI, DOJ, State Department and CIA, it seems clear that the 'retards'/'idiots' label is as applicable to people
on your side as to people on ours.
Perhaps then, cartoons about Trump as a puppet, with the strings pulled by another puppet representing Manafort, whose
strings are in turn pulled by Putin, should be replaced by ones in which Mueller is seen as a puppet manipulated by the ghost
of Boris Berezovsky.
But that is the irony. The relationship with Berezovsky blew up in the faces of all concerned, when in the wake of the
successsful corruption of the investigation into the death of Litvinenko by him and his 'information operations' people, he attempted
to recoup his fortunes by suing Roman Abramovich, and got taken to pieces by Lord Sumption.
As to what happened next, a recent item on 'Russian Insider', providing a link to and transcript of a more recent piece presented
by Dmitry Kiselyov on 'Vesti Nedeli is a good illustration of where accurate information and disinformation can be mixed in material
from Russian sources.
The piece, which appeared in July, discusses, and quotes from, an interview given the previous month to Dmitry Gordon, who
runs a Ukrainian nationalist site, by Berezovsky's daughter Elizaveta. Among other things, this deals with Berezovsky's death.
(See
https://gordonua.com/public...
. A little manipulation will get you a reasonably serviceable English translation, although
it becomes comic because Berezovsky is referred to as 'pope'.)
The 'Vesti Nedeli' piece uses what Elizaveta Berezovskaya says in support of the claim that Berezovsky was murdered by
British 'special forces', because he was planning to return to Russia, and he 'knew too much about them.'
As it happens, this is a patently tendentious reading of what she says. However, interesting features of the actual text of
the interview are 1. that it does provide what to my mind is compelling evidence that her father was murdered, and 2. while she
clearly suggests that this was covered up by the British, she is not suggesting that they were responsible – but also not making
Putin 'prime suspect.'
Whether the suggestion by his daughter that her father might have been murdered by people who knew that by so doing they might
get control of assets he might otherwise recoup has any merit I cannot say: I doubt it but cannot simply rule the possibility
out.
What remains the case is that at that point there were very many people, including but in no way limited to elements in Western
intelligence agencies, who had strong interests in avoiding a return by Berezovsky to Russia.
And the same people had the strongest possible interest in avoiding his being treated at the Inquest into Litvinenko's death
by a competent barrister representing the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in the way he had been treated by
Lord Sumption.
Ironically, it may have been partly because Lugovoi had made a dramatic announcement that he was withdrawing from the proceedings
less than a fortnight before Berezovsky's death that before this happened a lot of people were staring at an absolutely worst-case
scenario.
Time and again, in Owen's report, one finds matters where he recycles patent disinformation, which a well-briefed barrister
acting for the ICRF could have easily ripped to shreds. At the same time, in this situation, the Russians could most probably
have made a reasonable fist of coping with the multiple contradictions in claims made on their own side.
And, crucially, their patent weak suit – the need to obscure the actual role of Russian intelligence in the smuggling of the
polonium into London, which had nothing to do with any murder plot – could have been reasonably well 'covered.'
Precisely because of these facts, the one scenario which can very easily be completely ruled out is that which is basic to
the 'information operations' now coming out of London and Washington. In this, Berezovsky's death is portrayed as a key element
in a systematic attempt by the Putin 'sistema' to eradicate the supposedly heroic opposition, much of it located in London.
That sustaining this fable is critical to defending the credibility of Steele, and therefore of the whole 'Russiagate' narrative,
is quite evident from the 'From Russia With Blood' materials published by 'BuzzFeed' in July last year.
This, however, leads on to a paradox, which is highlighted by a piece posted by James George Jatras on the 'Strategic Culture
Foundation' site on 18 August, entitled 'Have You Committed Your Three Felonies Today?'
Among the points Jatras – who I think is an Orthodox Christian – makes is that the logic of contesting the 'Russiagate' narrative
has had some strange consequences. Among these, there is one on which the actual history of the activities of Berezovsky and his
'information operations' people bears directly:
'Flipping the "Russians did it" narrative: Among the President's defenders, on say Fox News, no less than among his detractors,
Russia is the enemy who (altogether now!) "interfered in our elections" in order to "undermine our democracy." Mitt Romney was
right! The only argument is over who was the intended beneficiary of Muscovite mendacity, Trump or Hillary – that's the variable.
The constant is that Putin is Hitler and only a traitor would want to get along with him. All sides agree that the Christopher
Steele dossier is full of "Russian dirt" – though there's literally zero actual evidence of Kremlin involvement but a lot pointing
to Britain's MI6 and GCHQ.'
For reasons I have already discussed, I think what while Jatras is substantially right, 'zero evidence' is only partially correct:
It seems to me that disinformation supplied by elements in Russian intelligence could quite possibly have found its way into the
second and final memoranda.
That said, Jatras has pointed to a fundamental feature of the current situation, which involves multiple ironies.
The total destruction of Steele's credibility could easily be achieved by anyone who was interested in looking at the evidence
about the life and death of the late Alexander Litvinenko seriously. However, because a central tactic of most of those who are
attacking the 'Russiagate' narrative has generally been 'Flipping the "Russians did it" narrative', they are like people who ought
to be able to see Steele's 'Achilles' heel', but in practice, often end up attacking him where his armour is, without being, not
at its weakest.
Meanwhile, as I have already stressed, the ability of the Russian authorities to undermine the 'narrative' produced by the
'information operations' people around Berezovsky, of whom the most important are Alex Goldfarb and Yuri Shvets, is compromised
by their fear of having to 'own up to' their actual role in the smuggling of the polonium into London in October-November 2007.
The person who had a strong interest in blowing this structure of illusion to pieces was actually Lugovoi. But it seems to
me at least possible that there has been a kind of disguised covert conspiracy by elements in Western and Russian intelligence
to ensure there was no risk of him doing so.
One of the things I've never understood about the Trump Dossier story is the lack of any forensic analysis of its content
and style anywhere in the media, even the alt media. Who was supposed to have actually written it? Steele? The style does not
match someone of his background and education, and the formatting and syntax were atrocious. The font actually varied from "report"
to "report." It certainly did not give me the impression of being the product of a high-end, Belgravia consultancy.
I wonder whether it was produced by an American of one sort or another and then "laundered" by being accorded association
with the UK firm. Given that Steele just happened to be hired by the USG to help in the anti-FIFA skulduggery, he and his firm
seem very much to be a concern that does dirty little jobs that need discretely to be done, though in this case, the discretion
was undermined.
Most of the memos were issued before October and Fusion/Simpson authorized Steele to release information to the FBI starting
in July. The question is why the memos were released after the election when a release before the election would have been enough
to sink Trump. Instead the FBI and presumably those paying Fusion on Hillarys behalf sat on it, and Comey comes out days before
the election
Saying he was reopening the HC email investigation.
Kind of looks like they all wanted Trump in office and the disclosure was to give Trump the excuse needed to back track
on his promises to improve relations with Russia and blame that on pressure from the Deep State and Russia Gate.
Looking at Trumps history with Sater (FBI/CIA asset) and his political aspirations that began following his Moscow visit
in 1987 it seems likely Trump has been a Deep State asset for 30 years and fed intelligence to CIA/FBI on Russian oligarchs and
mafia . Indeed he may well have duped Russians into believing he was working for them when in fact it was the CIA/FBI who had
the best Kompromat with US RICO laws that could have beggared him
One thing to remember about the FBI is Sy Hersh. Hersh claims the FBI has been sitting on a report for two years that fingers
murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the Wikileaks DNC email leaker (or one of them, at least.)
Now can we imagine that not everyone in a senior position at the FBI knows about that report? I can't. Literally everyone from
the supervisor of the Special Agent or computer forensic investigator who examined Rich's computer right up to the Director HAD
to know that report exists - and covered it up.
That right there is obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Literally everyone at the FBI who can't PROVE he didn't know about
that report will be going to jail. The entire top administration of the FBI is going to go down.
And how many people at the Department of Justice are aware of that report? Did Rosenstein know? Who else in the Obama administration
knew?
That would be motivation for a lot of desperate maneuvering. Add to that who was really behind the Steele Dossier and even
more people are likely to end up in jail.
You haven't heard that yet? It's the infamous audio tape that Hersh was caught on discussing it. He's since obfuscated what
he said, but the tape stands on its own, and he has never said that anything he said on the tape wasn't true, despite that a lot
of Democrats and Trump-bashers claim he has.
I have told you several times and I will tell you again probably hopelessly that Hersh PERSONALLY has told me that the "tape"
was made without his permission or knowledge when he was aimlessly speculating on possibilities.
I am unaware of your explicitly telling me that he personally told you that the tape was "aimless speculation." My apologies
if I missed that response.
Of course the tape was made without his permission. We all know that. It's irrelevant to what he said on the tape.
What I'm saying is that despite what he may have told you, nothing on that tape sounds like "aimless speculation".
When you consider that he has four good reasons for dissembling about the tape, I view it as far more likely that everything
he said was true.
1) If what he said is true, he may have compromised his FBI contact. Not good for his line of work.
2) If what he said is true, compromising that contact may well make all his other contacts wary about talking to him in the
future - a bad deal for a journalist who relies on his contacts.
3) If what he said is true, he may have compromised his ability to get his "long form journalism" article published - a problem
he already has had in the past.
4) If what he said is true, he's accusing the FBI of sitting on that report for two years, which might well make him a target
of retaliation in some way.
If you believe that everything he said on the tape is untrue and that is what he explicitly told you, fine. I'm waiting for
his "long form journalism" report to explain it. So far everything he has said publicly about it has not contradicted what he
said on the tape, but merely waved his hands about it.
Sy Hersh talks a lot both loudly and profanely. He never intended to tell Buttowski that there was more than a possibility
that the FBI held more than a rumor that this might be true. He talked to Buttowski because a mutual friend of him and me asked
him to do so for no good reason. Please go talk to all the other people you pester and not on SST. You are an argumentative nuisance.
I have no stake in the debate about Rich, DNC, wikileaks. But I do notice some loose ends. Hersh may well have engaged in speculation, but it is interesting speculation:
quote: 55. During his conversation with Butowsky, Mr. Hersh claimed that he had received information from an "FBI report." Mr. Hersh
had not seen the report himself, but explained: "I have somebody on the inside who will go and read a file for me. And I know
this person is unbelievably accurate and careful. He's a very high level guy."
56. According to Mr. Hersh, his source told him that the FBI report states that, shortly after Seth Rich's murder, the D.C.
police obtained a warrant to search his home. When they arrived at the home, the D.C. police found Seth Rich's computer, but were
unable to access it.The computer was then provided to the D.C. police Cyber Unit, who also were unable to access the computer.
At that point, the D.C. police contacted the Cyber Unit at the FBI's Washington D.C. field office. Again, according to the supposed
FBI report, the Washington D.C. field office was able to get into the computer and found that in "late spring early summer [2016],
[Seth Rich][made] contact with Wikileaks." "They found what he had done. He had submitted a series of documents, of emails. Some
juicy emails from the DNC." Mr. Hersh told Butowsky that Seth Rich "offered a sample [to WikiLeaks][,] an extensive sample, you
know I'm sure dozens, of emails, and said I want money." . . . "I hear gossip," Hersh tells NPR on Monday. "[Butowsky] took two and two and made 45 out of it."
. . . The clip is definitely worth listening to in its entirety if you haven't already. Hersh is heard telling Butowsky that he had
a high-level insider read him an FBI file confirming that Seth Rich was known to have been in contact with WikiLeaks prior to
his death, which is not even a tiny bit remotely the same as having "heard rumors". Hersh's statements in the audio recording
and his statement to NPR cannot both be true. endquote https://medium.com/@caityjo...
You may very well be right. There may be a large element of 'amateur night out' about this.
But then I come back to the question of who decided that the dossier be published, and who, if anyone, was consulted before
the decision was made. For the reasons I gave, I am reasonably confident that those on this side who had been in one way or another
complicit in its production and covert dissemination were taken aback by the publication.
It is not clear to me whether anything significant can be inferred from the publicly available evidence about whether those
on your side who had been complicit were involved in the decision to publish without taking even elementary precautions, or whether
the 'Buzzfeed' people just had a rush of blood to the head.
I suspect the decision to publish the dossier was political. It was required to enable Clapper, Brennan, and others to
opine on national media and create further media hysteria prior to the vote as well as to justify the counter-intelligence investigations
underway. They were throwing the kitchen sink to sink Trump's electoral chances. I don't think a lot of thought was given about
the legal ramifications.
This seems to be a pattern. Leak information. Then use the leaked story to justify actions like apply for a FISA warrant
or fan the media flames.
And now they are turning on one another. Hayden just slammed Clapper for making too much of losing the security clearance the
he abuse for political reasons.
Looks like both Clapper and Haydon made the same comment about Brennan. they said "his rhetoric was becoming a problem. Ah,
the USAF intel rats are swimming for the shore. Lets see how many others (not all USAF) decide to try to save themselves.
I find it incredulous that former leaders of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies have gained paid access to powerful
media platforms and they have used it to launch vicious attacks on a POTUS.
I find it amazing that McCabe and Peter Strzok are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars on social media platforms.
IMO, everyone on the list that Sarah Sanders noted, should not just lose their clearance but should be testifying to a grand
jury.
Not really incredulous. Just expected behavior from swamp creatures whose self-assumed importance and "rights" (that the rest
of us peasants don't have) are coming under threat.
It seems to me absolutely appalling, and I am also appalled that people on this side appear to have been playing a central
role in all this.
One question. It seems to me that if what seems likely to be true does prove true, a range of these people must have committed
very serious offences indeed.
However, I am too ignorant to know what precisely those offences might be. If you, or anyone else, had a clear understanding,
I would be interested.
"It seems to me absolutely appalling, and I am also appalled that people on this side appear to have been playing a central
role in all this."
That says it all. We got the more discreditable side of the affair outsourced to us. Ugh. Is that all we're fit for now in
the UK? White helmets and Khan Sheikhoun and Steele, all the scrubby stuff? Is that what the famous "Special Relationship" now
consists of? We get to do the scrubby stuff because it's what we're fit for and we can be relied upon to keep it quiet?
Because at least on the American side there are people concerned about the political/PR involvement of parts of their own Intelligence
Community, and seeking to have it looked into. Here - am I right? - it's dead silence.
I've been permitted to say before on SST that I don't think the Americans are going to resolve this affair satisfactorily until
more light is cast on the UK side. But I also think that, for our own sakes, we should be looking at what exactly our IC does,
and in particular, how much UK political involvement there was in what is now clear was a direct PR attack on an American President.
I'm not a lawyer and have no experience with the federal criminal statutes. Having said that I suspect that the following could
be considered crimes:
intentionally misleading FISC
perjury
leaking classified information
launching investigations on the basis of known false information
surveillance of US citizens on the basis of false information
conspiracy to subvert the constitution
sedition/treason
There may also be certain professional agreements with the government that may have been violated. The only way any of these
people will face a grand jury is if Donald Trump chooses to take action. Left to the natural devices of the law enforcement institutions
nothing will happen and they will sweep everything under the rug. The intensity of Trump's tweets and the accusations therein
are rising. If the GOP retains the House and Jim Jordan becomes speaker, then there may be a possibility that Sessions, Rosenstein
and Wray may be fired and another special counsel appointed who will then convene a grand jury.
Considering what has been uncovered by Congressional investigators and the DOJ IG, I am truly surprised that Sessions has resisted
the appointment of a special counsel. But of course that could go the way of the Owens inquiry in your country.
"... Another example is the Danish newspaper "Information" founded during WWII, as very leftist it has today morphed, in the dark, into a center right neo- liberal rag, full of no- news and idiotic scribbles by irrelevant formerly known peoples talent-less sons and daughters. ..."
"... Wel thanks b, for telling the truth and letting me start my Sunday moderately depressed, I guess news that Washington D.C had been swallowed by a giant sink-hole, would cheer me partly up. ..."
Den Lille Abe , Sep 16, 2018 12:47:49 AM |
49 ">link
Thank you b, for yet another good article!
Your article made me reflect the situation in general. While it is good the The White
Frauds have been called out as an Empire front and as Western propaganda psy-op, I do thing
the real Enemy is the MSM. These crimes by our governments, the White Frauds, Isil, ect,ect,
would not be possible without the control of the MSM. But I am completely at a loss how to
fight them, or just diminish their influence.
The Guardian s a blatant example, and its turnaround from "reasonable reliable" to "paid
shill" was clumsily and obviously executed. Looking at the UK for real news , there is only
the blogoshere left, all opposition has been subverted. And it is not only in the UK.
Another example is the Danish newspaper "Information" founded during WWII, as very
leftist it has today morphed, in the dark, into a center right neo- liberal rag, full of no-
news and idiotic scribbles by irrelevant formerly known peoples talent-less sons and
daughters.
The situation in Sweden is even more depressing (it is!) the newspapers here are on level
with the Sun and the Daily Heil.
Wel thanks b, for telling the truth and letting me start my Sunday moderately
depressed, I guess news that Washington D.C had been swallowed by a giant sink-hole, would
cheer me partly up.
"... The myth of BBC being some standard for news reporting died with the advent of the availability of international and independent news in Western countries ..."
"... Ironic when the BBC has been ceaselessly pushing fake news for at least 15 years, with disastrous results. (Iraq; Libya; what caused the deficit and who should be forced to pay it down; Russia/Syria false flags; Corbyn A/S.) ..."
"... I find it impossible to watch BBC News, primarily because most of the editorial staff and senior correspondents seem to be working for MI5/6 and are more interested in disseminating Geo-political propaganda than upholding their journalistic responsibilities as defined in the BBC charter. ..."
"... The book is obviously part of a propaganda campaign. It seems hugely fortuitous that Mark Urban should have had "hours" of interviews with Skripal before the poisoning incident. ..."
"... Isn't it much more likely that the Urban "interviews" would have happened after the event? But Urban can't say that because that would lead to demands from other journalists or news bodies to have access to Skripal. ..."
"... I'm open to alternative hypotheses but right now I think the most likely explanation for Urban's pre-poisoning contact with Sergei Skripal is that, at the time, it was assumed the Orbis dossier would be a key component of the successful takedown of Trump and Urban was putting together a mutually flattering account by interviewing the main players. ..."
"... With regard to your tongue-in-cheek point. Urban could have interviewed Skripal anytime after Trump was gone, unless he believed Skripal might be unavailable (for some reason). The fact he interviewed Skripal before does indicate foresight. If Urban really did interview Skripal before the event then he would be wiser to pull the book and burn every copy in existence (as well as all his notes). ..."
"... Urban pretends to research a book exposing Russia and part of his research is to interview Skripal. His objective is to find dirt on Putin in order to swing the war in Syria in favour of USUKIS bombing Assad to smithereens, bayonets bums etc. ..."
"... Interestingly Mark Urbans' book on Sergei Skripal was available to purchase on Amazon in July. I added it to my Amazon wishlist on 28/7/18. I've just looked at my wishlist and was rather surprised to find it is no longer available. It has been pulled. ..."
"... Can't help thinking that the answer to all this lies in Estonia. Sergei went to Estonia in June 2016, Pablo was in Estonia, the Estonians passed on sigint about Trump-Russian collusion in the summer of 2016. A Guardian article of 13 April 2017 said: ..."
"... No doubt in my mind that the Skripal affair is a planned operation carried out by US/UK intelligence. What has actually taken place is still to be determined, but the propaganda operation itself is clear. ..."
"... I know about Ireland, and I agree, it was NOT a nerve agent. That said, I don't believe anyone was 'attacked', including the Skripals. ..."
"... All foreign correspondents of major newspapers too work with MI6. Nobody who is close to them has any kind of doubt about this. ..."
"... I despise everyone who says that free markets are the solution for the problems of the third world. What they mean is mass starvation and an enormous population cull. There are international "foundations" that pay academics and politicians large amounts of money to spout this obscene line. One of them is called the John Templeton Foundation. They have had their fangs in to British universities for a long time. ..."
"... When the Tories talk about 'free markets', they are talking about markets free from democracy. ..."
BBC is skanky state propaganda. The myth of BBC being some standard for news reporting died with the advent of the availability
of international and independent news in Western countries. The main thing that BBC used to have which propped up the illusion
of it being a respectable news source is that there was no competition or alternative to compare its narratives against. Since
that time is over, so is BBC's masquerading as an impartial or accurate news source.
Agree, Dave. That's what's informing the push to rubbish dissenting sites as fake news and eventually have them removed.
Ironic when the BBC has been ceaselessly pushing fake news for at least 15 years, with disastrous results. (Iraq; Libya;
what caused the deficit and who should be forced to pay it down; Russia/Syria false flags; Corbyn A/S.)
Well I was convinced of fake BBC news during 9/11 and not for the reasons of building 7 coming down too early but the fact
that the female journalist was facing a camera standing in front of a glass window and there was no reflection of her or the camera
person from the glass. Not even a faint shadow.
That's when I knew the BBC were employing vampires and have been ever since.
Green Screen technology I discovered later. All the On the spot reporters are at it apparently. Or repeating Reuters or PA.
I find it impossible to watch BBC News, primarily because most of the editorial staff and senior correspondents seem to
be working for MI5/6 and are more interested in disseminating Geo-political propaganda than upholding their journalistic responsibilities
as defined in the BBC charter. People should not only boycott the BBC but refuse to pay the license fee on the grounds that
it's a compulsory political subscription.
Dear Mark,
In a BBC article on 4 July 2018, you wrote: "I have not felt ready until now to acknowledge explicitly that we had met, but do
now that the book is nearing completion."
Could you please explain that comment? I do not see why your acknowledgement of your meetings with Sergei Skripal should be
delayed until your book is nearing completion.
If you felt that it was right to reveal those meetings in July, then why was it not right to do so in March, soon after the
poisoning occurred? What difference would it have made if you had done so four months earlier?
I cannot think of any negative consequences of an earlier acknowledgement of the meetings. In fact, disclosures of any possible
conflict of interest are generally considered to be desirable in journalism, regardless of whether the conflict of interest is
real.
The book is obviously part of a propaganda campaign. It seems hugely fortuitous that Mark Urban should have had "hours"
of interviews with Skripal before the poisoning incident.
Isn't it much more likely that the Urban "interviews" would have happened after the event? But Urban can't say that because
that would lead to demands from other journalists or news bodies to have access to Skripal.
And that can't happen because either Skripal would be asked about what happened on the day of the poisoning, or can't be guaranteed
to stick to the script, or is no longer alive. And that leads to a suspicion that whatever Skripal is supposed to have said in
his interviews with Urban has really just been made up by the British security services.
I'm open to alternative hypotheses but right now I think the most likely explanation for Urban's pre-poisoning contact
with Sergei Skripal is that, at the time, it was assumed the Orbis dossier would be a key component of the successful takedown
of Trump and Urban was putting together a mutually flattering account by interviewing the main players.
Tongue in cheek, it'd be worth asking Urban if his decision to cover the Skripal poisoning in his new book was made before
or after the Skripals were actually poisoned.
The consensus seems to be that it was an anti-Russia book, but that doesn't conflict with what you say (there is overlap, your
view is just more specific). But, I just find it hard to believe that Urban and the conspirators would waste their time "counting
their chickens ". Not least because such a book would form a handy list of traitors (together with confessions) if Trump were
to prevail and it fell into the right hands. This is "101 – How to Organise a Revolution" (secrecy / don't put anything in writing);
surely British security services know that?
With regard to your tongue-in-cheek point. Urban could have interviewed Skripal anytime after Trump was gone, unless he
believed Skripal might be unavailable (for some reason). The fact he interviewed Skripal before does indicate foresight. If Urban
really did interview Skripal before the event then he would be wiser to pull the book and burn every copy in existence (as well
as all his notes).
Regardless, it looks like the master of the universe are losing their ability to create reality.
Last month, Mark Urban was promoting the reports that the Russian assassins had been identified from CCTV footage:
"There are now subjects of interest in the police Salisbury investigation. ( ) analytic and cyber techniques are now being
exploited against the Salisbury suspects by people with a wealth of experience in complex investigations." https://twitter.com/MarkUrban01/status/1020366761848385536
The BBC relies on it's interpretation of the Act because it is held for the purposes of 'journalism, art or literature.' but
this relies on a usually unrelated precedent and the opinions of a number of Judges which contradict this view. I'm in the process
of challenging this with ICO but don't expect anything will change until another supreme court ruling:
I can see the value in asking writers, journalists and artists to pose exactly the same questions as Eccles' original letter
but I'm not convinced about Craig's email.
A quick google shows me that a man named Mark Urban has written a book on the Skripals. Isn't it likely that Urban was keeping
the interviews to himself in order to keep his book alive?
It wouldn't surprise me if Urban cares far more about his writing career than his job at the BBC. I'm sure most journalists
would rather be authors. He's written a number of books on war and military intelligence. If his sources have nothing to do with
the BBC then why should he answer to an on line mob?
" Isn't it likely that Urban was keeping the interviews to himself in order to keep his book alive?"
No, entirely unlikely. a chance to plug his forthcoming book and his Skripal contacts to a massive worldwide televion audience
was eschewed.
The book is now about the Skripal attack. Presumably that was not the original subject he was researching, as it hadn't happened
yet. The book will just be a rehash of the "noble defector – Putin revenge" line and none of the questions I asked about the genesis
of his involvement will be answered in it.
"Presumably that was not the original subject he was researching, as it hadn't happened yet." Or it was prescience ie that
it was part of the planning for the incident?
@BBC, Summer 2017, in an executive office:
"Hey Mark, why don't you go down to have a chat with this guy in Salisbury. I have a hunch that a story might be going to happen
involving him, you know, as an ex-Soviet spy. Spend time with him, get to know him, be able to write in depth about him. Say it's
for a book ."
Urban is never one-sided in his BBC reports on the Middle East. I would rather have him as Foreign Secretary than a bumbling
idiot like Hubris Johnson or a Tory racketeer Hunt, because however clunky the formula of BBC balance Urban is at least pretending
to be governed by normal rules. After Thatcher went anyone with half a brain left the Conservative party, leaving dolts like Johnson
and nasties like May and Cameron to pick up the pieces after Blair and Brown.
There's money to be made from Russian billionaires and tory shit will follow the money like flies on d**t**d.
Urban pretends to research a book exposing Russia and part of his research is to interview Skripal. His objective is to
find dirt on Putin in order to swing the war in Syria in favour of USUKIS bombing Assad to smithereens, bayonets bums etc.
Tory shit Hubris Johnson finds this political research floating around the Foreign Office and decides to twist it into Russia
murders Skripal by Novichok. Unfortunately Johnson is already known to be a liar and gravy-trainer Tory and nobody believes him
at all. Mrs May , realising that Johnson, Fox, Rees-Mogg and Hunt are completely bonkers, does Chequers her own way.
Interestingly Mark Urbans' book on Sergei Skripal was available to purchase on Amazon in July. I added it to my Amazon
wishlist on 28/7/18. I've just looked at my wishlist and was rather surprised to find it is no longer available. It has been pulled.
From memory the books description said that Mark had interviewed Skripal 'extensively' during 2017 and also mentioned the 'new'
spying war now happening between Britain and Russia.
Salisbury poisoning: Skripals 'were under Russian surveillance'
Mark Urban Diplomatic and defence editor, Newsnight
4 July 2018
'My meetings with Sergei Skripal
I met Sergei on a few occasions last summer and found him to be a private character who did not, even under the circumstances
then prevailing, wish to draw attention to himself.
He agreed to see me as a writer of history books rather than as a news journalist, since I was researching one on the post-Cold
War espionage battle between Russia and the West.
Information gained in these interviews was fed into my Newsnight coverage during the early days after the poisoning. I have
not felt ready until now to acknowledge explicitly that we had met, but do now that the book is nearing completion.
As a man, Sergei is proud of his achievements, both before and after joining his country's intelligence service.
He has a deadpan wit and is remarkably stoical given the reverses he's suffered in his life; from his imprisonment following
conviction in 2006 on charges of spying for Britain, to the loss of his wife Liudmila to cancer in 2012, and the untimely death
of his son Alexander (or Sasha) last summer.'
Laughable given that the whole world and virtually all heads of State were under US surveillance by the NSA – at least until
Edward Snowden made all his revelations.
I have pasted and copied your Email regarding the above with a few slight alterations, it will be interesting to see the response
I receive if any being just a concerned citizen of the U.
Is this not a matter for the Police? (Even if you're not too sure if they'd do anything about it) These would be files that
are to do with an attempted murder case. And definitely not Journalism if the story is fabricated.
It feels as if you are moving in the right direction in linking Sergei to Steele. I'm intrigued by the very early media references
to Sergei wanting to return home to see his elderly mother for perhaps the last time. He had apparently written to Putin making
his request but again according to newspapers hadn't received a reply.
I would suggest Julia was bringing the answer via her own secret services contacts, her boyfriend and his mother, apparently
Senior in the Russian Intelligence Agency. Perhaps a sentimental man Sergei was aware his mother couldn't travel so the plea to
Putin was his best bet.
Such a request must have disturbed MI6 if Sergei had anything at all to do with the Steele dossier because inevitably if he
returned to Russia he'd be debriefed by his old colleagues. But how can you rely on a mercenary double agent? If he decided he
might want to stay in Russia with his family that might well have been attractive, away from the lonely existence in a Salisbury
cul de sac with only spies for company. But the Steele dossier has great potential to turn sour on the British.
It's author was a Senior spy and Head of the Russian Desk for some years. It is – perhaps you'd agree? – inconceivable that
he didn't require permission to prepare it, especially as much of it was based on his experience as a spy in Russia. Yet it's
equally inconceivable that the Agency bosses didn't know the identity of the commissioners or the use to which it would be put
in the US election – to boost Clinton's bid. If she'd won everything would have been fine but as it is any discussion of foreign
interference in that election would have to include MI6 leading the list (they probably didn't tell any politician?) To have Sergei
supporting and highlighting that embarrassment would be problematic for US-UK relations. Of course Sergei may have had other nuggets
to expose as well as Steele.
Soon after Julia's arrival the pair fell ill. They both survived but are now locked away, presumably for life and never able
to explain their side of the story.
It was a bodged job with a poor cover story from the start and could only be carried because of D Notices and media complicity.
Is his mother still alive? Would he still like to see her before she dies? Would Russia allow it? Would MI6 allow it? I think
that's 3 yeses and a resounding No.
Following the deaths of 55 Palestinians on the Gaza 'border' and the wounding of thousands, in this video, Urban asks the questions
but the Israeli government spokesman, David Keyes, is allowed to spout all the usual propaganda against Hamas.
Gaza deaths: Who's to blame? – BBC Newsnight
Published on 15 May 2018
Subscribe 256K
Fresh protests against Israel are expected in the Palestinian territories, a day after Israeli troops killed 58 people in the
Gaza Strip.
David Keyes is the spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mark Urban asked him whether it was appropriate
for the US to open their embassy on the 70th anniversary of Israel's creation, a day that is hugely controversial for the Palestinian
people.
Mr Keyes' pronounced American accent was heard. The Occupation was not mentioned. A Palestinian voice was not heard.
This is another of his videos. On the same subject and on the opening of the Israeli Embassy in Jerusalem. This time, Jonathan
Conricus spoke for the IDF.
"Urban asks the questions but the Israeli government spokesman, David Keyes, is allowed to spout all the usual propaganda against
Hamas."
Yes indeed : Urban asked the questions and allowed the interviewee to answer. Perhaps you would have preferred him to interrupt
the interviewee continually 'a la Today programme, or to have shouted at him similarly to the way I understand some people shout
at customers inside or outside supermarkets?
This may or may not be relevant regarding Russia, chemical weapons and BBC/MSM bovine effluent:
"US Poised to Hit Syria Harder: The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement on Aug. 25 stating that the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham
militants had brought eight containers of chlorine to Idlib in order to stage a false-flag attack with the help of UK intelligence
agencies. A group of Tahrir al-Sham fighters trained to handle chemical warfare agents by the UK private military company Olive
arrived in the suburbs of the city of Jisr ash-Shugur, Idlib, 20 km. from the Turkish border."
Can't help thinking that the answer to all this lies in Estonia. Sergei went to Estonia in June 2016, Pablo was in Estonia,
the Estonians passed on sigint about Trump-Russian collusion in the summer of 2016. A Guardian article of 13 April 2017 said:
"Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump's
inner circle and Russians, sources said. The European countries that passed on electronic intelligence – known as sigint – included
Germany, Estonia and Poland."
Perhaps not the Dossier, as such, but some material on collusion?
No doubt in my mind that the Skripal affair is a planned operation carried out by US/UK intelligence. What has actually
taken place is still to be determined, but the propaganda operation itself is clear.
Catch my last post Doodlebug, sadly MI6 diabolical elements can be traced back to Ireland in the 70's early 80's assassinations
theRealTerror (theRealElvis) understands.
Often it's been open. There was the BBC monitoring station at Caversham Park. The BBC's Foreign Broadcast Information Service
split the world into two parts with the CIA.
All foreign correspondents of major newspapers too work with MI6. Nobody who is close to them has any kind of doubt about
this.
Theresa May says a no deal Brexit "wouldn't be the end of the world".
This is not a negotiating strategy. This is not a pantomime where one giant on the stage can wink to his supporters (using
the British media) without his opponent (EU27) noticing.
The subconscious doesn't work well with negation. Whatever you do, please DON'T imagine an elephant at this time.
I would love to know what the preparations are at Trinity College, Cambridge, for food shortages. They own the port of
Felixstowe, which handles more than 40% of Britain's containerised trade. They also own a 50% stake in a portfolio of Tesco
stores. Soon food distribution will be what everyone is talking about. I am never going to stop making the point that the god
of the Tory party is Thomas Malthus.
" As a Prime Minister who believes both in free markets and in nations and businesses acting in line with well-established
rules and principles of conduct, I want to demonstrate to young Africans that their brightest future lies in a free and thriving
private sector. "
I despise everyone who says that free markets are the solution for the problems of the third world. What they mean is mass
starvation and an enormous population cull. There are international "foundations" that pay academics and politicians large amounts
of money to spout this obscene line. One of them is called the John Templeton Foundation. They have had their fangs in to British
universities for a long time.
They are keen on Prince Philip, the guy who said he wanted to come back as a virus so he could kill a large part of the population.
Never trust anyone who has received a Templeton scholarship or prize or who has anything to do with these people or with the message
that free markets and the private sector are the key to "development"
When the Tories talk about 'free markets', they are talking about markets free from democracy.
May's rhetoric is laughable .basically all her speeches read : 'the sky is green, the snow is black etc etc' -- totally detached
from reality and a spent political force, as their recent membership numbers showed, with more revenues from legacies left in
wills than from actual living members.
I agree with the Skripal relatives that Sergei is dead. He hasn't been seen or heard of and would have called his mother. Mind
boggling deception at all levels and I struggle to believe any of it.
Sergei Skripal could be in US custody, either in the US itself or in a US facility somewhere.
If he is dead, then the rehospitalisation of Charlie Rowley may be to assist with the narrative. "Once you've had a drop of
Novvy Chockk, you may recover but you can fall down ill at any time, and here's an Expert with a serious voice to confirm it."
I follow this blog closely, particularly in relation to the Skripal case, but this is my first comment. I just watched Sky
News piece on 'super recognisers' and couldn't help but wonder why, in an age of powerful facial recognition technology, the police
and security services seem to have drawn such a blank. The surveillance state in the UK is known to be one of the most advanced
in the world but when it comes to this highly important geopolitical crisis our technological infrastructure seems to be redundant
to the point where 'human eyes' are deemed to be more accurate than the most powerful supercomputers available. Psychologically,
all humans have an inherent facial recognition ability from a very young age, but the idea that some police officers have this
ability developed to such an extent that they supercede computer recognition is, i feel, laughable. To me this announcement through
the ever subservient Sky News reeks of desperation on the part of the ;official story'. Are we about to be shown suspects who,
although facial recognition technology fails to identify them, a 'super recogniser' can testify that it actually is person A or
person B and we are all supposed to accept that? Seems either a damning indictment of the judicial process, or a damning indictment
of the ŁŁŁŁŁ's of taxpayers money that is spent on places like GCHQ etc whose technology is now apparently no better than a highly
perceptive human brain. Give me a break !
People do die Trowbridge. I know you haven't, but you have the motivation of outliving your persecutors. With Muckin about
with Isis gone and covert operations isn't social work Kissinger looking as though he's on daily blood transfusions, you have
rejected Trump for some reason. But Trump has undone much of John McCain's worst mischief in one year. If McCain was an example
of a politician, we don't need politicians.
Give me an example, other than the Coopers. of a healthy couple one day that is found dying the next day like the Skripals.
And while i tried on another site to be generous about McCain. he got Navy Secretary John Lehman, Jr. to scare the Soviets
for prevailing in the Vietnam War so much about what NATO was up to in the fallout from shooting Swedish PM Olof Palme that Moscow
gave up the competition for fear that it would blow up the world, helping bring on the crappy one we have.
McCain was a continuing Cold Warrior who we don't need since we still have Trump who is just trying to do it another way.
Nice interview with Zakharova over the Skripal frame job. The good part is at around 14 minutes where the
loud yapping chihuahua, the UK, is put in its place.
It is not a global player by any measure and has nothing
useful to contribute aside from riding Uncle Scumbag's coat-tails to bomb civilians in Syria.
"... The obvious thing for the British side to do would be to request Moscow to detain the two men so they could be interviewed as persons of interest. If this doesn't happen, it smacks of problems holding the official narrative together and I really can't see how the MSM could spin it away. Plus the surviving alleged victims or their families could have a case against the police for failing to investigate properly. ..."
"... They're already spinning it away by saying publicly that the responses they are getting from Russia are 'lies and obfuscation'. ..."
"... It will not make the slightest bit of difference in Britain; the British government will quickly announce, following any presentation of evidence by Russia, that it is all cleverly faked up, and remind people that these are professional intelligence agents, that's what they do, of course it looks convincing. All the more proof that they are what Britain says they are. ..."
Moscow to London: Your move. This is an interesting development.
The obvious thing for the
British side to do would be to request Moscow to detain the two men so they could be
interviewed as persons of interest. If this doesn't happen, it smacks of problems holding the
official narrative together and I really can't see how the MSM could spin it away. Plus the
surviving alleged victims or their families could have a case against the police for failing
to investigate properly.
It will not make the slightest bit of difference in Britain; the British government will
quickly announce, following any presentation of evidence by Russia, that it is all cleverly
faked up, and remind people that these are professional intelligence agents, that's what they
do, of course it looks convincing. All the more proof that they are what Britain says they
are.
"... 'Clearly' is an English term which is subject to national interpretations. In Canada – mostly English-speaking – it traditionally means, "supported by verifiable and compelling evidence", although I hasten to add that Canada cheerfully booted out 'Russian spies' to support its ally, Britain. ..."
"... But in England, 'clearly' might mean 'as required to serve in the cause of political necessity'. In this instance, if the passports/visas/whatever travel documents of the men concerned do not read "GRU Assassin Traveling on Business", then clearly there was an attempt to circumvent British checks. ..."
Two alleged Russian spies who launched the Salisbury attack smuggled novichok into the
UK through Gatwick Airport, the security minister has confirmed.
I see! So now the disciplined and highly trained GRU assassins were spies as well.
Proper jack-of-all-trades!
Ben Wallace, who is currently Minister of State for Security and Economic Crime, " told
the House of Commons there was 'clearly some form of attempt to create a legend to make sure
that they circumvented our checks'.
'No doubt at the other end of that aeroplane journey [in Russia] there was some, I
should think, the baggage checks weren't probably as good as they might be,' he added "
-- because the Russians are all blithering incompetents stands ter reason, dunnit!
" Mr Wallace said requests for Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury had
been met with 'obfuscation and lies', saying their response merely 'reinforces their
guilt'. "
Of course it does! Why don't they just confess to what everyone knows they have done?
'Clearly' is an English term which is subject to national interpretations. In Canada –
mostly English-speaking – it traditionally means, "supported by verifiable and
compelling evidence", although I hasten to add that Canada cheerfully booted out 'Russian
spies' to support its ally, Britain.
But in England, 'clearly' might mean 'as required to
serve in the cause of political necessity'. In this instance, if the passports/visas/whatever
travel documents of the men concerned do not read "GRU Assassin Traveling on Business", then
clearly there was an attempt to circumvent British checks.
"... And the mockery from the Russophobes immediately kicks off in the British press! Travel all the way from Russia to visit Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge? What nonesense! Who are they trying to kid? That's because such a trip is barely imaginable for uncultured morons. ..."
And the mockery from the Russophobes immediately kicks off in the British press! Travel all the way from Russia to visit Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge? What nonesense! Who are they trying to kid? That's because such a trip is barely imaginable for uncultured morons.
When I last had the great misfortune to be in England with my family, and, to make matters
worse, in London, my elder children begged and begged that we take a trip to Stonehenge. You
see, they were fascinated by all that they had learnt about the place in their Russian
schools.
We went on an excursion there, calling first at Windsor, then Salisbury, Stonehenge, and,
finally, Bath for afternoon tea before heading off back to London.
Witness the moronity of some of my fellow countrymen in this comment published in today's
Independent:
Well you can say a lot about our Russian friends: semi-educated, semi-civilised,
pathological liars, undemocratic, authoritarian, crypto-fascist, mocked and despised the
world over, but one thing we must concede is that they have a wonderful sense of
humour.
So this delightful, oh-so intelligent looking couple flew all the way to Salisbury to
have a look at the Cathedral clock, but the nasty inclement British weather (unlike tropical
Moscow, of course) forced them to return with undue haste from whence they came.
May I suggest better acting classes and a credible script in future?
Doubtless the Indie's resident Putinite Mary Dejevsky, Comrade Corbyn and the brainless
Prigozhin trolls infesting this site will try and sell it – because they are paid to,
but anyone with an IQ higher than a daisy, ie. the rest of the sentient world, will shake
their heads in disbelief at the knuckle-headed absurdity of this story.
Well, as regards the weather, moron, – for Russians, English snow is "inclement"',
as it is wet shite. They were complaining of being wet to the knees. At the same time, in
Russia it was minus 15C and there was plenty of deep, dry snow, which really would make
Little Englanders like you whine.
Oh, and the person who owns that rag to which you wrote the above shite is owned by one of
those "semi-educated, semi-civilised, pathological liars, undemocratic, authoritarian,
crypto-fascist" Russians whom you so despise.
In the years that I worked in England, in an English coal mine, I worked with quite a few
fellow countrymen who were barely literate. I particularily remember one who often boasted
that he had never read a book since he left school.
Russia: The country with the highest literacy rate in Russia with almost 53% of the
population has tertiary education. It is estimated that 95% of adults in Russia have higher
secondary education and the country spends some 4.9% of GDP on education. 2.Jan 16,
2014
According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and
the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14
percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and
19 percent of high school graduates can't read.Jul 7, 2017
Adult Litercy UK
: Around 15 per cent, or 5.1 million adults in England, can be described as 'functionally
illiterate.' They would not pass an English GCSE and have literacy levels at or below those
expected of an 11-year-old. They can understand short straightforward texts on familiar
topics accurately and independently, and obtain information from everyday sources, but
reading information from unfamiliar sources, or on unfamiliar topics, could cause
problems.
Many adults are reluctant to admit to their literacy difficulties and ask for help. One
of the most important aspects of supporting adults with low literacy levels is to increase
their self-esteem and persuade them of the benefits of improving their reading and
writing.
And the British Foreign Office has replied as follows:
"The government is clear these men are officers of the Russian military intelligence
service – the GRU – who used a devastatingly toxic, illegal chemical weapon on
the streets of our country."
"We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March.
Today – just as we have seen throughout – they have responded with obfuscation
and lies."
No obfuscation and lies from the FO, though!
Anything but a confession of guilt is "obfuscation and lies", it seems.
"We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in
March
I tell you what happened: nothing that the Russian state had anything to do with!
I suggest you ask your Yukie nazi pals for an account of what happened there, and your
pals in Tel-Aviv as well.
Russia, cleverly, has thrown down the gauntlet. If the FCO claims that the story of Petrov
and Boshirov is simply 'obfuscation and lies', then why not ask Russia to help make these
guys available for interview and send a couple of detectives plus interpreter on the next
flight to Moscow?
No matter how the FCO and British government huffs, puffs and tries to blow houses down,
ultimately they will be unable to explain why they haven't sought to question these guys.
Agreed, Fern. This was a very clever move on the chess board. Odd as these 2 characters are,
the latest gambit serves to take this whole matter out of the Harry Potter world of
geo-political magick, and put down to the mundane world of a detective story and criminal
procedures. It pushes the politicians aside to make room for the gumshoes. From this point
onward, the story is a police procedural.
"... In a nutshell: Krutikov's theory is that these 2 "gopniki" earn their daily bread by illegal (or semi-legal) trade in European vitamins and supplement. This is what brings them to Europe and what brought them to Salisbury, most likely (i.e., the purchase of supplements, for resale in Russia). ..."
Krutikov has an
interesting take on these guys. I think I will probably do this story tomorrow, in my
blog, as a "breaking news".
In a nutshell: Krutikov's theory is that these 2 "gopniki" earn their daily bread by
illegal (or semi-legal) trade in European vitamins and supplement. This is what brings them
to Europe and what brought them to Salisbury, most likely (i.e., the purchase of supplements,
for resale in Russia).
While in Salisbury they decided to have a look at the sights; that part rings true; might
as well see some sights.
The semi-legal nature of their "business" accounts for their nervousness; while their
status in the Russian criminal underworld accounts for their horror at Simonyan's assuming
them to be gay. An allegation which they rejected more vehemently than the accusations of
being poisoners!
Krutikov also points attention to another instance of Vladimir Putin's subtle humor.
Recall that when Putin announced the existence of these guys to the world, a couple of days
ago, he used a strange phrase: "There is nothing particularly criminal there."
As usual, Putin is one step ahead of everybody in this ludicrous chess game.
P.S. "никакого
особого
криминала" was the phrase used by
Putin. At the time nobody paid much attention and it was translated as "There is nothing
criminal there," but the actual phrase is "There is nothing particularly criminal there."
Okay, I have to make a factual correction, Krutikov wass wrong about Putin's quote, and one
of his commenters who questioned it, turned out to be correct. (Which is sort of sad for
Krutikov, because he built his blogpost around the humor of Putin's supposedly implication
that the duo are petty thieves.)
So, I found the actual vid of Putin making this utterance, it can be seen on this
link:
Update: The currently reigning theory in the Russian blogosphere is that Petrov and Boshirov
earn their living buying and selling anabolic steroids on the grey market. Simonjan herself
noted that Petrov has the build of a body-builder.
The theory that they are a "gay pair" is also highly plausible. When Simonjan asked them
about their relationship, they spazzed out and refused to answer. Blog commenters point out
that this would be the moment when a man would indignantly mention that he had a wife and
kids, or a girlfriend; but nothing like that ensued.
Other commenters have noted that Salisbury is well-known in the gay subculture for having
a large number of rather excellent gay bars. Something that might have also drawn this couple
there, in addition to seeing the cathedral spire!
In general, Russian press and blogosphere are having a field day with this story.
Agree with James on that one point, namely that the Russian press is becoming too tabloid-y
and going after the sensationalism.
I feel sorry for this duo in that, if they are indeed gay and have now been outed due to what
they call a "horrendous coincidence", then their lives in Russia will be miserable from this
point onward.
Russian society is simply not accepting of two grown men living together in a
relationship.
To add insult to injury, the gutter-commenters on the Russian blogs continue to call them
"pedophiles". Even though (duh!) they are both grown men.
Not sure if they live in Moscow or not. If in Moscow, they might still be able to survive,
as the city is so Western now. But if they live out there in the sticks -- forget it.
Meanwhile, I just thought of something else. If these guys were sophisticated enough to
play the Westie system, then they could adopt a tone of utter outrage, that the British
government is harassing them for being gay. The Brits would have to cave on that one and
issue a humble apology.
I've been thinking along similar lines – that their apparent shiftiness and caginess
about the nature of their work suggests they could be involved in something that's semi-legal
or which walks a fine line between the legal and the not.
We've seen lots of CCTV footage of Petrov and Boshirov in Salisbury but nothing has been
said of their movements in London; what they did there is probably the reason why they flew
to the UK. Either that or the GRU is deficient in training its would-be assassins on the
reliability (non-existent) of British rail services in bad weather.
Once again, Britain is stiff with CCTV. We know from previous discussions that there is CCTV
coverage of the Skripals' street and even their house. Where is the CCTV video of the two GRU
assassins on Skripal's street, or near his house? The British say they have this evidence and
are happily building timelines around it, but where is the proof? If they have it, why don't
they show it? It would shut Russian defenses right down. All we've seen is evidence of the
two being in Salisbury. Apparently being Russian In Salisbury is now like Driving While
Black. Both automatically presuppose you are a criminal.
If they are gay, then the UK is going to have really bad optics with its setup. Gay GRU
agents? According the UK MSM Russian gays are all being arrested and thrown in jail.
"... The Russian Embassy in London has been keeping a record of all the scenarios presented in the UK by the Govt/MSM and at the last count it was stated that there were 40 different, often contradictory, unproven scenarios. ..."
" Even more strange is the idea that it is wildly improbable for Russian visitors to wish
to visit Salisbury cathedral and Stonehenge. Salisbury Cathedral is one of the most
breathtaking achievements of Norman architecture, one of the great cathedrals of Europe. It
attracts a great many foreign visitors. Stonehenge is world famous and a world heritage site.
I went on holiday this year and visited Wurzburg to see the Bishop's Palace, and then the
winery cooperative at Sommerach. Because somebody does not choose to spend their leisure time
on a beach in Benidorm does not make them a killer. Lots of people go to Salisbury
Cathedral. "
I had exactly the same thoughts! Holidays for most British moronic Tweeters means Benidorm
and boooze in "British Pubs" that arte emblazoned with "Fish & Chips" signs.
I mentioned above that before setting off for London in June, 2016, my two eldest insisted
that we include Stonehenge in our itinerary.
We were only in London for 3 days, though, before we set off for England, heading north to
the English lakeland national park.
The British Foreign Office almost immediately reacted to the RT scoop with its usual bluster:
"Lies and obfuscation!"
Interesting accusation off HM government is that!
Since March 4 of this year, the British side has stated that:
Yulia Skripal brought "Novichok" in her suitcase.
The Skripals were poisoned with buckwheat.
The Skripals were poisoned with bouquet of flowers at the cemetery.
The Skripals were poisoned with an UAV drone.
The Skripals were poisoned through air conditioning in the car.
The Skripals were poisoned with an aerosol.
The Skripals were poisoned by Mikhail Savitskis (aka "Gordon") group, consisting of
6 killers.
The killer/s poured "Novichok"onto a door handle.
The Skripals were poisoned with "Novichok" in a form of a gel.
The Skripals were poisoned with a perfume bottle (so it seems "Novichok" is still
liquid).
The killer/s poured "Novichok" in a public toilet.
The killer/s poured "Novichok" in a hotel room.
The Skripals were poisoned by 2 GRU* agents.
"Novichok" is a "5–8 times more lethal than VX nerve agent" and "the most
deadly ever made", though it can't kill even 2 people.
*There has, in fact, been no such organization known as the GRU in Russia since 2010, when
the official name of the unit was changed from ″GRU″ [
Главное
разведывательное
управление -- Glavnoye
razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye ], namely "The Main intelligence Agency", to "The Main
Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation", or
″GU″ [Главное
управление
Генерального
штаба
Вооружённых
Сил Российской
Федерации -- Glavnoye upravleniye
General'nogo shtaba Vooruzhyonnykh Sil Rossiiskoi Federatsii ].
The Russian Embassy in London has been keeping a record of all the scenarios presented
in the UK by the Govt/MSM and at the last count it was stated that there were 40 different,
often contradictory, unproven scenarios.
Last week, the UK Ambassador to the UN, she who resembles a drag-queen well past his
sell-by date, namely the inimitable Karen Pierce, attempted to take the piss out of Russia by
stating at the UNSC that Russia had put forward 40 different accounts of what had happened,
which ludicrous proposals simply proved how lacking in credibility the Russian government
allegations are.
The reality was, however, that in presenting such accounts, Russia was taking the piss out
of Her Majesty's Government and the sensationalist, Russophobic, warmongering British press
and their more than 40 accounts of what happened in Salisbury last March.
The delectable Karen seemed unaware of this fact.
Recall, that Pierce is the woman, a high ranking British diplomat, no less, who believes
that Russia (i.e. the Russian Federation that came into existence in 1991) was founded on
many of Karl Marx's precepts.
"... My guess is that this book is just too dangerous to allow it to become part of the debate on "fake news" and "Russiagate." Of course now the CIA doesn't even have to exclusively – "own"- journalists as fronts when ex-CIA heads are being hired outright by MSM as pundits. I just wish someone with access would post an English language PDF version online. It would be a real contribution to free thought and free speech to do so. ..."
"... Western elites realize what they could have, what they could do and what they could get away with, but only if they reinvent the political system Hitler created. If they defeat every enemy abroad who might stop them, next they'll do to their own people what the Nazis did to those they didn't want alive ..."
"... Journos have long been pliant enablers for Intel agencies. It's strange how Dr. Ulfkotte's revelations have been taken as some signifier of further Western moral decay/decadence. ..."
"... The real story here, which the media pretends not to notice, is that if Intelligence services and corporations did not finance newspapers they would cease to exist. The old business model whereby newspapers covered their costs by selling advertising and paid circulation is finished. Under that model there were, to an extent, incentives for the publisher to preserve a modicum of credibility in order to keep readership, as well as reasons to publish sensational stories to beat competition. ..."
"... The days that Ulfkotte recalled were times when it took lots of money and careful preparation to put spooks into the newsroom, nowadays the papers are only too happy to publish the CIA's PR and very grateful if the government pays their journalists' salaries. ..."
"... To understand how journalism is bought, go analyze the output of the Uk's Daily Telegraph. They literally sell space to lobbyists and for several years outraged BTL comment would tear the articles to shreds. The whole UK Press prostitutes itself whenever there is a US war on i.e. all the time. It really is about time the CIA were unmasked – they do not serve our interests, they serve only their own . ..."
The rather obvious suppression of the English version of what was a "best seller" in Germany suggests that the Western system
of thought manipulation and consent manufacture sees itself as weaker and more vulnerable than one might at first imagine.
We can see from a year+ of "Russiagate" that Western media is a clown-show, much of so called "alternative media" included.
My guess is that this book is just too dangerous to allow it to become part of the debate on "fake news" and "Russiagate."
Of course now the CIA doesn't even have to exclusively – "own"- journalists as fronts when ex-CIA heads are being hired outright
by MSM as pundits. I just wish someone with access would post an English language PDF version online. It would be a real contribution
to free thought and free speech to do so.
Just like "200 years together" by Solzhenitsyn which was never officially published in English despite Andrei having authored
many works which were big sellers. Just an example of other private business and corporations are often fully responsible
for pro-establishment censorship.
The treatment of the book aroused suspicion because of its content – ie supine news outlets forever dancing to the tune of western
military imperatives.
Ongoing support for illegal wars tell us that the MSM has hardly been at the forefront of informing readers why war criminals
like Hilary and Obama keep getting away with it. In fact Obama, just like Kissinger was awarded a peace prize – so obviously something
has gone very wrong somewhere.
It may be, although it seems unlikely that the mis-handling of an important theme like this is simply due to oversight by the
publisher (as Matt claims) but neither is it beyond the realms of possibility that somebody has had a word with someone in the
publishing world, perhaps because they are not overly keen on the fact Udo Ulfkotte has deviated from the media's mono-narrative
about why it is necessary for the US to destabilise countries and kill so many of their citizens.
Lets face it – it would be harder for the pattern to be maintained if the MSM was not so afraid of telling the truth, or at
least be more willing to hold to account politicians as the consequences of their disastrous policies unfold for all to see.
Maybe you want to have a go at answering the obvious question begged by such self evident truths – why are the MSM usually
lying?
Somebody said banning books is the modern form of book burning, and like Heinrich Heine said two centuries ago, "Where they burn
books, in the end, they start burning people."
Western elites realize what they could have, what they could do and what they could get away with, but only if they reinvent
the political system Hitler created. If they defeat every enemy abroad who might stop them, next they'll do to their own people
what the Nazis did to those they didn't want alive. If enough water sources are lost to fracking, and enough food sources
lost through poisoned seas and forest fires, many people will go to their camps as refuge but few will survive them. This ecological
destruction is for future population reduction.
In the US they use newspeak to say what the Nazis described with more honesty. Their master race became the indispensable nation,
their world domination became full spectrum dominance, and Totalerkrieg became the global war on terror. There will be others.
Farzad Basoft anyone ? Journos have long been pliant enablers for Intel agencies. It's strange how Dr. Ulfkotte's revelations
have been taken as some signifier of further Western moral decay/decadence.
Maybe I am taking what you wrote out of context but I don't find it strange at all .It is just that someone, Udo, on the inside
has become a whistle blower , and confirmed what most suspected .The establishment can't have that.
As the economy growth has this so-called invisible hand, journalism also has an 'invisible pen'. One of the questions that
need an answer: how come feminists are so anti-Putin and anti-Russia? Easy to connect to dots?
The real story here, which the media pretends not to notice, is that if Intelligence services and corporations did not finance
newspapers they would cease to exist. The old business model whereby newspapers covered their costs by selling advertising and
paid circulation is finished. Under that model there were, to an extent, incentives for the publisher to preserve a modicum of
credibility in order to keep readership, as well as reasons to publish sensational stories to beat competition.
Those days
are gone: none of the newspapers make financial profits, they now exist because they have patrons. They always did, of course,
but now they have nothing else- the advertisers have left and circulation is diminishing rapidly.
The days that Ulfkotte recalled were times when it took lots of money and careful preparation to put spooks into the newsroom,
nowadays the papers are only too happy to publish the CIA's PR and very grateful if the government pays their journalists' salaries.
As to competition that is restricted to publishers competing to demonstrate their loyalty to the government and their ingenuity
in candy coating its propaganda.
Anyone doubt that Luke Harding will be in the running for a Pulitzer? Or perhaps even the Nobel Prize for Literature?
For what it's worth, I skimmed through this very long link by Matt, and could find no mention of poison gas -- certainly no denunciation
-- just horrific conventional arms : Der Spiegel 1984:
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13508659.html
Also for what it's worth, the German publisher's blurb which I got Google to translate above, says there is much more to the
book than old Soddem: the author names names and points to organizations.
Now, without any evidence, based only on my faulty memory and highly biased interpretation of events strung together on a timeline,
here is my conspiracy story about a very nice country called Iraq and a very nasty Iraqi called Saddam who came to a very nasty
end at the hands of his much more nasty friends, who first gave him a boost and then put in the boot.
1914 Great Britain invades Iraq and BP takes over the Iraqi oilfields.
1968 Iraqi govt member under Yaya wants to nationalize the oil. CIA coup replaces Yaya with Saddam as a safe pair of hands.
1970 Saddam the dirty dog does the dirty on the friends who put him in power; he nationalizes Iraqi oil. And nationalizes Iraqi
banks. From now on Saddam is a dead man walking. Like Mossadeq in Iran whom the US-UK replaced with the Shah
1978 But in Iran the Shah is replaced by the Islamic Socialist Republic -- who again nationalize Iranian oil. Saddam's
friends now face a dilemma: kill him first, or kill the Ayatollah's first? They decide to first go for the Ayatollahs -- with
Saddam's help.
1980 Saddam invades Iran with help from US and Germany -- including, strangely enough, generous supplies of poison gas.
1984-1989 Saddam's invasion of Iran flops. Reports about use of poison gas by Saddam begin to emerge, first in German newspapers
then even debated US govt.
1990 Saddam thinks he has restored credit with the US & Germany by using their weapons against Iran, and now has the green
light to invade another country. Finds out his mistake in the Gulf War. He is once again, a dead man walking. So is his country.
2001 Saddam is accused of harbouring Islamic terrorists who knocked down 3 skyscrapers by flying 2 passenger planes into
them. The idea of Secular Baathist Saddam in league with religious fanatics is ridiculous, but what the heck it's a story.
2003 Saddam hanged for, inter alia, use of chemical weapons; likewise his minister whom the MSM have a field day comically
calling "Chemical" Ali.
2017 Who's next? The Ayatollahs, of course. And anyone else who dares to nationalize "our" oil. Or "our" banks.
That is more than plausible. Unfortunately. Hard not to sympathize with the Iraqis and feel shame for what has been done in the
name of the US and UK. Rotten to the core, and sanctimonious to boot.
To understand how journalism is bought, go analyze the output of the Uk's Daily Telegraph. They literally sell space to lobbyists
and for several years outraged BTL comment would tear the articles to shreds. The whole UK Press prostitutes itself whenever
there is a US war on i.e. all the time. It really is about time the CIA were unmasked – they do not serve our interests, they
serve only their own .
The Guardian sells space to lobbyists too. Not ad space – article space. It's literally hiring itself out to whomever wants to
buy the right to publish an article under its name.
Well one things stands out in bold and that is the fear that such a revelation is associated with. 'Broad spectrum dominance'
of a central intelligent agency is a reversal of the wholeness of being expressing through all its parts.
Fake intelligence
is basically made up to serve a believed goal. The terrorism of fear generates the goal of a self-protection that sells true relationship
to 'save itself'.
This goes deep into what we take to be our mind. The mind that thinks it is in control by controlling what it thinks.
If I can observe this in myself at will, is it any surprise I can see it in our world?
What is the fear that most deeply motivates or drives the human agenda?
I do not ask this of our superficial thinking, but of a core self-honesty that cannot be 'killed' but only covered over with a
thinking-complex.
And is it insane or unreal to be moved by love?
We are creatures of choice and beneath all masking, we are also the creator of choice.
But the true creative is not framed into a choosing between, but feeling one call as the movement of it.
When the 'intelligence' of a masking narrative no longer serves, be the willingness for what you no longer claim to have, and
open to being moved from within.
I am so tired of the simmering fury that lives inside me. This bubbling cauldron brim full of egregious truths, images and accounts
accumulated over nearly 40 years of looking behind the headlines. I disagree that the usurpation of journalists and media organisations
is in any way a recent phenomena. It certainly predates my emergent mind. And even the most lauded of anti-establishment hacks
and film makers self-censored to some degree. True, the blatant in your face propaganda and thought control agenda has accelerated,
but it was always there. I do not believe Chomsky, Oliver Stone, Pilger and their like could have done much more than they have,
that is to guide us in a direction counter to the official narrative. And to insinuate they are gatekeepers, when our heads never
stretch above the parapet, is really just a reflection of our own frustration that despite their work the only change remains
for the worse.
Yet I fear worse is to come. Our safe bitching in glorious anonymity has been all that we have had as solace to the angst that
pervades us, the other 1%. But the the thumbscrew is tightening. We may be as little as months away from any dissent being entirely
removed from the internet by AI algorithms. I have already been receiving warnings on several sites anyone here would call legitimate
that have had their security certificates removed and the statement that the site may contain malicious code etc. How prepared
are we for blackout?
A foundation should be set up in remembrance of Udo and sponsored by all true journalists and truth seekers. Maybe some day there
will be a Udo Ulfkotte award to the bravest journalist of the year .Wouldn't that be something .Udo's work would not have been
in vain . That would throw a monkey wrench into orgs like the Guardian and their ilk .Just dreaming out loud maybe , but with
good intentions.
Thank you Alun for the link to the German edition, which I have managed to download (naughty me!) I think the suggestion of retranslating
important sections and dressing these in some commentary for (presumably legitimate) publication on e.g. Off-G would be a good
idea. I'm quite fluent in German and would be glad to help.
Mods: do you see any legal pitfalls?
That depends on who holds the rights to the English language version and the original and whether they would want to take issue.
If it's Ulfkotte's family they may be happy to see his work get some sort of airing in English. If it's his publishers we can
imagine they will see things differently – as indeed would whoever it is that seems to want the book buried.
I heard it is blocked in many western countries, as the site is well known for its disregard for copyright. Fortunately not the
case where I am (NZ). If you're technically inclined, a VPN or anonymising application may help, although a VPN that 'exits' in
a western area won't get you any further ahead.
One hopes. I also hold out hope for F. William Engdahl's "Geheimakte NGOs." Here's a Dissident Voice article in which Engdahl
discusses the role of NGOs in aiding and abetting the US regime change program:
Yes, it has also been interesting to note that in 2015 the Guardian published a review of Richard Sakwa's book 'Frontline Ukraine'
in which the author was critical of both NATO and the EU, in fomenting this crisis. The 2014 'coup' which was carried out in February
2014 was, according to the independent geopolitical publication, Strator, 'the most blatant in history.' The appraisal which was
carried out by Guardian journalist Jonathon Steele was generally favourably disposed to Sakwa's record of events; however, Mr
Steele now rarely publishes anything in the Guardian. Read into this what you like.
As to Sakwa's latest book,'' Russia Against the Rest'', – nothing, not a peep, it doesn't exist, it never existed, it never
will exist. It would appear to be the case that the Guardian is now fully integrated into the military/surveillance/media-propaganda
apparatus. The liberal gatekeeper as to what is and what isn't acceptable. Its function is pure to serve the interests of the
powerful, in much the same way as the church did in the middle ages. The media doesn't just serve the interests power it is also
part of the same structure of dominance, albeit the liberal wing of the ruling coalition.
During the British war against the Boers in South Africa, at the turn of the 19/20 century, the then Manchester Guardian took
a brave and critical stand against the UK government. This lead to its offices in Manchester being attacked by jingoistic mobs,
as was the home of the then editor C.P.Scott, whose family needed police protection. In those days 'Facts were Sacred', unlike
the present where opposing views are increasingly ignored or suppressed.
Having just watched the documentary film tribute to I.F. Stone, "All Governments Lie", I was struck by the fact that no-one mentioned
Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone journalist (who outed General McChrystal, but whose Mercedes went mysteriously out of control,
hit a tree and exploded, throwing the engine 200 yards clear of the wreck ). Here was a film about control and self-censorship,
yet no-one even breathed the acronyms C.I.A. or FBI. Matt Taibbi referred to a silent coup, but none dared to mention the assassinations
of JFK, MLK and RFK. These doyens of Truth included the thoroughly dodgy Noam Chomsky. Finally, the Spartacus website suggests
that the saintly I.F. Stone was in the pay of the CIA. Other terms unspoken were CIA Operation Mockingbird or Operation Northwoods.
There was a clip of 9/11, but zero attempt to join up all the dots.
RIP Udo Ulfkotte. CIA long ago developed a dart to induce all the signs of a heart attack, so one is naturally somewhat suspicious.
Lies and assassinations are two sides of the same coin.
The only thing harder to find than Udo Ulfkotte's book is a Guardian review of it.
I daresay any mention of this book, BTL, would immediately be moderated (i.e censored) followed by a yellow or red card for
the cheeky commentator.
The level of pretence on this forum has now reached epic proportions, and seems to cuts both ways, ie. commentators pretending
that there are not several subjects which are virtually impossible to discuss in any depth (such as media censorship), and moderators
pretending that 'community standards' is not simply a crude device to control conversational discourse, especially when a commentators
point of view stray beyond narrow, Guardian approved borders.
Books, such as 'Bought Journalists' (which expose the corruption at the heart of western media) are especially inconvenient
for the risible 'fake news' agenda currently being rammed down the readerships throat – some of these people at the Guardian have
either absolutely no insight, or no shame.
Ulfkotte and Ganser in their ways are both telling a similar story – NATO, i.e an arm of the US military industrial complex
are mass murderers and sufficiently intimidating to have most western journalists singing from the same hymn sheet.
Since the Guardian follows the party line it is only possible to send coded or cryptic messages (BTL) should commentators wish
to deviate from the approved narrative.
For example, I was 'pre-moderated' for having doubts about the veracity of the so called 'Parsons Green tube bomb', especially
the nature of the injuries inflicted on a young model who looked like she was suffering from toothache.
https://www.thenational.ae/image/policy:1.628812:1505494262/wo16-web-parsons-green.JPG?f=16×9&w=1024&$p$f$w=e135eda
Been there, done that. What ordinarily happens if the submission is proper and cannot be censored on the basis of impropriety
or foulmouthedness or any other good reason, but exposes a Guardian sacred cow in an embarrassing light, is that it is said to
be off topic. Now this is really unaccountable, and truly subjective.
The community in community standards is "them" and has close ties to the 1%, if I hazard a guess.
Prime Minister Teresa May took
to the floor of the Parliament today to report that the Crown Prosecution Service and Police
had issued warrants for two Russian GRU officials who, they claim, had carried out the Skripal
attacks last March. "We were right," she said with a stiff upper lip, "to say in March that the
Russian State was responsible." Mugshots were released of two people whose names, she declared,
were aliases (how they know they are GRU officials if they don't know their names was not
explained). "This chemical weapon attack on our soil was part of a wider pattern of Russian
behavior that persistently seeks to undermine our security and that of our allies around the
world," she intoned.
At the same time, dire warnings have been issued to Syria and Russia that there will be a
major military response if Syria uses chemical weapons in Idlib. This is despite the fact that
Russia has presented the proof to the OPCW and to the UN that the British intelligence-linked
Olive security outfit and the British-sponsored White Helmet terrorists have prepared a false
flag chlorine attack in Idlib, to be blamed on the Syrian government, to trigger such a
military atrocity by the US and the UK.
Also at the same time, in the US, Washington Post fraudster Bob Woodward released a book
claiming that numerous Trump cabinet officials made wildly slanderous statements about Trump --
all third hand from anonymous sources, of course. Chief of Staff John Kelly called the claims
"total BS," while Secretary of State Jim Mattis called it typical Washington DC fiction, adding
that "the idea that I would show contempt for the elected Commander-in-Chief, President Trump,
or tolerate disrespect to the office of the President from within our Department of Defense, is
a product of someone's rich imagination."
Worse, the New York Times, apparently for the first time, printed an "anonymous" op-ed by
someone claiming to be a "senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known
to us," under the title: "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration -- I work
for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and
his worst inclinations." Whether this person is or is not who they claim to be, it is clearly
part of the British coup attempt, as proven in the op-ed itself. After calling Trump amoral,
unhinged, and more, and claiming there is discussion within the Administration of using the
25th Amendment to remove him for mental incompetence, it then states: "Take foreign policy: In
public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as
President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little
genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations [read: the United
Kingdom - ed.]. Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is
operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and
punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than
ridiculed as rivals. On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of
Mr. Putin's spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He
complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further
confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to
impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew
better such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable."
And, while news about the British drive for war with Russia and their attempted coup against
the government of the United States fills the airwaves and the press, not a single word --
repeat, not a single word -- has been reported in the US or British media about the truly
historic conference which took place on Monday and Tuesday in Beijing, the Forum on
China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAP). Helga Zepp-LaRouche declared this week that this event will
be recognized in history as the end of the era of colonialism and neo-colonialism. Every
African nation except one was represented at the conference in Beijing (the "one" was
Swaziland, the last holdout on the African continent which still maintains diplomatic relations
with Taiwan rather than Beijing).
All but six were represented their head of state. They reviewed the transformation taking
place across Africa due to the Belt and Road Initiative since the last FOCAP meeting in 2015,
and laid out plans for the even more rapid development over the next three years, and on to
2063 -- the target year for full modernization over 50 years, adopted by the African Union in
2013. One after another the leaders of the African nations described the actual liberation
taking place, finally seeing in China the example that real development and the escape from
poverty is possible. The program launched at the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung,
Indonesia, where the formerly colonized nations met for the first time without their colonial
masters, has finally been realized.
But no one reading the western press would even know that this transformative event had
taken place.
Rather, there is only the new McCarthyism, trying to demonize Russia and China, to revive
the "enemy image" which should have been eliminated with the fall of the Soviet Union and the
recognition of the People's Republic of China.
Trump threatens this new McCarthyism, insisting that America should be friends with Russia
and China. No longer will the U.S. accept Lord Palmerston's imperial dictate for the Empire,
that "nations have no permanent friends or allies, only permanent interests." The "special
relationship" is to be no more.
This is the cause of Theresa May's hysterical rant today in the Parliament. Better war, led
by the "dumb giant" America, than to see the Empire destroyed in a world united through a
shared vision of universal development.
Britain's drive for war must be exposed and stopped, along with their Russiagate coup
attempt in the US. A victory for the common aims of mankind is within our grasp, but the danger
is great, and the time is short.
Some interesting insights. Looks like high stake political poker
Notable quotes:
"... While Britain crumbled in compliments of the OPCW experts it had bought for the act, Russia dealt the most powerful bomb attack in Idlib, clearing the way for the Syrian army to destroy the last enclave of American suckers. And thus it struck a blow to the British political elite. After all, all the dances around the Skripals and the subsequent sanctions are designed to prevent what Russia is doing now in Idlib. Not prevented. And this is a demonstration of the weakness of the British ruling class, capable only of biting stealthily behind its heels. ..."
machine translated from the original Russian; excerpted:
The fact is that Russia pursues its policy without regard to their provocations. She defeated the Wahhabis trained by the
West in the Caucasus, snatched Crimea from under the nose. The US scenario in Ukraine broke. Restores the EAEC. In Syria, Russia
completely threw the Anglo-Saxon West off the pedestal, which he held there all the post-war 50 years. That is, with its bombing
of head choppers, Russia has broken the rigid "Full Spectrum Dominance" situation created and maintained by the Americans
since the dissolution of the USSR.
This is a disaster, which the Anglo-Saxon world has nothing to answer nuclear to Russia.
While Britain crumbled in compliments of the OPCW experts it had bought for the act, Russia dealt the most powerful
bomb attack in Idlib, clearing the way for the Syrian army to destroy the last enclave of American suckers. And thus it struck
a blow to the British political elite. After all, all the dances around the Skripals and the subsequent sanctions are designed
to prevent what Russia is doing now in Idlib. Not prevented. And this is a demonstration of the weakness of the British ruling
class, capable only of biting stealthily behind its heels.
But worst of all, the actions in Idlib demonstrate the US weakness. Trump is completely beaten down - by his neocon rivals,
not
Russia. Russia has revealed the preparations for the provocation of the Khimatki in Idlib, which the US rep in the United Nations
has announced to the whole world. With all the details, such number of barrels of chorine delivered to headchoppers
and their color,
as well the path of those barrels to Idlib and places of their secret storage. Now with those revelation it make much less
sense to launch this operation.
But the operation will be. The match will take place in any weather. The United States has already outlined the places on
which they will strike rocket-bomb strikes. The assault will be more decisive than the previous time. Preparation is as if
the US is confident - the chlorine attack will take place. Then, when they decide in the US. Not in Damascus, but in Washington.
That is, in general, all masks are dropped and the States openly prepare for aggression with provocation in a sovereign country
where they are open in the status of an occupier. And even if there is no chemotherapy at all, the American blow will take
place. Too much Russian was battered by bombs of American protégés. They are too close to defeat, for which the reason for
finding Americans in Syria will disappear. How can this be allowed? The impact of prestige is necessary and it will be, even
if the Sun falls to the ground and the Mississippi will flow backwards. Only prestige is not visible.
The USA are increasingly falling down replacing the strategy with tactics. The attack on Syria is necessary for Americans not because
they will decide the outcome of the campaign. But because the US needs to introduce its
ground forces to change the course of the war, with all possible negative consequences such as possible the death of the military
personnel and the open clash
with Iran, Syria and Russia. And even with Turkey. With China silently standing behind them the
global consequences of this action are unpredictable. One possible consequence can well be the collapse of NATO. This "Second Vietnam"
might crush not only the American president, but the US itself. The other scenario is that the USA just want to "score a goal of prestige" and leave
the lost match. They will strike at Syria, where again Russian intelligence will reveal in advance the alleged targets of the
strike, withdraw the critical assets from there, and then we have a firework of exploding Tomahawks intercepted by
defenders.
Russia in Idlib is now in a very difficult position due to Turkey, not so much the USA. The repelling of the USA
attach is one thing, but the main danger that it can't achieve too much on the ground de to Turkish interests in the area.
Trump attack would be mainly for domestic consumption, the show created on the4 eve of the congressional elections. And
even repelling the attack can be counterproductive -- Russia risks drowning Trump, instead of somehow supporting
his formidable image and helping to win. Simply because Trump is beneficial to Russia - it's too cool he breaks everything
on what the American power of the past decades was based. Helping his impeachment is not in the national interests of Russia.
That means that Trump must come out of those stupid and counterproductive Tomahawks salvos without losing his face.
The US remains the world hegemon and want to remain as such for a long time. That's why it beats Russia with sanctions.
But Russia does not need to oppose the USA. It just need to help to build a countervailing power. And Berlin, supported by Moscow's cheap gas,
can be countervailing force for London in Europe.
The threat of losing global hegemony is very painful for both the British and Americans. It is so painful that
they organized the collapse of the ruble and this false flag operation
in Salisbury. And then OPSW were intimidated by British special services.
Russia should responds asymmetrically -- by continuing to build up its economy and prosperity of its citizens and ignore such insane and ineffective
actions by London and Washington.
Russia already had shown Erdogan how easily caravans with oil are bombed,
Russia does not want to allow its exports from Syria. And the US will have to withdraw from Syria there sooner or later.
Still, Russia should give Trump the opportunity to finish his term without outright humiliation in Syria. The United States
might not have the second such president, as Russia will not have a second Gorbachev.
"... "Renowned French security expert Paul Barril has let loose a bombshell: the existence of Operation Beluga, a covert Western intelligence scheme intended to undermine Russia and its leaders." ..."
"... Renowned French security expert Paul Barril, in an interview, alleges that Berezovsky was working closely with MI6 and the CIA to discredit Russia and Putin, and that large sums from these agencies were passing through Berezovsky's hands to be paid to individuals to cooperate in these efforts. Barril says Litvinenko was one of Berezovsky's bag men, who passed funds on to others. ..."
"... "Russia has nothing to do with the murder of Litvinenko. The case was fabricated from the beginning. Polonium was chosen as the poison due to its production in Russia, it would implicate Russia. The objective of the whole operation was to discredit president Putin and the FSB. It was done because Russia is blocking US interests around the world, especially in Syria. It was an attempt to weaken Putin's hold on power, to destabilize Russia." ..."
"Polonium was chosen as the poison due to its production in Russia, it would implicate Russia". Exactly. Just as 'Novichok' was
allegedly used in Salisbury, due to it allegedly being developed in Russia (Mirzyanov) – even though it wasn't actually used against
the Skripals at all. Maybe this element of the hoax was inspired by Beluga's use of polonium in the Litvinenko affair.
Miheila, the polonium story always seems crazy to me. It relies on Litvinenko being too mean not to buy his own cup of tea. Hardly
a foolproof assassination method.
PAGE 4 OF 4
This follows a similar pattern to Alexander Litvinenko. Walter Litvinenko, his father, believes Alex received a second dose of
agent whilst in hospital. It was a Worlds Apart interview but is now the subject of an Ofcom complaint. Walter said his suspicions
were raised by the secrecy of the British government and the fact that they wouldn't let him see any reports. So he made his own
investigations, and from initially thinking it was Russia, he now believes it was the British government. He returned to Russia
in fear of his life.
"Renowned French security expert Paul Barril has let loose a bombshell: the existence of Operation Beluga, a covert Western
intelligence scheme intended to undermine Russia and its leaders."
Renowned French security expert Paul Barril, in an interview, alleges that Berezovsky was working closely with MI6 and
the CIA to discredit Russia and Putin, and that large sums from these agencies were passing through Berezovsky's hands to be paid
to individuals to cooperate in these efforts. Barril says Litvinenko was one of Berezovsky's bag men, who passed funds on to others.
"Russia has nothing to do with the murder of Litvinenko. The case was fabricated from the beginning. Polonium was chosen
as the poison due to its production in Russia, it would implicate Russia. The objective of the whole operation was to discredit
president Putin and the FSB. It was done because Russia is blocking US interests around the world, especially in Syria. It was
an attempt to weaken Putin's hold on power, to destabilize Russia."
Barril mentions the outspoken Putin foe, financier William Browder, as being in close cooperation with Berezovsky in the discreditation
efforts. He also says he is sure Berezovsky was murdered by his secret service handlers after they realized he was behaving erratically
and had to be silenced so that he wouldn't give them away.
"... So they went through the same corridor just like I demonstrated in https://postimg.cc/image/pw7t667ch/ . This means the UK police manipulated the images, i.e. fabricated the evidence. Very interesting to have this confirmed directly.... ..."
I added bold in the quote below:
--- The RT editor-in-chief also touched upon the most puzzling picture of the two, the photo
from the Gatwick airport.
"Here is the picture that puzzled the whole world, Gatwick airport, you are leaving
through a gate literally in the same times, almost the same second. How did it happen?" she
asked.
" We always go together through the same corridor and the same custom service
officer or a policeman. One goes, the other waits. We went through the corridor together, we
always [do it] together .
How did it happen? It's better to ask them [UK police]," Boshirov replied.
---
So they went through the same corridor just like I demonstrated in https://postimg.cc/image/pw7t667ch/ . This
means the UK police manipulated the images, i.e. fabricated the evidence. Very interesting to
have this confirmed directly....
... hilariously, UK security minister Wallace asserted the Novichok was assuredly in a perfume bottle, got into the country
because of poor baggage checks, had the capability "to kill or injure hundreds and hundreds of people", but was not a health risk
to persons on the plane or public transit used by the suspects. ????
Article over at the Stalker Zone on the forged letter that brought down the first UK Labour government of Ramsey McDonald in 1924.
"The frank forgery that is the "Zinoviev's letter" came to London from the Riga department of the Secret Intelligence Service
of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office of Britain (or SIS, nowadays better known as MI-6) with an assurance that the authenticity
of the document "does not raise doubts" (the most ancient form of "highly likely") The Labour government was doomed. Rectifying
the situation in such a short period of time before elections didn't seem to be possible."
Mark Twain's truism still holds today, "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
And the media is little different except for sites like this. Thanks B and keep up the good fight. Don't let the bastards get
you down.
Vladimir Kornilov: The Prequel to the Skripal Affair – Britain Investigates the "Great Forgery"
To add to Norwegian@3, George Galloway made a couple of very interesting points,
especially about the time stamp on the photo. He said the Skripals left the house in the
morning, never to return. The "Russian agents" could not have arrived in Salisbury until noon
or thereabouts...hmmmm...and they would have had to paint the doorknob with this deadliest of
poisons in full view of everyone. Perhaps the Russians have learned to time travel or warp
time. I wouldn't put it past them http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50231.htm
Prime Minister Theresa May made a
statement to accuse Russia of being behind the Skripal poisoning
case . She went to address the parliament right after prosecutors accused two Russian men,
allegedly military intelligence officers, to perpetrate the assassination attempt. These are
the first criminal charges in the case that
has spoiled the West-Russian relations so much. The British government has issued EU arrest
warrants and Interpol red notices to have the two individuals arrested by police in any country
should they leave Russia's territory.
According to the PM, Great Britain and its friends must step up collective efforts against
Russia. Its military intelligence service (the GRU) is to be specifically targeted employing
"the full range of tools from across our national security apparatus." Before making
the speech that
sounded hostile toward Moscow, the PM had talked the matter over with US President Trump
and other friendly world leaders. Ms May is expected to raise the issue at the UN General
Assembly later this month. No doubt, London will ask the Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to investigate the case. The UK will probably impose sanctions of its
own and call on others to join. As usual, media "leaks" will pour more fuel on the fire.
Anti-Russia forces in the West will get the second wind.
Ben Wallace, Minister of State for Security at the Home Office,
attributed direct blame on Russian President Vladimir, something Ms. May avoided to do. He
said the Russian leader bears responsibility for the nerve agent attack.
The photos of two men that have visited the UK are not evidence to support the PM' claims.
"We have heard or seen two names, these names mean nothing to me personally," Kremlin
aide Yuri Ushakov
told reporters in Moscow. "I don't understand why this was done and what sort of signal
the British side is sending." But one thing is curtain – the British government
wants as much noise and publicity as possible. It raises hue and cry in an evident attempt
to further deteriorate the West-Russia relations and it does it on purpose. Why now? Because
this is the right time to pursue the hidden agenda.
US Ambassador to Britain Woody Johnson said on Twitter: "The US and UK stand firmly
together in holding Russia accountable for its act of aggression on UK soil." He was quick
to react. Evidently, Mr Johnson wasted no time on waiting for instructions. It had all been
known, discussed and decided before.
By spearheading the anti-Russia campaign in the West, London increases its political weight
before Brexit takes place. With its unity in peril, the West needs something to keep it
together and the Russia's bogey comes in handy.
The second round of US sanctions imposed to punish Russia for the alleged, but never proven,
use of nerve agents, is much tougher than the first one in force since August. It is to take
effect in November – the same month US midterm elections take place.
The "Skripal sanctions" are not introduced by Congress but the State Department. It's up to
the president to impose them or not. If President Trump's party keeps the majority in both
houses, the pressure to prove he is tough on Russia will ease. The president may soften the
sanctions or not impose them at all. The reinvigoration of "Skripal poisoning" campaign will
make it much harder to do. Donald Trump as well as EU leaders will be under constant pressure
to do more to counter Russia.
True, the EU is not interested in whipping up tensions in its relationship with Russia amid
the sanctions war and other things to deteriorate its relationship with the United States. But
on the other hand, Eurosceptics, who are friendly to Moscow, are predicted to win big in the
European parliament election in May. They may get every third vote and have enough seats to
stymie the functioning of the "unreformed" EU as we know it today. It will put into jeopardy
the very survival of the bloc. Many of Eurosceptics want the relations with Russia normalized
and the sanctions lifted. Be it Skripal or something else, an anti-Russia campaign is needed to
attack them. They'll be painted as "useful idiots" or "traitors" promoting Russia's evil plans
to destroy the West. Here again, the imaginary "Russia threat" serves the purpose
perfectly.
The events in Syria are distorted to denigrate Russia but that's happening far away.
Spreading around the stories about Moscow using chemical weapons in Europe may have the desired
effect to keep voters away from throwing their support behind those who can change the European
political landscape.
There is actually nothing new in what the British PM stated. It's not so important what
exactly she said. It's timing that matters. The moment is right for anti-Russia hysteria to be
given a fresh impetus. Will this tactics work? The November elections in the US and the
European elections in May will show. The closer is the vote, the more concocted stories about
the nefarious Russia's activities will come into the spotlight.
"... "I want to address them [the suspects]... [I hope] they contact the media. I hope they appear and tell everything about themselves," ..."
"... "Neither Russia's top leadership nor those with lower ranks, and [Russian] officials, have had anything to do with the events in Salisbury," ..."
"... "It seems very strange that these people have absolutely left what seems to be a very reckless and clear trail of evidence, which almost seems to be designed, or at least would almost inevitably lead to, the conclusions that the police and the authorities have come to today, in other words that Russia were to blame," ..."
"... "bits of evidence that may look pretty compelling but will never be tested in a real court of law." ..."
"... "perfect cover for smuggling the weapon into the country and a perfect delivery method for the attack against the Skripal's front door." ..."
HomeWorld NewsWe know who people named as suspects in Skripal
case are, they are civilians – Putin Published time: 12 Sep, 2018 06:56 Edited time:
12 Sep, 2018 12:57 Get short URL 'Alexander
Petrov' and 'Ruslan Boshirov' are seen in an image handed out by the Metropolitan Police in
London, Britain / Reuters Moscow is aware of who the people named as suspects in the Skripal
case are, President Vladimir Putin said, adding that these people are civilians. Saying that
there is "nothing criminal" about the two, Putin also hopes that the people in
question will eventually come forward and talk to the media.
"I want to address them [the suspects]... [I hope] they contact the media. I hope they
appear and tell everything about themselves," he said, addressing the audience during the
Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in the Russian city of Vladivostok.
Earlier in September, UK prosecutors named two Russians they suspect of poisoning Sergei
Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury this March. According to London, their names are
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. Russia denies any involvement and accuses Britain of
spinning the case to stir anti-Russian sentiment.
Beyond identifying them as Russian nationals, the prosecutors gave no indication as to who
the men are.
After London again blamed Russia, implying that officials at the highest levels of power
could be responsible for the poisoning, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rebuffed the
allegations.
"Neither Russia's top leadership nor those with lower ranks, and [Russian] officials,
have had anything to do with the events in Salisbury," he said at that time.
The Kremlin spokesman added that Putin didn't personally speak to the two individuals
identified by the British authorities as suspects in the case. Russian law enforcement has not
made any moves to prosecute them, Peskov said.
According to the investigators, the suspects who arrived in Britain from Moscow left traces
of the poison used in the attack in the hotel room they stayed in. They were also caught on
CCTV cameras in Salisbury twice, including on the day of the attack, and traveled back directly
to the Russian capital.
This trail of evidence from the supposedly highly-trained perpetrators casts doubt over
Moscow's involvement, according to a number of security experts. "It seems very strange
that these people have absolutely left what seems to be a very reckless and clear trail of
evidence, which almost seems to be designed, or at least would almost inevitably lead to, the
conclusions that the police and the authorities have come to today, in other words that Russia
were to blame," Charles Shoebridge, a security expert and former British military officer,
told
RT. Annie Machon, a former MI5 intelligence officer, said the inquiry into the case has
effectively turned into a trial by media, based on "bits of evidence that may look pretty
compelling but will never be tested in a real court of law."
London also insists that a counterfeit Nina Ricci perfume box was used as container and
delivery device for the chemical used in the poisoning. It was later found by Charlie Rowley in
the town of Amesbury, not far from Salisbury. They also claim that the noxious agent was in a
bottle that had been altered to make it "perfect cover for smuggling the weapon into the
country and a perfect delivery method for the attack against the Skripal's front
door."
Reacting to the prosecutors' statement, Russian envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzya joked that
the nerve agent attack has so far had only one benefactor – Nina Ricci.
Today's latest offering is that the 'Russians' in the 'mugshots' released last week are
'already dead' having been 'executed by Putin' to stop them talking, forever. Which neatly
avoids the British state asking Russia for help in identifying them. London's failure to do
so was already arousing suspicion amongst a cynical public. There is now no point, the
would-be assassins are now six-feet below the permafrost of Anglo-Russian relations.
The media here have completely ignored the statement of the head of the anti-terrorist
squad of Scotland Yard that he had "No" evidence of Russian state involvement in the crime
in Salisbury, preferring instead the cheap barroom brawling of the British prime minister
on the floor of the House of Commons cheered on by the vulgar popular press and their more
refined elder sisters in the upmarket papers and on the BBC.
FSB arrests ISIS member 'who planned murder of a Donbass leader on behalf of
Ukraine'
The Russian security service, the FSB, says it has arrested an Islamic State operative
who was planning to murder one of the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's
Republic (DNR) on behalf of the Ukrainian authorities.
The suspected terrorist was identified as Mejid Magomedov, who was born in 1988 in Russia's
southern Dagestan republic. He was arrested on Sunday in Russia's Smolensk region in the
west of the country.
https://www.rt.com/news/438028-fsb-isis-member-ukraine/
Explosive Skripal allegations may blow up in Syria - George Galloway
Today's latest offering is that the 'Russians' in the 'mugshots' released last week are
'already dead' having been 'executed by Putin' to stop them talking, forever. Which neatly
avoids the British state asking Russia for help in identifying them. London's failure to do
so was already arousing suspicion amongst a cynical public. There is now no point, the
would-be assassins are now six-feet below the permafrost of Anglo-Russian relations.
The media here have completely ignored the statement of the head of the anti-terrorist
squad of Scotland Yard that he had "No" evidence of Russian state involvement in the crime
in Salisbury, preferring instead the cheap barroom brawling of the British prime minister
on the floor of the House of Commons cheered on by the vulgar popular press and their more
refined elder sisters in the upmarket papers and on the BBC.
"the statement of the head of the anti-terrorist squad of Scotland Yard that he
had "No" evidence of Russian state involvement in the crime in Salisbury "
Yes. The UK government has lost its marbles in the pursuit of power & money. They
suffer the same disease as their Israeli and US counterparts -- the loss of the life-saving
integrity and intelligence and the triumph of the life-threatening stupidity.
The western governments have become incompetent due to the lack of the populace' supervision.
For any living organism, no feedback means no protective actions ensuring the survival of the
organism.
The Cheneys and Bibis and Blairs of the world are not intelligent enough even to envision the
future for their immediate progeny, nevermind grandkids. These stupid elders are covered in
the blood of the innocent.
Two Russian GRU hit men who apparently spent a considerable amount of their small amount of
time whilst on a mission of death in Merry England mugging in front of CCTV cameras.
And they only killed one person, and not their intended target at that: a junky, drug
pushing bum's alcoholic womanfriend, who unfortunatly was accidently contaminated with the
deadliest nerve poison known to man.
As a Scotland counter-terrorist chief plod said, these were trained professionals in the
killing trade, and as Prime Minister May said, they belong to a tightly disciplined
organization whose orders come directly from the top, meaning the Dark Lord no less.
Simply sickening and despicable!
Good job Russians are a bunch of dickheads, otherwise the whole population of Salisbury
might have been poisoned – or the South of England, even.
It's amazing that so much crisp, instantly-recognizable footage exists of the hit men, almost
as if they were laying out an easily-reconstructable route for observers; at least, as
contrasted with the blurry and ambiguous photo evidence of the Skripals, which seems to rely
on happy snaps by friends as much as government resources. Until they get Yulia on camera to
make her post-Novichok debut, of course – then, it's theatre-quality. In fact, the
quality of British evidence seems to go up markedly as soon as the preceding exhibits are the
object of public derision.
The poison was polonium-210, a rare radioactive isotope, tiny, invisible, undetectable.
Ingested, it was fatal. The polonium had originated at a nuclear reactor in the Urals and a
production line in the Russian town of Sarov. A secret FSB laboratory, the agency's "research
institute", then converted it into a dinkily portable weapon.
Lugovoi and Kovtun, however, were rubbish assassins. The quality of Moscow's hired
killers had slipped since the glory days of the KGB.
It's because they're idiots, see!
Although Russians are a direct to Western civilization and against whom we must be ever on
guard, they are also all congenital dickheads, doomed to failure -- always.
"... We know the proceeds will go unmentioned into offshore havens and the London property market. Britain would derive no geopolitical benefit as a whole. The benefits would accrue only to a kleptocracy who think they have a right to use our country as a loan shark's leg-breaker. ..."
Freedland recently put this argument on Newsnight.
It is flawed to the point of dishonesty.
He talks of removing assets as if the process was being conducted under laboratory
conditions. There are ten nations enmeshed in a warzone with numerous factions under no one's
control. It is magical thinking that cannot be achieved and will only result in rapid,
uncontrolled escalation. The idea that there will be no collateral damage is laughable and I
regret to suggest that it is deliberately misleading.
Moreover, in engaging Assad when he is on the brink of victory, the Syrian Civil War will
be extended. The Syrian people will then pay the price.
Should Assad subsequently fall - and that is the actual aim of intervention - then Syria
will become another anarchic wasteland ruled over by fundamentalist warlords. The spiral of
migration will be renewed bringing loons wrapped in the dispossessed to our own streets.
Worse, the militants next stop will be Lebanon and then Israel will be directly involved.
Freedland advocates acting against Assad without even attempting to predict the consequences.
At the very least I would expect the usual misdirection 'of course this time we must have a
plan for rebuilding Syria', secure in the knowledge that by that time there will be another
crisis and Syria can be left in entropy.
No good can come from military intervention. The satisfaction of commentators that the
right thing has been done is an irrelevance. The right thing is always just public relations.
Every bit of ruthless geopolitics has to have a casus belli to make the killing all righteous
and unavoidable. It has always been thus. For resources to be expended on this kind of scale
there has to be a rock solid bit of bankable realpolitik. In this case its the struggle for
regional hegemony between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Syria can either be part of a supply chain
selling Sunni gas/oil to Europe or Shi'a gas/oil to Europe. This is about killing Syrians for
the glory of Saudi Arabia. You can see why there has to be a casus belli because thats not
something that can be sold. We know the proceeds will go unmentioned into offshore havens and
the London property market. Britain would derive no geopolitical benefit as a whole. The
benefits would accrue only to a kleptocracy who think they have a right to use our country as
a loan shark's leg-breaker.
It is therefore my contention that Freedland is promoting an immoral act that will have
serious consequences without offering any serious improvement in the situation. This is
arguably the most dangerous situation since the Cuban Missile crisis and an analysis that
advocates pouring oil on the flames is either ridiculously stupid or calculatedly
duplicitous.
"Up to" 13,000 "opponents" killed over five years during a period of war. I'm assuming that
number of "opponents" includes a large number of out and out terrorists who have thrown the
country into chaos.
The UK and France bares a heavy responsibility for the current situation in Syria. The
cavalier attitude that the ConDems took to international law during the Arab spring
encouraged the Saudi s and their proxies to distablise the recognised Govt. Assad is no
paragon of virtue, but prior to the insurgency steps were in place to make the country a
better place for its citizens, and whilst its true political dissent was not allowed, people
could live their lives and go about their business in safety.
metadata for the uk police photos show the airport pix used micro$oft photo editing app
back on may 3rd. check the direct download buttons at the police site pages and ignore the
html embed.
This is too simplistic, but has some good points. Also it is unclear if Trump rejects regime
change now. He acts as a neocon and his cabinet is full of neocons. That does not bring him love
of the deep state, though ;-)
With
only two months before the crucial midterm Congressional elections in the U.S., President Trump
is spending about half his time holding rallies around the country, backing candidates who
support his program, while denouncing the Democratic Party's effort to make the election into a
referendum for Trump's impeachment. Candidates whom Trump has endorsed in the Republican
primaries have won, even when they were behind in the polls to their Republican opponents
before the endorsement, but the outcome of the November elections is unclear.
It can not be overstated how crucial it is for the future of the human race that the
Democratic Party effort (backed by a number of neo-con Republicans and almost all the fake-news
press) be crushed. The impeachment drive was born in the U.K., by leading elements of British
intelligence -- former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 Chief Richard Dearlove, and
former GCHQ Chief Robert Hannigan (who resigned only last year).
Hannigan's meetings with the unstable CIA chief John Brennan launched the frantic effort to
prevent Trump from getting the nomination, while Steele prepared the fake dossier to launch the
Russiagate hoax, working directly with the Comey-McCabe-Strzok-Ohr-Mueller traitors in the DOJ
and FBI, to carry out a coup against the elected government of the United States -- the
culmination of a nearly 250-year British campaign to take back their colony.
Consider why the British imperial set hates Trump:
Trump wants to break the imperial divide between East and West, which is at the core of
the Empire's divide and conquer method to assert the power of the Empire. His establishment
of legitimate friendships with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin is casus belli to the
Empire;
Trump rejects "free trade," the core concept of the City of London's historic control
over the world economy, and its campaign to destroy the Hamiltonian "American System" of
government-directed credit for productive investment. Trump's rejection of the TPP, TTIP,
NAFTA, KORUS, and especially his successful negotiation of a fair trade deal with
Mexico last month, is an equally serious casus belli for the Empire;
... ... ...
Trump rejects "regime change," launched through the British creation of the
"Responsibility to Protect," a euphemism for the destruction of the UN Charter guarantee of
sovereignty, and for neo-colonial wars in the developing sector. Trump's collaboration with
Russia to crush the terrorist movement in Syria (funded and armed by the British and the Bush
and Obama Administrations), and his intention to get U.S. military forces out of Syria and
Afghanistan, is yet another casus belli for the British Empire.
Each of these concepts have been core issues of the LaRouche movement over the past
half-century. Fighting essentially alone for most of this time, but depending on the
fundamental truth that history is driven by the power of great ideas which are coherent with
the laws of the universe, this movement is now poised to bring about a new paradigm for
mankind. The framework for this new paradigm exists in the spirit of the New Silk Road --
another concept introduced and fought for by LaRouche and his movement -- which is now bringing
the nations of Asia, Africa, Ibero-America, and even several European nations together under
the Chinese-initiated Belt and Road Initiative.
The U.S. economy -- the real economy -- has begun to move forward again for the first time
in decades. The financial system could explode, especially if this progress is derailed, which
can only be prevented by adopting LaRouche's Four Laws for restoring the American
System.
This requires bringing Russia, China, India and the United States together for a new Bretton
Woods symposium, to replace the dying, but dangerous, British Empire system.
If Trump is removed from office, the U.S. will almost certainly return to its status of a
"dumb giant" servant to the British Crown, which we witnessed so blatantly under Bush and
Obama. The moment is pregnant with the potential for a new, positive future for mankind, if the
patriots of our nation, and the citizens of the world, rise to the task.
Dead men tell no tales, especially about their role in trying to set up and take down U.S. President Donald Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... DNC lawyers wrote in court filings Friday that Joseph Mifsud, who spoke to Papadopoulos during the 2016 presidential election, "is missing and may be deceased," Bloomberg News reported. The lawyers did not elaborate. ..."
"... "The DNC's counsel has attempted to serve Mifsud for months and has been unable to locate or contact him. In addition, public reports have said he has disappeared and hasn't been seen for months," DNC spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said. ..."
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Friday raised the prospect that the London-based professor who told former Trump campaign
adviser George Papadopoulos that Russia had "dirt" on
Hillary Clinton may be dead.
DNC lawyers wrote in court filings Friday that Joseph Mifsud, who spoke to Papadopoulos during the 2016 presidential election,
"is missing and may be deceased,"
Bloomberg News reported. The lawyers did not elaborate.
The DNC stood by its claim in a statement to The Hill on Friday. The committee indicated that an investigator had been used to
find Mifsud, who has been missing for months, and was told the Maltese professor may be dead.
"The DNC's counsel has attempted to serve Mifsud for months and has been unable to locate or contact him. In addition, public
reports have said he has disappeared and hasn't been seen for months," DNC spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.
Mifsud was reportedly teaching at a private university in Rome before he
vanished late
last year , shortly after his name emerged as a key figure in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The professor had reportedly not been in contact with prosecutors in Italy seeking to question him over allegations of financial
wrongdoing and his fiancée
told Business Insider
earlier this year that she could not reach him.
The DNC's revelation came in court filings Friday in their lawsuit against Russia, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks for interfering
in the 2016 presidential election. According to Bloomberg, the DNC said it believed all of the defendants in the case had been served,
with the exception of Mifsud.
"... "There were plenty of baseless allegations against Moscow and concrete sanctions based on them. Apparently, the only winner in this continued theatre of absurdity is Nina Ricci, the product of which got some free ad as a container for the toxic chemical," ..."
The nerve agent attack in Salisbury has so far had only one benefactor – Nina Ricci,
which got free advertising due to a disguise apparently used by the perpetrators to hide the
poison, the Russian envoy to the UN joked. The British investigators said a counterfeit Nina
Ricci bottle was used as a container and delivery device for the chemical used in the poisoning
of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in March. The same container was found by a struggling
couple from Amesbury, who got poisoned themselves. Read more
Speaking at a UN Security Council session on Thursday, Russian envoy Vasily Nebenzya,
denounced Britain for accusing Russia of the crimes, saying that the allegations are not base
on any hard evidence.
"There were plenty of baseless allegations against Moscow and concrete sanctions based
on them. Apparently, the only winner in this continued theatre of absurdity is Nina Ricci, the
product of which got some free ad as a container for the toxic chemical," he said.
Britain says two Russian military intelligence agents tried to kill Skripal with a
weapons-grade chemical weapon, claiming the identification was made by the British
intelligence. Russia denies any involvement and accuses Britain of spinning the case to stir
anti-Russian sentiment.
"... The UK has stirred up the Skripal saga for the sake of waging a broader campaign to kowtow to the anti-Russian rhetoric inside the British government, ex-London mayor Ken Livingstone has told RT. ..."
"... "military intelligence agents" ..."
"... "What struck me over last couple of years seem to me ratcheting up of anti-Russian sentiment almost trying to recreate a Cold War," ..."
"... "a hidden political agenda here as part of broader anti-Russian campaign" ..."
The UK has stirred up the Skripal saga for the sake of waging a broader campaign to
kowtow to the anti-Russian rhetoric inside the British government, ex-London mayor Ken
Livingstone has told RT. The latest smoking gun of allegations against Russia fired by
London, with the British Prime Minister Theresa May claiming that Russian "military
intelligence agents" attempted to murder former spy Sergei Skripal, leaves too many
questions and doubts, Livingstone believes.
"What struck me over last couple of years seem to me ratcheting up of anti-Russian
sentiment almost trying to recreate a Cold War," the former mayor told RT. He stressed
that London's turning its back to Moscow's constant readiness to cooperate and failure to
present to the public a shred of evidence – if there is any – might be a sign of
"a hidden political agenda here as part of broader anti-Russian campaign" inside the
British government.
Livingstone is not the only one who doubts the narrative. Independent political analyst Dan
Glazebrook, who also shared his views with RT, pointed how clumsy the alleged agents should
have been – from taking a train to reach their target to allowing themselves to be caught
on CCTV.
Talking of 5th column, lest forget the solid one in the UK.
Deep State's mouthpiece "The Telegraph" had dedicated several articles to the
identification of alleged Skripal Novichok poisoners, named as two Russian nationals who
briefly entered the UK under the aliases Petrov and Beshorov.
Sycophantic PM Theresa May has gone as far as stating that the suspects are GRU agents,
and pointing the finger at President Putin.
Jeremy Corbyn is being hounded because he is very reserved about the Novichok story.
The UK government is fully embedded with Zionist Israel. This cock-and-bull story, which
details have been nonetheless very well presented, is a very alarming hint that something is
in preparation against Russia, either directly in Syrian, or less directly in the
Ukraine.
@Iris Talking of
5th column, lest forget the solid one in the UK.
Deep State's mouthpiece "The Telegraph" had dedicated several articles to the
identification of alleged Skripal Novichok poisoners, named as two Russian nationals who
briefly entered the UK under the aliases Petrov and Beshorov.
Sycophantic PM Theresa May has gone as far as stating that the suspects are GRU agents,
and pointing the finger at President Putin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1VqSJCa7RA
Jeremy Corbyn is being hounded because he is very reserved about the Novichok story.
The UK government is fully embedded with Zionist Israel. This cock-and-bull story, which
details have been nonetheless very well presented, is a very alarming hint that something is
in preparation against Russia, either directly in Syrian, or less directly in the Ukraine.
Novichock poisoning false flag (Continued).
A possible explanation of the Novichok story being spun at the moment in the UK is that a
Western/Israeli military attack on Syria is in preparation to stop the Arab Syrian Army from
entering Idlib, the last terrorist stronghold.
Such Western intervention requires the pretext of a chemical attack, that will be staged
in the field by the proxy White Helmets, while UK public opinion will be subdued with
terrorising stories of weapons of mass destruction.
This same pretext was used for the April 2018 Western bombing of Syria. This bombing was
aimed at hitting key Syrian targets, but its scale was finally limited by the intervention of
General Mattis, who dreaded reciprocated actions against the 3000 US servicemen present in
Syria.
"The White Helmets (and an alleged chemical attack) are the last hope for regime change
in Syria"
Very interesting interview of former UK Ambassador Ford by SyrianGirl:
One day after Theresa May's Novichok show at the British Parliament , France's Chief of
Military Staff Francois Lecointre has declared that France is ready to strike Syria should
she dare a "chemical attack" on Idlib.
Both poodles each side of the Channel are barking in synchronism; Israel is pulling on the
leashes and something bad is in preparation.
Here is Francois Lecointre in his brown uniform. Unknown to us stupid plebeians, France
must be surrounded by steppes and deserts for brown to have been chosen as camouflage
colour.
"... Mueller's problem is that his entire investigation has been revealed to be permeated with illegality and dubious Constitutional premises. As the result of investigations by Congress, we know that as of December, 2015 British intelligence agencies were frantically signaling their fears about Donald Trump to Obama Administration intelligence officials, primarily the CIA of John Brennan. ..."
"... The British were demanding that Trump be taken out by whatever means because he was "soft on Russia." They were demanding that Trump be taken out by criminalizing the idea for which the American people ultimately voted, a rational relationship, rather than war, between the U.S. and Russia. ..."
"... By the early Spring, we now know Brennan was operating out of the CIA with a taskforce investigating Trump based on British "leads," despite multiple legal prohibitions against just such domestic activity by the CIA. ..."
"... That task force included Peter Strzok, the fired FBI agent who said he would do anything to prevent Trump's election. This operation included sending informants to plant fabricated evidence on peripheral figures in the Trump campaign, including George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. ..."
The media posited that these two events, one by trial, one by plea, gave Robert Mueller new
found credibility and "momentum' at a point where both were dissipating extremely rapidly. This
claim, like the others we have examined here, has no relation to reality.
Mueller's problem is that his entire investigation has been revealed to be permeated with
illegality and dubious Constitutional premises. As the result of investigations by Congress, we
know that as of December, 2015 British intelligence agencies were frantically signaling their
fears about Donald Trump to Obama Administration intelligence officials, primarily the CIA of
John Brennan.
The British were demanding that Trump be taken out by whatever means because he
was "soft on Russia." They were demanding that Trump be taken out by criminalizing the idea for
which the American people ultimately voted, a rational relationship, rather than war, between
the U.S. and Russia.
By the early Spring, we now know Brennan was operating out of the CIA with a taskforce
investigating Trump based on British "leads," despite multiple legal prohibitions against just
such domestic activity by the CIA.
That task force included Peter Strzok, the fired FBI agent
who said he would do anything to prevent Trump's election. This operation included sending
informants to plant fabricated evidence on peripheral figures in the Trump campaign, including
George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. The fake evidence suggested that Trump was using Russian
obtained "dirt" against Hillary Clinton. The evidence planting operations, mostly conducted on
British soil, were designed to back up the bogus and otherwise evidence free and indefensible
dossier authored by MI-6's Christopher Steele, paid for by the Clinton campaign, and promoted
by the Department of State, Department of Justice, the FBI, and select reporters. The dirty
British Steele dossier claimed that Trump had been compromised by Putin. Based on this, Trump
was targeted in a full-set counterintelligence investigation by the FBI including surveillance
of his campaign and anyone associated with it. The goal of this surveillance was to put those
who were around Trump under an investigative microscope stretching back years to find any crime
or misdeed for which they could be prosecuted. That is the illegal and unconstitutional
backdrop to everything Robert Mueller has produced thus far. Nothing produced by Mueller has
shown Trump to be a puppet of Putin as claimed by the British, the Clinton campaign, and the
national news media. Nonetheless, the entire episode has damaged relations between the U.S. and
Russia and between the U.S. and China, which was the British strategic goal in the first
instance, continuing the dive into a new and dangerous Cold War. Trump has fought this at every
step.
Paul Manafort was hired to handle delegate selection at the Republican National Convention
and then as campaign manager. He worked for Trump for six months total until his legal problems
became known and he resigned. He was charged by Mueller with tax, foreign agent registration
act, and bank fraud offenses for his lobbying activities on behalf of the deposed government of
Ukraine. That government was overthrown in coup in which John McCain played a critical role, a
coup which empowered outright neo-Nazis. Christopher Steele, British intelligence, and the U.S.
State Department also played major roles in the Ukraine regime change operation. Manafort was
targeted by both Ukrainian and British intelligence because he, in effect, backed the perceived
Russian side in the coup. For this, he was being investigated by the Obama Justice Department
well prior to any campaign association with Donald Trump. Mueller simply adjusted the focus of
this already political investigation, a focus aimed at turning Manafort into an asset against
Trump by means of the terror of potential prison sentences numbering in the hundreds of years
as the result of overcharged and duplicative indictments.
Michael Cohen, who worked with Trump as a lawyer, also had his share of prior legal
problems, primarily related to taxes concerning his taxi medallion business in New York City.
For months, the mainstream media has featured the claims of porn star Stormy Daniels claiming a
one night stand with the future President, ten years ago, as if the nation could draw some
lesson from Daniels about public virtue. Cohen apparently arranged to pay off Daniels and
another woman concerning their allegations about sex with the President. Among other suspicious
dealings, Cohen tape recorded conversations with his client, Donald Trump, during the campaign,
a complete and total violation of legal ethics which would independently cost him his law
license. For many months prior to his plea deal, Cohen has been a target of intense
investigative interest based on his tax problems. In recent months, Cohen has repeatedly
signaled that he was willing to betray the President and say whatever prosecutors in the
Southern District of New York wanted him to say about Donald Trump in order to avoid jail. The
problem is that prosecutors thought Cohen an obvious desperate liar and were not buying.
Ultimately, the deal which Cohen struck has him claiming that candidate Trump asked him to pay
hush money to the women, resulting in Federal Election Campaign Act violations. This is what
the Justice Department claimed against John Edwards in a widely ridiculed and failed
prosecution. It is exactly the type of claim by which the British and our Establishment
impeached Bill Clinton.
Cohen hired long-time Clinton operative Lanny Davis to represent him in recent months and to
make a deal. Following his plea, Davis claimed that Cohen had two made-up morsels to offer
Mueller, in return for a reduced sentence, a claim that Trump knew about the June 2016 Trump
Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer, and a claim that Cohen knew about Russian hacking of
Hillary Clinton's emails. Davis has since admitted that both these claims were totally false
and has had to walk them back publicly.
So, if you are tempted by the media t think that either of these "convictions" are germane
to the President's fitness for office, or Robert Mueller's credibility, please, seek medical
attention. The madness which now infects much of official Washington may have claimed you.
John Wight has written for a variety of newspapers and websites, including the
Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and
Foreign Policy Journal. The recent development in the Skripals poisoning case is
guaranteed to plunge already dire relations between Moscow and London through the floor. At a
set-piece press conference in London, Neil Basu, head of the London Met's counter-terrorism
police force, positively identified two Russian suspects in the case. He produced CCTV images
of the two individuals along with their names and details of their movements from Russia to the
UK and back again. He also alleged that according to a " working hypothesis " the
suspects smuggled the Novichok substance used in the attempt on the lives of former Russia
intelligence office and British spy Sergei Skripal, and daughter Yulia, into the country with
them from Russia. Read more Names of
'Russian suspects' in Skripal case published by UK don't mean anything to us –
Moscow
The rocket fuel this very significant and very serious development adds to the already
seething anti-Russia sentiment and feeling that dominates the minds of the British political
and media establishment is self-evident. At a time of multiple crises involving Moscow and
London – crises yet to be resolved around the conflict in Syria, tensions over Ukraine,
the presence of NATO troops and military assets close to Russia's western border, sanctions,
etc. – it is extraordinarily worrying that relations between both countries have now
plunged to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.
That the Russian state is capable of carrying out an attack of this nature is not in doubt.
All states are capable of carrying out such attacks, and all states, including Britain, have
carried them out at various points in their history. But the timing of this particular attack
is key, given that it took place just a few months prior to the start of the World Cup in
Russia, and at a time when the Russian government was extending itself in attempting to repair
relations with the West with a view to achieving normalization.
Then, too, the motive remains impossible to discern. Sergei Skripal had been living openly
under his own name in Salisbury, England, where the attack took place, for some time, so
clearly did not believe that he was in any danger.
The international damage to Russia's reputation as a consequence of being behind such an
attack is likewise not in any doubt.
These points are not, of course, made as infallible proof that the Russian government or
intelligence was not responsible. But they are pertinent in of themselves, given the
context.
Another point worth raising is the sheer crudity of two supposed Russian agents taking a
direct flight to and from the UK to carry out the attack and travelling together both ways.
Such amateurish planning is the stuff of your average Hollywood spy spoof movie rather anything
you would associate with a serious intelligence agency.
Significantly, during his press conference and presentation, Mr Basu did not go as far as
alleging Russian state involvement. Such restraint, however, has long been a foreign land where
the prime minister is concerned.
In her statement to the Commons on this latest development, Theresa May wasted no time in
unleashing a rhetorical artillery barrage against the Kremlin, buoyed by a feral chorus of MPs
who almost to a man and woman had already embraced Russia as the officially designated enemy of
all that is holy and good in the world.
Either the prime minister knows something that the head of the Met's counter-terrorism
police force does not, or we have entered an age when blaming Russia for everything is an
unofficial requirement of the duties of high political office in Westminster.
To be fair to the prime minister though, she's been blaming the Kremlin for this crime
almost since the very day it took place, gleefully riding the wave of anti-Russia hysteria that
had already been whipped up by a mainstream media whose denizens one James Connolly was once
minded to describe as " The inkslingers of the jingo press ."
With her leadership mired in crisis over Brexit, and with her errant former foreign
secretary and putative prime minister, Boris Johnson, currently breathing down her neck with a
looming challenge to her leadership, for the prime minister the timing of this development
could not, politically, be more convenient. For at such moments she is able to give free rein
to the appearance of the kind of strong and robust leadership qualities that are, in truth,
grievously absent.
Going forward, this will only add more grist to the mill of a neocon firmament whose very
existence is predicated on maintaining Russia in the role of existential threat to Western
civilization. A frog's chorus of calls and demands for ever more stringent trade, financial and
economic sanctions against Moscow will reach a crescendo, buttressed by an uptick in the
deployment of troops and military assets to eastern Europe in a futile effort to intimidate and
cow the Kremlin into accepting its prescribed status as a vassal of Washington and its
allies.
Worryingly, in 2018 we have reached the stage that George Orwell described in his classic
novel, 1984: " The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed
that no past or future agreement with him was possible. "
Western ideologues should take a moment to consider that Orwell wrote his classic work as a
warning not a blueprint.
"... Over the past decade or so, a disturbing number of Russian nationals living in Britain have met untimely deaths. The victims – at least 14 – have been high-profile individuals, such as oligarch businessman Boris Berezovsky or former Kremlin security agent Alexander Litvinenko. All were living in Britain as exiles, and all were viewed as opponents of President Vladimir Putin's government. ..."
"... Invariably, British politicians and news media refer to the deaths of Russian émigrés as "proof" of Russian state "malign activity". Putin in particular is accused of ordering "the hits" as some kind of vendetta against critics and traitors. ..."
"... The claims of Russian state skulduggery have been reported over and over without question in the British media as well as US media. It has become an article-of-faith espoused by British and American politicians alike. "Putin is a killer," they say with seeming certainty. There is simply no question about it in their assertions. ..."
Over the past decade or so, a disturbing number of Russian nationals living in Britain have
met untimely deaths. The victims – at least 14 – have been high-profile
individuals, such as oligarch businessman Boris Berezovsky or former Kremlin security agent
Alexander Litvinenko. All were living in Britain as exiles, and all were viewed as opponents of
President Vladimir Putin's government.
Invariably, British politicians and news media
refer to the deaths of Russian émigrés as "proof" of Russian state "malign
activity". Putin in particular is accused of ordering "the hits" as some kind of vendetta
against critics and traitors.
The claims of Russian state skulduggery have been reported over and over without question in
the British media as well as US media. It has become an article-of-faith espoused by British
and American politicians alike. "Putin is a killer," they say with seeming certainty. There is
simply no question about it in their assertions.
The claims have also been given a quasi-legal veracity, with a British government-appointed
inquiry in the case of Alexander Litvinenko making a conclusion
that his death in 2006 was "highly likely" the result of a Kremlin plot to assassinate. Putin
was personally implicated in the death of Litvinenko by the official British inquiry. The
victim was said to have been poisoned with radioactive polonium. Deathbed images of a
bald-headed Litvinenko conjure up a haunting image of alleged Kremlin evil-doing.
Once the notion of Russian evil-doing is inculcated the public mind, then subsequent events
can be easily invoked as "more proof" of what has already been "established". Namely, so it
goes, that the Russian state is carrying out assassinations on British territory.
Thus, we see this "corroborating" effect with the alleged poisoning of a former Russian
double-agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter in Salisbury back in March this year.
An 'Immortal Regiment' march celebrating Victory Day in Riga, Latvia.
It has been nearly three decades since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Despite Russia's
reemergence on the world stage as a respected power after market-oriented 'reforms' destroyed
its economy for the duration of the nineties, the breakup of the USSR is an event regarded by
an increasing amount of Russians as a catastrophic tragedy rather than a triumph of 'freedom
and democracy.'
In recent years, there have been numerous polls showing that more than half of Russians not
only regret
the collapse of the Soviet Union but would even
prefer for its return . However, the nostalgia only comes as a surprise to those who have
forgotten that not long before the failed August Coup that led to its demise, the first and
only referendum in its history was held in March of 1991 which polled citizens if they wished
to preserve the Soviet system.
The results were more than three quarters of the population in the entire socialist
federation (including Russia) voting a resounding yes with a turnout of 80% in the
participating republics. In Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan the outcome
was more than 90% voting for renewal. Even the country with the lowest amount of support, the
Ukraine, was still 70% in favor. While the measure was officially banned in six republics --
Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and the three Baltic states -- despite being unrecognized by their
local governments the vote was still organized and the outcomes were all over 90%.
Ironically, the union dissolved five months later under the pretext of establishing
'democracy' in Eastern Europe just as it ignored the very wishes of Soviet citizens. After more
than 25 years of suffering at the hands of economic and trade liberalization, gutting of state
subsidies and mass privatization of the former state-run industry, is it any wonder that
Russians are yearning for a return to socialism?
The consequences of the disintegration are still felt in the relations with the United
States today. It planted the seeds for the carefully arranged revival of the Cold War that was
hiding in plain sight until it surfaced with 'color revolutions', proxy wars and dubious spy
poisonings. One source of the strained relations between the West and Russia has been the
Baltic states, which burgeoned following their integration into the European Union and
enrollment in NATO membership in 2004 during its enlargement. NATO
continues its provocations with massive war games bordering Kaliningrad, while Moscow is
painted as the aggressor even though the U.S. defense spending increase this year alone
surpasses Russia's entire military budget.
The antagonism between Latvia, Estonia and(to a lesser degree) Lithuania with Moscow stems
partly from from the cessation of the USSR itself. The conclusion of the Cold War resulted in
more than 25 million Russians instantly discovering themselves living abroad in foreign
countries. For seventy years, fifteen nations had been fully integrated while Russians migrated
and lived within the other republics. The Soviet collapse immediately reignited national
conflicts, from the Caucasus to the Baltics. While the majority of the ethnic Russian diaspora
live in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, nearly 1 million reside in the post-Soviet Baltics and since
1991 they have been subjected to a campaign of forced assimilation, discrimination and
exclusion.
The Baltic republics made nationalism their official state policy while moving away from
Russia's sphere of influence into a closer relationship with the West. Boris Yeltsin's
subservience to Washington eclipsed any concern for the fate of captive Russians as the Soviet
Bloc was herded into the EU, but his administration did quarrel with the new Baltic authorities
and
accused them of creating an anti-Russian 'apartheid.'
As geopolitical tensions have increased under his successor, Vladimir V. Putin, who has
embarrassed Western imperialism in the international arena, so has Moscow's disapproval of the
treatment of its minority held hostage in the Baltic Rim. Is a comparison to South Africa
warranted? Even if the similarities are only partial, the three states show evidence of deep
ethnocracy.
While less than 10% of Lithuania is ethnically Russian, in Latvia and Estonia the number is
much higher at a quarter of their entire populations. The three governments have passed laws
promoting their official languages and restored citizenship requirements that existed up until
1940, demanding that their Russian minorities apply or risk losing basic rights and guarantees.
Russia has interpreted these measures as a form of slow-motion ethnic cleansing intended to
coerce Russians to immigrate elsewhere.
When the three states first became independent, in an act of systematic discrimination they
distributed non-citizen 'alien' passports to ethnic Russians and excluded them from obtaining
citizenship automatically, even if they had lived and worked in a Baltic state for their entire
life. In fact, citizenship was not immediately granted to anyone whose ancestry arrived after
1940, a policy that specifically targeted ethnic Russians who without naturalization are left
stateless.
For example, when Estonia first declared its independence more than 30% of its population
(or every third person) did not have citizenship of the country of residence. This inscribed
ethnic division into their society and although many Russians have become naturalized over the
last two decades, there are still more than 80,000 in Estonia without determined status who are
mostly former Soviet citizens and their descendants. In Latvia, segregation runs even deeper
where more than 250,000 Russians (15% of the population) remain stateless. Even when they do
become citizens, the parliaments have attempted to pass laws banning non-EU immigrants
(predominantly Russians) from possessing voting rights on several occasions. Polls also show
the prejudice within their societies, with many Balts indicating they would prefer their
Russian-speaking neighbors to repatriate.
Meanwhile, the Russian population has expressed concern about the reemergence of neo-Nazism.
The authorities have nurtured holocaust denial, such as the Latvian government objecting
to an UNESCO Holocaust exhibition of the Salaspils concentration camp on the basis it would
'tarnish the country's image.' No kidding.
Children held in Salaspils concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Latvia during WWII.
One criteria for the naturalization exams is based on language where in order to become
citizens Russians must become fluent in Latvian and Estonian, even though they are such a large
minority that in larger cities they often constitute 50% of the population and Russian may be
the most spoken language. Simultaneously, any attempt to make Russian a second official
language have been struck down. It is a deliberate effort to assimilate the Russian-speaking
minority and erase remnants of Soviet culture.
In order to obtain basic entitlements, Russians have to pass the tough naturalization tests
which many fail several times (especially the elderly), facing fines and risking losing their
employment in the process. The tests are notoriously difficult as Latvian and Estonian
languages bear little resemblance to Slavic Russian and are much closer to Finnish.
Apart from ethnicity, 40% of Latvia as a whole identifies as Russian-speaking and have been
accustomed to schooling in their native tongue where they already have low career prospects and
income rates. Rather than inclusion, they have been mandated to adopt the Baltic languages.
Beginning in 2019, the Russian language education options in Latvia will be discontinued
altogether in higher education at colleges and universities as well as many secondary schools,
which has sparked
demonstrations in protest .
Russian-speakers protesting Latvia's language reform laws
It should be made clear that what ethnic Russians experience in the Baltics has its own
particularities that make it significantly different from the institutionalized racism and
violently enforced segregation that existed in South Africa (or what many believe is applicable
to the Palestinians under Israeli occupation). The word apartheid itself originates from the
Afrikaans word for 'separateness' (or apart-hood), but an exact comparison is not the real
issue. There are many overlapping characteristics that make an analogy arguable.
For instance, the use of an ID system denoting ethnicity and alien status with the inability
of Russians to participate in the democratic process or politics. Their reduced standing
contributes to a society where ethnic groups often do not intermingle and are concentrated in
particular areas with Russians mostly residing in urban cities. Yet even Israel recognized
Arabic as a second official language (until 2018), while none of three Baltic states do so for
Russian. When referendums have been held on whether to adopt Russian as a second language, the
non-citizen communities are excluded from voting, ensuring its inability to pass.
The exams also coerce Russians to accept a nationalist and historically revisionist account
of the last century where the Soviet Union is said to have "occupied" the Baltics. A history
lesson is needed to understand how this is untrue and based on pure Nazi mythology. During the
Romanov dynasty, the Baltic states had been part of the Russian Empire but became independent
for the first time in centuries following the February Revolution in 1917.
Along with Belarus and Finland, the Bolsheviks were unable to regain the three republics
during the Russian Civil War. During the 1930s, the three nations were officially sovereign
states but under their own brutal nationalist regimes. The Soviet liberation of the Baltics can
hardly be seen as a 'forceful incorporation' considering what they replaced were not
democracies themselves and they were absorbed in order to block Hitlerite expansionism.
Since the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe, the Baltic states have waged a
campaign of diminishing and obscuring the Holocaust into a 'double genocide' of equal
proportions , conflating the Nazis and the Soviets as twin evils. Western 'democracies' have
helped obfuscate the truth about the widely misunderstood Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the treaty
of non-belligerence between Germany and the USSR. The 1939 non-aggression pact has been painted
as a 'secret alliance' between the Nazis and the Soviets, disregarding that France and Great
Britain had done the same with the Germans the previous year with the Munich Agreement.
Only the Soviets are said to have 'conspired' with Hitler, just as when the West fought the
Germans it was for 'liberal values' but when the USSR did so it was for competing 'dominion'
over Europe. In order to mask their own fascist sympathies, the West has falsified the
historical reasons for the accord. In reality, there were measures incorporating the Baltic
states into the USSR as part of a mutual defense and assistance against German imperialism and
their 'master plan' for the East.
The truth is that the ruling class in the West feared the spread of communism much more than
fascism, and actually viewed the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe as an opportunity to
crush the Soviet Union. Leading up to WWII, not only was it Western capital investment which
financed the rapid buildup of Germany's armed forces, but the U.S., Britain and France did
everything within their power to encourage Hitler's aggression toward the USSR. More than once
they
collectively refused to sign any mutual security alliance with Moscow while appeasing
Hitler's expansionism in Czechoslovakia, with the British in particular guilty of sabotaging
negotiations to isolate the Soviets and pit them into a war against Germany.
Stalin was well aware the Nazis planned to expand the Lebensraum further East, but
the Soviets were in the midst of a rapid industrialization process that accomplished in a
single decade what took the British more than a century. They needed time to guarantee they
could defeat an offensive by the Wehrmacht, the most powerful and developed military force in
the world at the time. It provided an additional year and ten months of further buildup of
Soviet armaments -- if not for this move, it is possible the Germans would never
have been stopped twenty kilometers short of Moscow and turned the outcome of the war in their
favor. The real reason the pact infuriated the West was because it obligated them into having
to fight the Germans, something the imperial powers had hoped to avoid altogether.
More disturbingly, the Baltic governments have drawn from the traditions of the far right by
whitewashing the local nationalists that sided with Germany during their invasion of the Soviet
Union in 1941 which broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The Nazi collaborators have been
restored and normalized as 'freedom fighters' who fought solely for Baltic independence.
The Estonian parliament has even adopted resolutions
honoring the Estonian Legion and 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian)
without any such equivalent measure for the more than 30,000 Estonians who courageously fought
in the Red Army.
To most Russians, it is an absolute insult to the 27 million Soviets who died defeating the
Nazis, including the Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians who did so as well. Today, if they
wish to become citizens they must swear an oath of allegiance to this rewriting of history
which has been made a precondition for obtaining citizenship. The three states also do not
recognize the May 9th Victory Day as a holiday, forcing the Russian minority to celebrate it
informally.
20th Estonian SS Division
The rehabilitation of the local nationalists who fought alongside the Germans has been done
under the false premise that the collaboration was a purely strategic alliance. The Soviets are
portrayed as equal to or worse than Nazi Germany, a false equivalency between fascism and
communism that is a ubiquitous trait among ultra-rightists today. Tens of thousands of Latvians
and Estonians volunteered and were conscripted into legions of the SS which participated in the
Holocaust, as did Lithuanians in the Nazi-created Territorial Defense Force and their Security
Police.
They did not simply coordinate on the battlefield with the Germans, but directly
participated in the methodical slaughter of Jews, Roma and others because they shared their
racism. In Lithuania, for example, quislings welcomed the Wehrmacht as liberators and for the
next three years under Nazi occupation helped murder 200,000 Jews, nearly 95% of the country's
Jewish population, a total which exceeded every other European country in terms of percentage
of extermination. It is certain that the only thing that prevented Lithuania's Jews from
extinction was the heroism and sacrifice of the Red Army.
Latvians greeting the Red Army after the liberation of Riga
During the Cold War, the US and NATO sought to whitewash certain Nazi war criminals when it
suited its strategic interests against the Soviets. This went beyond the Germans themselves,
whether it was recruiting
their spies for espionage, atomic scientists in Operation Paperclip , or making Hans
Speidel the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in Central Europe.
The Baltic Waffen SS Units are to be considered as separate and distinct in purpose,
ideology, activities, and qualifications for membership from the German SS, and therefore the
Commission holds them not to be a movement hostile to the Government of the United States
under Section 13 of the Displaced Persons Act, as amended."
While the displaced persons laws let Jewish refugees into the United States, it also
provided cover for the reserved spaces for thousands of Nazi collaborators in an open-door
policy providing them safe harbor. Following the end of WWII, many of the former members of the
Baltic SS units became anti-Soviet partisans known as the Forest Brothers who carried on a
guerilla campaign against the Soviets with the assistance of the CIA and MI6 until it was
defeated in mid-50s. Unfortunately, Nikita Khruschev then made one of a series of colossal
mistakes by permitting the exiled Baltic nationals to return as part of the de-Stalinisation
thaw.
Latvian Legion
The idea that regiments of the Schutzstaffel were fighting purely for Estonian and Latvian
independence is a horrifying fabrication in defiance of the overwhelming evidence documented by
holocaust historians. The West has exploited this sanitizing of history that reappeared
following the reinstatement of free enterprise in eastern Europe which has proliferated the far
right in the EU as a whole. Why? It serves their cynical immediate interests in undermining
Moscow. The same manipulations are occurring in the Cold War's sequel. Last year, NATO even
produced a short film and a-historical reenactment entitled
Forest Brothers: Fight for the Baltics , glorifying the anti-Soviet partisans as part of
its propaganda effort against Russia.
Any crimes that were committed by the Soviet NKVD during the war are dwarfed by the tens of
thousands of Jews and Roma which were exterminated on an industrial level by the Nazis and
their co-conspirators using the race theory -- there is no comparison. Not to
mention that the reintroduction of the free market to Eastern Europe killed more people than
any period in Soviet history, reducing life expectancy by a decade and undoing seventy years
worth of progress. We only ever hear of the faults of socialism and the inflated numbers of
losses of life attributed to its failure, never the daily crimes of capitalism or the tens of
millions lost in the wars it produces.
he Soviet brand of socialism was far from perfect, but nevertheless a model for what
humanity can achieve in the face of tremendous adversity without being shackled by the
contradictions of capitalism -- an industrial society with relative equality in
education, wealth, employment and basic necessities. Now that Western capitalism is once again
collapsing, it is making friends with nationalists to revise its ugly history and the Russian
minority in the Baltics are suffering the consequence. It will continue to apportion blame on
the up-and-coming power in Moscow, no longer the quasi-colony of the Yeltsin era, for its
soon-to-be expiration. Let us hope it does not start another World War in the midst of
it -- for all our sake.
Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His work has appeared in
publications such as The Greanville Post, Global Research, CounterPunch and more. Read him on
Medium . Max may be reached at
[email protected]
I did not know about the vote in 1991. Thank you for exposing yet another example of US
meddling in elections, i.e. not recognizing the results and essentially forcing a coup via
Yeltsin. The war crimes of the US and Israel are beyond comprehension. Loading...
Yes, the Baltics, like the western Ukraine, rolled out the red carpet to the German invaders
in 1941. The Nazi genocide was outsourced from Waffen SS and Einsatzgruppen to Baltic Nazis
since the numbers involved were too big to handle for the Germans alone.
The Arajs Kommando death squad (also: Sonderkommando Arajs), was led by local SS and
collaborators Viktors Arājs, Franz Stahlecker and Robert Stieglitz and a unit of Latvian
Auxiliary Police (Lettische Hilfspolizei) which was subordinated to the German
Sicherheitsdienst (a special security branch of the German SS). It was a notorious killing
unit during the Holocaust. Stahlecker instructed Arajs to set up a commando unit that
obtained an official name Latvian Auxiliary Security Police or Arājs Kommando.
The following day on July 2 1941 Arajs learned from Stahlecker during a conference that
the Arajs commando had to unleash a pogrom that looked spontaneous and these pogrom-like
disorders were to break out before German occupation authorities had been properly
established. The Einsatzkommando a sub-group of the SS death squads, belonging to the larger
Einsatzgruppen) influenced mobs of former members of Pērkonkrusts (Latvian
ultra-nationalists and other extreme right-wing groups) began mass arrests, pillaging and
murders of Jews in Riga, which led to death of between 300 to 400 Jews.
Killings continued under the supervision of SS Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker and
ended when more 2,700 Jews had been murdered. The activities of the Einsatzkommando were
constrained after the full establishment of the German occupation authority, after which the
SS made use of select units of native recruits. German General Wilhelm Ullersperger and
Voldemar Weiss, a well known, Latvian nationalist, appealed to the population via a radio
address to attack "internal enemies".
During the next few months, activities of the Latvian Auxiliary Security Police was
primarily focused on killing Jews, Communists and Red Army stragglers in Latvia as well as in
neighbouring Belorussia. The group alone murdered almost half of Latvia's Jewish population,
about 26,000 Jews, mainly in November and December 1941. The creation of the Arajs Kommando
was "one of the most significant inventions of the early Holocaust", that marked a transition
from German organised pogroms to systematic killing of Jews by local volunteers (former army
officers, policemen, students, Aizargi).
This helped resolve a chronic problem with German personnel shortages, and provided the
Germans with relief from the psychological stress of routinely murdering civilians. By the
autumn of 1941, the SS deployed Latvian 'Police Battalions' to Leningrad, where they were
consolidated as Latvian Second SS Volunteer Brigade.
In 1943, this brigade, which would later become the Latvian Nineteenth SS Volunteer
Division, was consolidated with the Latvian Fifteen SS Volunteer Division to become the
Latvian Legion. Although formally the Latvian Legion (Schutzmannschaft or Schuma) was a
volunteer Waffen-SS military formation; it was voluntary only by name, because approximately
80-85% of personnel were conscripted into the legion.
Yes lovely people these Batlics. They are now among the poorest countries in Europe and
are suffering massive demographic problems as anyone who can, leaves. As my old mother used
to say. "God pays debts without money..
"
People of Russian heritage are denied passports, the right to vote, and any official
employment, amongst other forms of discrimination and persecution.
These are sh***y little Nazi countries, with their big annual SS parades. They desecrate war
memorials and the graves of Russian soldiers who died liberating the Baltic countries in the
war. Many Baltic politicians are US dual citizens, neocons parachuted in after 1991 by the
State Department. They are ideologically driven and lose no opportunity to vent their spleen
against Russia. They are constantly foolishly provocative towards a neighbour that could be a
valuable economic partner. We see the same pattern in Ukraine. The US pulled off a stunt
where 10,000 US troops in 1,000 tanks and vehicles drove up and down the Latvian border just
a few yards from Russian territory, through communities of predominantly Russian
heritage.
Part of this hostility to Russia is probably contrived by the political class to cover up
their abject failures since independence. Their economies were looted and hollowed out by
western finance capital over the past few decades. They were previously highly developed
parts of the Soviet Union with industries like machinery, vehicles and shipbuilding. That is
now ancient history. The economy has collapsed, and 25% of the population of Latvia has
emigrated, scratching a living doing menial jobs or working as prostitutes in the EU, the
only future those countries have. Riga was a natural transit hub for Russia, but faced with
official visceral hatred from that quarter, the Russians expanded and developed their own
port facilities in the Baltic. Riga has been left as a ghost town. That is why Nordstream has
been developed, to replace unreliable partners in neighbouring countries who are always ready
to cut off their noses to spite their face and please their US neocon masters. Their loss
– they could have made billions from energy transit fees. It's the same story with
sanctions, for which the Baltic states were enthusiastic cheerleaders. Russia's counter
sanctions against agricultural imports have hit them hard. In the course of events, these
countries and Russia would be economic partners for their mutual benefit.
As NATO members, these countries believe they can be as foolishly provocative and offensive
to Russia as they wish, like the obnoxious kid in the school playground who spits in
somebody's face and runs and hides behind his big brother. Small countries like this can
cause a disaster, like Serbia and WW1. They are now failed states, like Ukraine. They are
just pawns in a neocon game against Russia. They have no future. Loading...
'The Baltic republics made nationalism their official state policy while moving away from
Russia's sphere of influence into a closer relationship with the West.'
I strongly supported the Soviet Union and likewise I support the CIS, but this article,
frankly, is so partial that it misrepresents the reasons why the Baltic States behaved as
they did following the Nazi invasion of 1941 and following the collapse of the Soviet Union
in 1991.
There is no mention of Staln's takeover of the Baltic States in 1940. It is clear that
Stalin needed those states as a buffer against Germany, but that said, it is fully
understandable that many Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians would see the Nazis as
liberators and would resent their countries' reabsorption into the Soviet Union in 1944,
followed by settlement by Russian nationals including members of the Soviet state apparatus
including the KGB. Of course, we may all deplore collaboration with Nazi race policies,
especially in Lithuania, but to ignore factors such as Russia's takeover of the Baltic states
ignores a major factor at the heart of those countries' treatment of Russians to this
day.
The author explains Stalin's wish to forestall the inevitable war with Nazism because the
Soviet Union was involved in industrialisation. This is true, but the article ignores the
purges that had led to the Red Army being so ineffectual in its war with Finland that Hitler
believed that Barbarossa would be a pushover. When one considers that when the Baltic States
became part of the Soviet Union, this will have included the apparatus of state terror that
Stalin had been visiting upon the rest of the Soviet Union for several years. Contrary to the
above whitewashed view of history, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians had strong grounds for
resenting the presence of Russians in their erstwhile independent nations.
I deplore the Baltic States' treatment of ethnic Russians since they gained their
independence in September 1991, but ignoring the follies of their Soviet past will do nothing
to alleviate their plight.
I appreciate the historical background, but the treatment of Ukrainians, Latvians, Estonians
and Lithuanians by Stalin might explain their actions in WWII; doesn't excuse them, sorry.
Loading...
"erstwhile independent nations."
To be clear these former provinces-highly favoured provinces- in the Russian Empire had been
'independent' since 1921.And thanks in part too to the Bolshevik doctrine that the Czarist
Empire was a 'prison house of peoples.'
No doubt many in the Baltic states resented the invasion of the Red Army but it was only a
small minority which celebrated by killing Jews and enrolling in the siege of Leningrad.
In more modern terms there is no reason why these three states, and Ukraine, could not thrive
independently without setting themselves up as bases for provocations against Russia and
convenient locations for US torture chambers.
The people of Ireland suffered far more under the British Empire than the Balts did under St
Petersburg but that did not lead to more than a handful of Irishmen, if that many, in the
Second World War joining the SS. Loading...
This article takes no account of the threat posed to our allies in NATO, Eastern Europe, and
to the security of the world due to the rising tensions of recent years. Now, more than ever,
in the wake of Salisbury attack, we need to stress to our European counterparts in the
governments of the Baltic States, that we wish to work with them to maximise the power of
collective sanctions against violations of international law – whether by Russia or
anyone else. I think we should make clear that our UK commitment to such collective action
will not be diminished by Brexit. Similarly, now more than ever, it is vital that the UK and
all other NATO members make it clear to all our allies in the Baltic States, and elsewhere,
that we want to protect peace and security on the borders, without ramping up tensions
unnecessarily, and that such a commitment is not conditional on their levels of defence
spending.
Tory defence spending cuts have put Britain's security at risk.. I think the next Labour
government should commit to boost our military obligations, above the benchmark of 2% GDP, in
line with the last Labour government's commitment to NATO.
This is the second parody posted by BigB. A parody so skilful, such inane stringing together
of non-sequiturs to an insane c,nclusion, it might have come from the very lips of blessed
Theresa of Westminster. Loading...
Very close, Vex: St Jeremy of Islington North. Most of it is verbatim, with some reworded
conjunctions. The source text is from Hansard 26/03/18. The last para is a reword taken from
quote in John Pilger's excellent article about Labour's non-existent foreign policy which
would likely be imperialistic. Or the vague platitude of a return to 'Robin Cook ethical
diplomacy' of starting three wars in two years and selling Hawk aircraft to Mugabe.
It struck me recently when I point out the actual words that JC says, I take the flak. To
prove a point (if only to myself) I posted his own (disguised) words to see how people would
react. The source text for yesterday was his reply to Treason May, when she announced the two
counterfeit suspects for the fabricated Novijoke crime against the intelligence.
It is my supposition that very few know the full context of what is said, relying on media
soundbites instead. The media pick a single phrase – such as only saying "evidence
points strongly" – and contrast with Bojo's "weaselly words" to construct an entirely
inauthentic narrative. It is a pseudo-oppressor/oppressed narrative that creates a false
sense of pity and invokes an invented victim mentality (we all know how Brit's love an
underdog!).
Anyway, I surmised his words were weaselly, though not in the context of the received
culture machine narrative but in themselves, taken in their given context (in Parliament and
later in Hansard). They amount to a servile connivance with power (a power that provides the
testimony and meaning to the hollow phonemes).
I could have just said that, but I decided to post the slightly disguised text to make a
point. Point made.
Soviet "Communism" was de facto never more than a branch of Anglo-American bourgeois
progressivism. A geopolitical rivalry developed between the two factions after the defeat of
Germany. Note that Western capitalists built the Soviet industrial base in the 1920s and
1930s, so it was obvious they were not seen as a threat then:
http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Others/Others-Doc-ConspiracyTheory&NWO/+Doc-ConspiracyTheory-FalseEnemies/TheWestFinancedSoviets.htm
( )
American technical leadership began to replace German leadership in rebuilding the Soviet
Union.
"Of the agreements in force in mid-1929, 27 were with German companies, 15 were with
United States firms and the remaining ones were primarily with British and French firms. In
the last six months of 1929, the number of technical agreements with U.S. firms jumped to
more than 40." (Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development, 1917-1930, pp.
346-347).
The new program was announced, however, only "after a sequence of construction and
technical-assistance contracts with Western companies had been let. The Freyn-Gipromez
technical agreement for design and construction of giant metallurgical plants is economically
and technically the most important." (Ibid., p. 347).
EXTENT OF AID "ALMOST UNBELIEVABLE"
During the early thirties, the amount and type of "aid and comfort" to the Soviet Union was
almost unbelievable. In 1930 the Ford Motor Company established the Russian motor car
industry by constructing a factory "capable of turning out 140,000 cars a year." By the end
of the decade the factory, at Gorki, was one of the largest in the world. Ford also provided
training for the Russians in assembling automobiles "plus patent licenses, technical
assistance, and advice," and "an inventory of spare parts." (Keller, East Minus West Equals
Zero, pp. 208-209, 215-216). Americans also built, in the Soviet Union, the largest iron and
steel works in the world; patterned after the city of Gary, Indiana. The huge steel complex,
built at Maginitogorsk, was constructed by a Cleveland firm. (Ibid., pp. 209-210).
LARGEST TRACTOR FACTORY IN THE WORLD
The largest tractor factory in the world was another American contribution to Soviet
technology.
"Tractors were a necessity to modernize Soviet agriculture. A Detroit engineer designed
and constructed a tractor factory without parallel in any other country. The assembly works
were 2,000 feet long and 650 feet wide, covering an area of thirty acres. Twenty-one American
football fields would fit into just one building, with locker rooms for the players. The
tractors produced were copies of the American Caterpillar Company, but there were no
arrangements made for payment for use of the patent. Russia merely bought one sample and
copied it. The factory was so designed that production could be adopted almost overnight to
the production of another less innocuous commodity – tanks." (Ibid., p. 213).
( )
Russia today is clearly not seen as a partner of Western
neoliberalism/progressivism. Therefore, Putin (along with Trump) has become the new
Hitler.
Curri, thank you for presenting that healthy corrective to my previous one-sided view; up
till now I had read only of US aid to Nazi Germany. Loading...
To put these observations into context it must be understood that the Soviet
government-obsessed with a crude mechanistic theory of economic development and desperately
trying to reproduce all of the 'stages' of economic progress into a succession of Five Year
Plans- bled the peasantry and working class dry in order to pay for what Curri calls a
partnership. The industrialists, largely Anglo Saxon, who jump started Russian industry after
the catastrophes of war and civil war extorted a heavy price, in hard currency, for their
'aid.'
The notion that the Soviet Union, even under Stalin, was accepted as a partner by the west is
historically illiterate. The record is clear. And clarified further by the continuity in
Foreign Policy which was (and is) the Cold War. Loading...
200,000 Jews in Lithuania alone! And they give all this fuss over Corbyns reluctance to
conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.
I knew there was prejudice in these northern Baltic states but this piece has shocked me. I
now understand the self deprecating remarks made to me recently by a supermarket cashier over
her being a Russian speaking Lithuanian. Next time I see her I will make a point of offering
her my solidarity.
I meet many of these northerners in my work. Now I have some of this background I can ask
pertinent questions. Loading...
It would be a mistake to discover the cause for this discrimination in popular prejudice. The
actual reason lies in the determination of the ruling class to maintain
fascist-collaborationist successor politicians in power.
These politicians, many of whom had origins in expatriate communities in the west, after
fleeing their homelands in the baggage of the Wehrmacht and SS, have been finding it very
difficult to survive after leading their countries into economic disaster mitigated only by
the welcome boost that NATO bases bring to countries in which unemployment rates are at
levels not seen since the 1930s.
Like their predecessors they have turned to racism and fascism to prop themselves up.
What is true of the Baltic states is even truer of Ukraine, where Russian speakers constitute
a persecuted majority, and where the Speaker of the Rada is on record, this past week, as
being inspired by the Fuhrer who he sees as the greatest democrat of the C20th.
As racism and fascism spread westwards into Austria, Germany and elsewhere the complacence of
western 'liberals' in cosseting and subsidising the sources of infection is largely to blame.
It is of course history repeating itself: the fascism of eastern europe in the 1930s was also
sponsored and armed by the 'democracies' of the west. And for the same reason: to keep Russia
at bay.
Whoever it was, this "gutless" person seems pretty craven, opportunistic neocon of McCain
flavor. Most neocons are chickenhawks. And there are plenty of neocons in Trump
administration.
It might well be that anonymous "resistance" op-ed in NYT is CIA operation to promote Woodward's book ( Woodward is definitely
connected to CIA from the time of Nixon impeachment)
Notable quotes:
"... You are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions ..."
During an interview with Fox and Friends, conducted onstage prior to Trump's rally and set
to air on Friday, the president called the paper's decision to publish the column "very
unfair".
"When somebody writes and you can't discredit because you have no idea who they are,"
Trump said. "It may not be a Republican, it may not be a conservative, it may be a deep state
person that's been there a long time.
It's a very unfair thing, but it's very unfair to our country and to the millions of
people that voted really for us."
Since the editorial was published, the highest-ranking officials in Trump's administration
have come forth to
publicly deny any involvement. Those distancing themselves from the column have included
the vice-president, Mike Pence, and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, along with much of
Trump's cabinet. The first lady, Melania Trump, also condemned the author and called on the
individual to come forward.
"You are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions," she
wrote.
The editorial was published as the White House was contending with yet another
firestorm.
A book authored by the famed journalist
Bob Woodward , poised for release next week, chronicles the chaos and dysfunction within
the Trump administration.
Excerpts released on Tuesday provided an unflattering portrait of the
president, who was described by aides in disparaging terms that included being likened to a
schoolchild.
uke Harding likes writing books
about things that he wasn't really involved in and doesn't really understand. Unfortunately for
the rest of the world, that covers pretty much everything. His book about Snowden, for example,
was beautifully
taken down by Julian Assange – a person who was actually there.
He's priming the traumatised public for another of his works, this time about Sergei
Skripal. This one will probably be out by Christmas, unless he can find someone else's work to plagiarise , in which case he might
get it done sooner.
It will have a snide and not especially clever title, perhaps a sort of pun –
something like "A Poison by Any Other Name: How Russian assassins contaminated the heart of
rural England" . It will relate, in jarring sub-sub-le Carre prose, a story of Russian
malfeasance and evil beyond imagining, whilst depicting the whole cast as bumbling caricatures,
always held up for ridicule by the author and his smug readership.
There's an extract in The Guardian today. It's not listed as one, but trust me, it
will be in the book. It's title, as predicted above, is sort of a pun (and will probably
be a chapter heading):
Planes, trains and fake names: the trail left by Skripal suspects
You see? Like that film? I don't really get it either but until someone else comes up with
something clever he can copy, Luke is left to his own rather meagre devices.
It starts off surprisingly strong, waiting three whole sentences before lurching violently
into totally unsupported conjecture:
The two men were dressed inconspicuously in jeans, fleece jackets and trainers as they
boarded the flight from Moscow to Gatwick. Their names, according to their Russian passports,
were Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. Both were around 40 years old. Neither looked
suspicious.
This is, as far as we know so far, true.
The plane trundled down the icy runway. In Moscow the temperatures had fallen below -10C,
not unusual for early March. In Britain it had been snowing.
and so is this. In fact, in googling "Moscow weather March 2018" Harding has displayed an
uncharacteristically thorough approach to research that was rarely (if ever) evidenced in his
previous works.
They had also packed a bottle of what appeared to be the Nina Ricci perfume Premier Jour.
The box it came in was prettily decorated with flowers, it listed ingredients including
alcohol and it bore the words "Made in France".
This is where truth ends and guesses take over: there is no evidence, at all, that these two
men had anything to do with the "perfume bottle" allegedly found by Charlie Rowley on June 27th
and allegedly containing a powerful nerve agent. There is (as far as we know) no fingerprint or
DNA evidence on the bottle, nobody saw them with the bottle, and there's no released CCTV
footage of them holding or carrying the bottle. Saying "it's in their backpack" is meaningless
without any evidence to back it up.
According to the Metropolitan police, the bottle in fact contained novichok, a lethal
nerve agent developed in the late Soviet Union. The bottle had been specially made to be
leakproof and had a customised applicator.
Note he doesn't feel the need to examine, question or even verify the words of the
Metropolitan Police. This is a recurring theme in Harding's works – there are people who
tell the truth (US) and people who lie (RUSSIANS). Evidence is a complication you can live
without.
Moscow's notorious poisons factory run by the KGB made similar devices throughout the cold
war.
Did they? Because he doesn't show any evidence this is true. One thing you can be sure of,
if there had ever been even a whisper about a "modified perfume bottle" in any Soviet archive
or from any "whistleblower currently living in the United States", it would be on the front
page in big black letters.
Petrov and Boshirov were aliases, detectives believe. Both men are suspected to be career
officers with the GRU, Russia's powerful and highly secretive military intelligence
service.
Note use of the word "believe", it makes regular appearances alongside it's buddies:
"suspect" and "probably".
And yes, they "believe" they are aliases because IF they were assassins then obviously they
used aliases. There's no evidence taken from their (currently totally theoretical) visa
applications that point to forgery, nobody at the time questioned their passports. As of today,
we have been given no reason to think they were aliases, except reasoning backwards from
assumed guilt which isn't how deduction works.
In fact, there's more than enough reason to assume they aren't aliases –
Firstly, they passed the visa check, secondly their passports were never questioned, thirdly
they've used them before (see below), and finally just WHY would a Russian spy-come-assassin
use a fake Russian name and a fake Russian passport? That's ridiculous.
The officers' assignment was covert. They were coming to Britain not as tourists but as
assassins.
[citation needed]
Their target was Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer who spied for British intelligence,
got caught and was freed in a spy exchange in 2010. They were heading for his home in
provincial Salisbury.
Luke doesn't feel the need to dig down into the nitty gritty here – motive is a
trifle, to be added in the footnotes or made up on the spur of the moment when asked at a book
signing. I'm a bit more fussy than that – I feel the need to ask "Why did they release
him in 2010 and then try to kill him in 2018?" If they had wanted to kill him, why not just do
it when he was in prison in Russia between 2006 and 2010? If they wanted to kill him why do it
just weeks before the World Cup? What could they possibly have to gain?
Luke doesn't know, and neither do I.
Their Aeroflot flight SU2588 touched down at 3pm on Friday 2 March. They were recorded on
CCTV going through passport control, Boshirov with dark hair and a goatee beard, Petrov
unshaven and wearing a blue gingham shirt. Both were carrying satchels slung casually over
the shoulder.
This is all true, and completely unnecessary. It's what we in the industry call "filler" or
"padding". Totally meaningless and useless words that do nothing but take up space. Without it,
a lot of Luke's books would only be about 700 words long.
According to police, the pair had visited the UK before.
Way to bury the lead there, Luke.
This is actually quite important isn't it? I mean, when did they visit the UK before? Did
they visit Salisbury then too? Did they have any contact with Sergei Skripal? Were they
travelling under the same names? Were these visits linked with other intelligence work? Were
they just holidays? What kind of assassins would use the SAME FAKE IDS ON TWO DIFFERENT
OCCASIONS?
These are all very important questions, but Luke doesn't ask them. Because Luke is a modern
journalist, and they don't interrogate the claims of the state, just report them. To
Guardian reporters a question mark is just that funny squiggle next to the shift
key.
From Gatwick they caught the train to London Victoria station and then the tube to east
London, where they checked in to the City Stay hotel in Bow. It was a low-profile choice of
accommodation. The red-brick Victorian building is next to a branch of Barclays bank, a busy
train line and a wall daubed with graffiti. Across the road is a car pound and a Texaco
garage.
This just more filler. Totally meaningless packaging material. The prose equivalent of
All-Bran.
On hostile territory, Boshirov and Petrov operated in the manner of classic intelligence
operatives.
In this instance "the manner of classic intelligence operatives" means, flying direct to
London from Moscow, using Russian names and Russian passports (which you've used before),
checking into a hotel with a CCTV camera on the front door, going straight to the hometown of
an ex-double agent, leaving a Russian poison his front door even though he's already gone out,
dumping your unused poison in a charity bin on the high street, going back to your hotel,
smearing poison around that too even though you already dumped it, and then flying directly
back to Moscow without even waiting to see if the plan worked and the target is dead.
This, in Luke's head, is ace intelligence work.
On the day of the hit, according to detectives, the pair made a similar journey, taking
the 8.05am train from Waterloo to Salisbury and arriving at 11.48am.
Yes, they arrived at 11.48, making it absolutely pointless to put poison on the Skripal's
door, as they had already gone out.
The perfume bottle was probably concealed in a light grey backpack carried by Petrov.
It was "probably concealed" in that backpack because, as I said above, there's no evidence
either of those men ever knew the perfume bottle existed. You never see it in their
possession.
Oh, and the backpack would have to contain TWO bottles of perfume – because the police
aren't sure the bottle Rowley found 3 months later was the same bottle, and Rowley reported it
was unopened and wrapped in cellophane. Perhaps Luke should have read the details of the case
instead of trolling IMDB looking for movie titles with "plane" in them or googling "insouciant"
to see if he was using it right.
From Salisbury station the two men set off on foot. It was a short walk of about a mile to
Skripal's semi-detached home in Christie Miller Road.
which doesn't matter, because the Skripals weren't there. They left at 9.15 and there is no
evidence they ever returned.
At Skripal's house the Russians smeared or sprayed novichok on to the front door handle,
police say.
which doesn't matter, because the Skripals weren't there. They left at 9.15 and there is no
evidence they ever returned.
It doesn't matter if Borishov and Petrov re-tiled the bathroom with novichok grouting or hid
novichok in the battery compartment of Sergei's TV remote or replaced all his lightbulbs with
novichok bombs that explode when you use the clapper .according to everything we've been told
so far Sergei and Julia were literally never in that house again.
Luke seems to write a lot about this case, considering he is barely acquainted with the most
basic facts of it.
The moment went unobserved
True. There is not a single piece of footage, photograph or eyewitness placing these men
within a hundred feet of the Skripals, or their house. The "moment went unobserved" is an
incredibly dishonest way of phrasing this, "the moment is entirely theoretical" is rather
fairer. Or, if you want to be honest "it's possible none of this happened".
At some point on their walk back they must have tossed away the bottle, which at this
point was too dangerous to try to smuggle back through customs.
It's all falling into place perfectly isn't it?
At some point the two men, who we never see holding or carrying the bottle, must have
thrown it away because three months later someone else found it.
They took it through customs once but couldn't a second time, because reasons.
Also one of them was smiling a sort of "I just poisoned somebody" smile:
At 1.05pm the men were recorded in Fisherton Street on their way back to the station. They
appeared more relaxed, Petrov grinning even.
Those evil bastards.
By the time Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found collapsed on a park bench
in the centre of Salisbury later that afternoon, the poisoners were gone.
No Luke: By the time Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found collapsed on a
park bench in the centre of Salisbury later that afternoon, the ALLEGED poisoners were
gone.
Alleged is an important word for example, there is a marked difference between being an
ALLEGED plagiarist, and being a
plagiarist .
The visitors were captured on CCTV one more time, at Heathrow airport. It was 7.28pm and
both men were going through security, Petrov first, wheeling a small black case. In his right
hand was a shiny red object, his Russian passport. Police believe the passport was genuine,
his name not. In other words, that it was a sophisticated espionage operation carried out by
a state or state entities.
You see? Nobody thought the passport was fake, which means it was a really good fake
. So the Russian state must have been in on it. This is known as an unfalsifiable hypothesis.
If the passport did look fake, that would be evidence that the men were spies and
therefore the Russian state was in on it.
Harding has created a narrative where there is literally no development that could ever
challenge his conclusions.
Seemingly, the GRU plan – executed two weeks before Russia's presidential election
– had worked perfectly.
This is an example of the cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy – two things
happen at the same time, therefore they happen for the same reason. It's a maneuver we at OffG
refer to as "the Harding", where you state two separate assertions or facts one after the other
in such a way as to imply a relationship, without ever making a solid statement. I'll give you
an example:
Luke Harding was born in 1968, mere weeks before the brutal assassination of Robert
Kennedy.
Harding is suggesting some sort of connection between the election and the poisoning. He
can't STATE it, because then he has to explain his reasoning – and there isn't any.
Putin, and Russia as a whole, had nothing to gain from poisoning an ex-spy they had released
nearly a decade earlier, especially on the eve of a Presidential election and mere weeks before
the World Cup. There's no argument to be made, so he doesn't attempt to make one, he just makes
a snide and baseless insinuation.
Vladimir Putin, the man whom a public inquiry found in 2016 had "probably" signed off on
the operation to kill Litvinenko. The UK security services say a "body of evidence" points to
the GRU.
"Probably" is also a big word. For example, there's a marked difference between "probably
being a plagiarist" and "being a
plagiarist" .
It seems clear that Moscow continues to view Britain as a playground for undercover
operations and is relatively insouciant about the consequences, diplomatic and political. The
Skripal attack may have misfired. But the message, mingling contempt and arrogance, is there
for all to see: we can smite our enemies whenever and wherever we want, and there is nothing
you can do about it.
This is the second time Luke has used the word "insouciant" in two days, which means that
word of the day
calendar was a probably sound investment, but he forgot to flip it over this morning.
Other than that, this final paragraph is nothing but paranoia.
The Russians were TRYING to make it obvious, to send a message. But were also lazy and
arrogant. And yet also left no solid evidence because they are experts at espionage. They had
no motive except being mean, and couldn't even be bothered to make sure they did it right. They
want us all to know they did it, but will never admit it.
The actual truth of the situation can be summed up in a few bullet points.
Currently:
There is no evidence these men were using forged documents. There is no evidence
these men were travelling under aliases or assumed names. There is no evidence these men ever
had any contact with Sergei Skripal's house. There is no evidence these men ever had any
contact with Sergei Skripal or his daughter. There is no evidence these men were Russian
intelligence assets or had any military training. There is no evidence these men ever possessed
or had any contact with the perfume bottle found by Charlie Rowley on June 27th. They have
visited the UK before, not on intelligence business (as far as we know). Their movements don't
align with the timeline of Skripal's illness.
The entire narrative is created around half a dozen screen caps of two (allegedly) Russian
men, not behaving in any way illegally or even suspiciously. All the rest is fiction, created
by a hack to service an agenda. This isn't one of those "You couldn't make it up" stories, it's
not that incredible. It's just insulting and stupid.
Theresa May demonstrated traits of a psychopath who cling to power using all available to her
means, including criminal. Looks like British version of Hillary.
Notable quotes:
"... despite hysterical news broadcasts and front-page headlines regarding "Russian assassins," the public know nothing more substantively about the events of Sunday, March 4, than they did more than six months ago. ..."
"... May did not detail the intelligence she was supposedly acting on. Instead she singled out Russia as the main enemy of the West that had to confronted, declaring, "This chemical weapons attack on our soil was part of a wider pattern of Russian behaviour that persistently seeks to undermine our security and that of our allies around the world." ..."
"... "Back in March, Russia sought to sow doubt and uncertainty about the evidence we presented to this House -- and some were minded to believe them," May told parliament. "Today's announcement shows that we were right." Except that it doesn't. The new narrative is that "Petrov" and "Boshirov" flew into Gatwick airport on Friday, March 2. CCTV footage purportedly verifies this. They checked into a budget hotel in Bow, east London, and the next day, according to police, travelled to Salisbury, staying in the area for several hours, before returning to London. ..."
"... The pair then returned to Salisbury on Sunday, March 4. Police claim they are shown on CCTV at 11:58 a.m., on Wilton Road, "moments before the attack" on Sergei Skripal. ..."
"... Former UK ambassador Craig Murray asked: "1. Why did two alleged GRU agents travel under false names and fake passports, but still use Russian ..."
"... Murray retweeted a statement from a freelance journalist, Neil Clark, pointing out: "If the two men were identified coming through Gatwick, it is impossible that the police do not know what kind of visa they were travelling on. Something is very wrong here -- ties in with the fact that the photos released [showing grainy images of the men's faces on dark backgrounds] are not UK visa standard photos." ..."
"... at precisely the same second ..."
"... Murray points out that the Skripals left their home at 9:15 a.m. on March 4 and were assumed not to have returned home, before they were found collapsed. "But the Metropolitan Police state that Boshirov and Petrov did not arrive in Salisbury until 11.48 on the day of the poisoning. That means that they could not have applied a nerve agent to the Skripals' doorknob before noon at the earliest." ..."
"... An article on the Off Guardian website noted that the police said the Bow Hotel was "contaminated" with novichok, but no one has been reported ill in six months at the hotel. ..."
"... The government's narrative cannot be taken at face value, especially as it is supplied by the same security services that faked "evidence" of Iraq having "weapons of mass destruction" to justify pre-emptive war against Iraq. ..."
"... Moreover, the timing of the government's latest disclosure is highly suspect. Yesterday, the UK raised its new allegations against Moscow at the United Nations Security Council, after which the US, France, Germany and Canada issued a joint statement that the Russian government "almost certainly" approved the poisoning of the Skripals. ..."
"... The same day the European Union announced it was extending, for a further six months, the sanctions it had imposed on around 150 Russian individuals and 50 companies following the right-wing Western-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014. Complaints of Russian aggression in Crimea have been used to carry through a massive NATO build-up on Russia's borders. ..."
"... These measures unfold as the US renews threats over the operation by forces loyal to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad against Al Qaeda affiliates that control the northwestern province of Idlib. Denouncing the "threat of an imminent Assad regime attack, backed by Russia and Iran," the White House stated that, in the event of a chemical weapons attack, "the United States and its Allies will respond swiftly and appropriately." ..."
The UK government and media have doubled down on their anti-Russian campaign following
Wednesday's announcement by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that two men have been named as
suspects in the poisoning of former Russian/British double agent Sergei Skripal and his
daughter, Yulia.
The police released passport photos and CCTV images of two men in various locations,
including Gatwick Airport and Salisbury. But despite hysterical news broadcasts and
front-page headlines regarding "Russian assassins," the public know nothing more substantively
about the events of Sunday, March 4, than they did more than six months ago.
CPS Director of Legal Services Sue Hemming said that evidence from counter-terrorism police
meant "it is clearly in the public interest to charge Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, who
are Russian nationals," with the attempted murder of Sergei, Yulia and police officer Nick
Bailey.
Prime Minister Theresa May then told parliament that, in addition to the police
investigation, the security and intelligence agencies had conducted their own investigation
and, "based on a body of intelligence, the Government has concluded that the two individuals
named by the police and CPS are officers from the Russian military intelligence service, also
known as the GRU."
She added: "So this was not a rogue operation. It was almost certainly also approved outside
the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state."
The Russian Foreign Ministry has categorically rejected the UK's claims, stating the names
of the two men "do not mean anything to us."
May did not detail the intelligence she was supposedly acting on. Instead she singled
out Russia as the main enemy of the West that had to confronted, declaring, "This chemical
weapons attack on our soil was part of a wider pattern of Russian behaviour that persistently
seeks to undermine our security and that of our allies around the world."
"Back in March, Russia sought to sow doubt and uncertainty about the evidence we
presented to this House -- and some were minded to believe them," May told parliament. "Today's
announcement shows that we were right." Except that it doesn't. The new narrative is that
"Petrov" and "Boshirov" flew into Gatwick airport on Friday, March 2. CCTV footage purportedly
verifies this. They checked into a budget hotel in Bow, east London, and the next day,
according to police, travelled to Salisbury, staying in the area for several hours, before
returning to London.
The pair then returned to Salisbury on Sunday, March 4. Police claim they are shown on
CCTV at 11:58 a.m., on Wilton Road, "moments before the attack" on Sergei Skripal.
The police say two more images show the "suspects at Salisbury train station at 13.50 on
Sunday, 4 March, as they embark on their journey back to London." Another image shows the
"suspects passing through passport control at London Heathrow at 19.28 on Sunday evening (4
March) -- in the image, 'Petrov' is at the front and 'Boshirov' at the back."
May's definitive assertion of Russian authorship was contradicted by Assistant Commissioner
Neil Basu, National Lead for Counter-Terrorism Policing. Asked by the press if he had any
evidence that the two men were Russian State operatives, he said, "No." Basu said in his
statement that "it is likely that they were travelling under aliases and that these are not
their real names."
BBC Security Correspondent Gordon Corera reported that he understood the authorities
identified the pair "a while back" and "may also know their real names." But if so, why are
they not being made public?
Former UK ambassador Craig Murray asked: "1. Why did two alleged GRU agents travel under
false names and fake passports, but still use Russian names and Russian
passports? If they had used EU passports -- say from Lithuania or Estonia for example -- they
wouldn't have needed a visa, thanks to EU freedom of movement agreements, and could still have
spoken Russian without raising suspicion."
Murray retweeted a statement from a freelance journalist, Neil Clark, pointing out: "If
the two men were identified coming through Gatwick, it is impossible that the police do not
know what kind of visa they were travelling on. Something is very wrong here -- ties in with
the fact that the photos released [showing grainy images of the men's faces on dark
backgrounds] are not UK visa standard photos."
Among the glaring oddities in the new account is that the two photos released of "Petrov"
and "Boshirov" shows them both in what appears to be the same space at Gatwick airport at
precisely the same second (16:22:43 on March 2, 2018.) Raising the physically
impossibility, Murray suggests the CCTV images may have been
doctored . The police are now claiming that the two are in different but similar places
passing CCTV cameras at exactly the same time.
The government's latest narrative fails to correspond with claims it has maintained for
months that the Skripals were poisoned by "novichok" being applied to the front door knob of
Sergei's house.
Murray points out that the Skripals left their home at 9:15 a.m. on March 4 and were
assumed not to have returned home, before they were found collapsed. "But the Metropolitan
Police state that Boshirov and Petrov did not arrive in Salisbury until 11.48 on the day of the
poisoning. That means that they could not have applied a nerve agent to the Skripals' doorknob
before noon at the earliest."
An article on the Off Guardian website noted that the police said the Bow Hotel was
"contaminated" with novichok, but no one has been reported ill in six months at the hotel.
Moreover, to contaminate the room "the suspects would have to physically apply the poison to
it, and since they allegedly left [sic] country on March 4th -- the same day as the alleged
attack -- the contamination must have happened BEFORE Sergei Skripal was poisoned."
Also, previously the Metropolitan Police said that it was connecting the poisoning of the
Skripals with that of Dawn Sturgess and her partner Charley Rowley. Dawn died in hospital after
being exposed to what was described as a novichok on July 8. Rowley is now seriously ill with
reported meningitis.
Yet Basu commented, "We don't yet know where the suspects disposed of the Novichok they used
to attack the door, where Dawn and Charlie got the bottle that poisoned them, or if it is the
same bottle used in both poisonings."
The government's narrative cannot be taken at face value, especially as it is supplied
by the same security services that faked "evidence" of Iraq having "weapons of mass
destruction" to justify pre-emptive war against Iraq.
Moreover, the timing of the government's latest disclosure is highly suspect. Yesterday,
the UK raised its new allegations against Moscow at the United Nations Security Council, after
which the US, France, Germany and Canada issued a joint statement that the Russian government
"almost certainly" approved the poisoning of the Skripals.
The same day the European Union announced it was extending, for a further six months,
the sanctions it had imposed on around 150 Russian individuals and 50 companies following the
right-wing Western-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014. Complaints of Russian aggression in Crimea
have been used to carry through a massive NATO build-up on Russia's borders.
May wants the EU to go further and follow the US, which imposed additional sanctions from
August 27 on the basis that Russia had used "chemical weapons in violation of international law
or lethal chemical weapons against its own nationals." This include terminating aid, except on
urgent humanitarian grounds, restricting access to US credit, ending aspects of financing and
prohibiting exports to Russia of "restricted goods or technology." Russia has 90 days to allow
inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to verify it
does not have chemical weapons, or Washington will impose a far more severe set of
sanctions.
These measures unfold as the US renews threats over the operation by forces loyal to the
Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad against Al Qaeda affiliates that control the
northwestern province of Idlib. Denouncing the "threat of an imminent Assad regime attack,
backed by Russia and Iran," the White House stated that, in the event of a chemical weapons
attack, "the United States and its Allies will respond swiftly and appropriately."
Washington and London are not responding out of humanitarian concerns. They have backed the
Al Qaeda-affiliated terror groups in Syria as part of their regime-change operations in the
Middle East, and broader geostrategic objectives against Russia and Iran. As in previous
instances -- Douma in April for example -- Washington's threats amount to an invitation to the
Al Qaeda forces to stage an incident to justify military intervention by the US and its
allies.
On the one hand, the ruling class want us to believe that Russian operations are highly
sophisticated, that we should all live in suspense of when the next incident will occur, that
we should hunger for vengeance, and yet when the media and government provide their
"evidence" it shows that the so-called Russian operatives are incredibly inept. Of course,
what else could be expected from manufactured narratives.
The British ruling class and it's security forces are cold blooded killers for hundreds of
years. There is nothing too savage below them. Nothing they say can be taken at face value.
This whole affair has been a set up from the beginning. As we see know, it is used once
again when needed. Russia is about to make a final push in Syria. This means, if they are
victorious, America and Britain will have been stopped in the Middle East.
England has nothing left to lose. Nothing is off the table for their survival.
Jsut to assume tat two secret agents sent on an assassination plot from the Russian
government would leave such obvious traces is absurd. Using Russian passports, needing a visa
to enter, flying from Russia direct to London and then back... The British want us to think
that the Russian secret service does not know about all the CCTV cameras in London, or
England in general. Or the advanced level of security at Gatwick.
Anti-NATO Russians joke about this "new proof", I have read a funny short poem about it, and
my favorite joke was - looks like there is not even Lestrade in Scotland Yard anymore.
What is interesting is that Wolffe links the op-ed and publishing Bob Woodward's latest
book: "Woodward has cornered the panicked Trump rats into screeching about all the ways they
prevented
World War Three , or a massive trade war, by ignoring the ranting boss or snatching papers
off his desk."
Notable quotes:
"... Nothing proved, unnamed sources, claims about this, claims about that. Until someone is prepared to step forward and reveal themselves this is a non story. Still, it gives the Trump haters comfort. ..."
"... Personally, I am not surprised or impressed by this White House insider's account. Nothing he or she has said should be a real revelation to anyone who has cast a critical eye on the Trump presidency. And whoever it is, this person is so enamored with tax cuts, deregulation, ramping up military spending and the usual Republican horse shit that he or she does not seem prepared to risk further discrediting the administration by identifying him/herself and resigning publicly. ..."
If you really believe your boss is a threat to the constitution which you've
taken an oath to protect, perhaps you should consider quitting or going public. As in: going on
Capitol Hill to hold a press conference to urge impeachment.
In this regard, and only in this regard, our anonymous whistleblower has handed the crazy
boss a degree of righteous indignation.
"If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist," tweeted the madman in the
attic, "the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at
once!"
Donald, we feel your pain, albeit briefly. Your internal enemies are indeed gutless, and if
you feel better putting that in ALL CAPS, that's fine. Let it out.
But that bit about turning people over to you for national security reasons is kind of the
point here. If you'll allow us to summarize the GUTLESS person's arguments: you are
fundamentally a threat to democracy and national security yourself. You are indeed, as your
lawyers have pointed out repeatedly, your own worst witness.
This much we know from this week's other bombshell in the shape of Bob Woodward's latest
book. Woodward has cornered the panicked Trump rats into screeching about all the ways they
prevented
World War Three , or a massive trade war, by ignoring the ranting boss or snatching papers
off his desk.
... ... ...
Mr or Ms GUTLESS describes Trump's decisions as "half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally
reckless", while chief of staff John Kelly says Trump is "an idiot" living in a place called
"Crazytown". This revelation led to the priceless statement from Kelly where he had to deny
calling the president an idiot.
Somewhere in Texas, former secretary of state Rex Tillerson is swirling a glass of bourbon
muttering that he lost his job for calling Trump a moron.
Second, Trump's staffers are enabling the very horrors they claim to hate, while grandiosely
pretending to be doing the opposite.
Mr or Ms GUTLESS says there were "early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th
amendment" in what he imagines is a clear sign they can distinguish reality from reality
TV.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Trump cabinet: please know that you will not be accepted into
the next edition of Profiles in Courage for your early whispers. If you truly believe the
president is incapacitated, you should perhaps consider raising your voice to at least
conversational level, if you're not inclined to bellow from the mountaintops. Library rules are
inoperative at this point.
Given the weight of evidence, even the most diehard Trump defenders are now conceding the
obvious, by signing up to the GUTLESS gang's self-promotion. Brit Hume, a Fox News veteran, let
the cat out of the bag when he tweeted that it was a "good
thing" they were restraining Trump "from his most reckless impulses".
This is how the pirate ship Trump eventually sinks to the ocean's floor. You can fool some
of Fox News's viewers all of the time, and you can fool all of them some of the time.
But no fool wants to drown with the captain we all know is plain crazy.
It's someone high up that makes policy decisions, brags about everything they have done to
help America despite Cheetos interfering. Why now? Pence wants it known that he is running
the government not useless trump whom has passed nothing. Pence will come out as the author
when Don is removed from office. Which could be nearing since this OPED is likely to expose
him. Maybe he planned it that way.
What's most remarkable to me is how closely the Michael Wolff's White House, Omarosa's
White House, Bob Woodward's Whitehouse, and Anonymous Staffer's White House reflect each
other.
Clearly a massive conspiracy. And one which Trump is helpfully participating in by
constantly saying and doing stuff which accords with the pictures they're all painting.
What's most remarkable to me is how closely the Michael Wolff's White House, Omarosa's White
House, Bob Woodward's Whitehouse, and Anonymous Staffer's White House reflect each other. All
these sources come together to display a rather coherent image of a chaotic White House led
by a man who's not bright enough to realize he's in over his head.
The New York Times attack piece was anonymous. It is therefore completely unverifiable and
could have been written by anyone, including any of the politically biased NYT editorial
team, or by Bob Woodward to publicize his new book. It's junk news.
I'm firmly convinced that when it's all said and done we'll be able to represent his
presidency as an MMO boss fight. This is the bit where everyone concentrates fire on the
glowy spot until the enrage mechanic kicks in. In fact it looks like the mad flailing has
started and now everyone will try not to stand in the AoE as they DPS him down.
Mussolini was in power for twenty years before his functionaries deposed him to keep the
regime intact while removing its newly-a-liability head. Mussolini was the legal (if
abhorrent) premier of a coalition government in a liberal-democratic (both words with a pinch
of salt) regime for his first two years, until winning a parliamentary majority of his own;
indeed, after the leader of the Socialist Party was killed by his supporters, his coalition
partners almost pulled out of government: that's not a totalitarian dictatorship, but what
was then called "pre-fascism", and today we'd call it an 'illiberal democracy'. The
dictatorship was informal (result of a supportive majority) until the constitional reform of
1928 - five years into his government.
Thinking that all will turn out fine because American democracy is under strain but
generally intact, is a dangerous complacency. All interwar autocrats went through a
transition of first governing under the old constitution, slowly undermining opposition, then
installing a new organic law. Perhaps all will turn out well in the US, and Trump will leave
office with the old 'rules of the game' untouched - but that can't be assumed, and we won't
know until after he is gone.
Pepperoni Pizza is absolutely correct. We DON'T know his staff are going behind his back
- we have this anonymous bollocks as the totality of our evidence.
Truckloads of "anonymous bollocks" reported by credible, highly respected journalists with
excellent reasons to protect their sources.
"Anonymous" bollocks" which syncs perfectly with events and pronouncements by the
president himself - including numerous firings of so many of the "best people" he hired.
"Anonymous bollocks" confirmed in evidence/testimony presented publicly and under oath in
court.
Nothing proved, unnamed sources, claims about this, claims about that. Until someone is
prepared to step forward and reveal themselves this is a non story.
Still, it gives the Trump haters comfort.
There is a segment of this country that is willfully ignorant because a con man told them
to be. We really need to ignore this shrinking number of fuck-nuts and just out vote
them.
We live in a democracy. If you choose to use facebook as your only source of news about the
world, it is not because a con man told you to, it is because you are just too plain stupid
to go looking elsewhere.
I'm surprised that no one has compared the author of the anonymous article in the New York
Times with "Deep Throat", who anonymously met Bernstein and Woodward in an underground
parking garage in Washington to spill the beans about Watergate. Deep Throat turned out to be
Mark Felt, a high-ranking official in the FBI who kept working against Nixon under cover and
whose name was revealed only a few years ago.
Personally, I am not surprised or impressed by this White House insider's account. Nothing he
or she has said should be a real revelation to anyone who has cast a critical eye on the
Trump presidency. And whoever it is, this person is so enamored with tax cuts, deregulation,
ramping up military spending and the usual Republican horse shit that he or she does not seem
prepared to risk further discrediting the administration by identifying him/herself and
resigning publicly.
Screw whoever it is, they are obviously no hero to the American people.
Nice post and well put.
I am currently sitting in an office where 30% are blaggers of the highest order. They talk
and kiss ass - but ultimately - deep down - know they cannot do they do not know the job. The
responsibiltiy they have will make you shudder. I have told friends and they are visibly
shaken that this can happen. But I think it is the way of the world at the moment. They dare
not argue with me for full knowledge they will be sent packing, they already have been but on
"minor" non work related items.
"Fake it til you make it" is the slogan they clutch tight to their heart the consequences
however are far far reaching. My only hope is that should any of them leave here - they will
get found out in a week.
Yes the likes of Trump are a reflection of just that.
The mad thing is - I now am of the belief that I could do that job ie President of the US.
That is madness.
to foil the wishes of the elected members of government.
No. Just one member. And that one member isn't a supreme leader. You need to look
elsewhere for those types of leaders - they're usually standing next to Trump while he fawns
over them.
Personally I'm grateful for a bureaucracy that frustrates bad ideas - wherever they
come
from. That's part of their role.
Everything, with the exception of Steve Bannon in Michael Wolf's book, has been anonymous.
These people write things, attribute them to, say, John Kelly, then Kelly says I NEVER SAID
THAT and we're left to believe whom?
If there is genuine resistance inside the White House to Trump- If it is at all like
anybody says- then I would imagine that a genuine top level appointee would go on camera,
throw themselves on their sword, and speak to the American people. Until such a time I
question what is Woodward's agenda? Do I trust Omarosa? Is Michael Wolf credible? What are
their goals? I'm not blind but I want to see more than anonymous. And until then... I don't
believe it.
I agree, I'd hate to defend him either, but you can't help thinking he has a point by
calling this person gutless. Either stand up in public and say it or, if s/he really is
working in the background to save us from Trump's excesses, then surely you're better off
(and the country as a whole) staying there and not alerting him?
It's the New York Times, and no, they certainly haven't been against Trump since his
election.
Their lead White House correspondent, Maggie Haberman, still writes extremely
understanding pieces of Trump. And she's been covering the man for almost 15 years, so one
would think she had the measure of the man long ago.
More importantly, the NYT threw the election for Trump by first exonerating Trump of any
Russian collusion - which was false - and by covering the last-minute Comey statements on the
Clinton emails in the worst negative light possible for the Democratic candidate. The NYT
turned out to be wrong, but the damage was done.
The NYT even tried to put new faces on their opinion staff with close connections to
actual American neo-Nazis (!) and only failed when old tweets came to light.
I'm not quite sure what the NYT is playing at - I guess it's easy to play the devil's
advocate in artsy-fartsy, liberal New York - but they most certainly have not been
against Trump from January 2017 at all.
Trump is not a freedom fighter, he is not your Great White Messiah, he's not an advocate
for blue collar American citizens. Trump is a stupid, vulgar, greedy old fat racist who
conned his way into the White House. There has been a lot of talk in all mediums about his
unsuitability for the office, and his obvious ties to the Kremlin, but there has been no
organized effort to remove him from office, no matter what you might have read on Qanon.
You think the entire population is incapable of thinking about serious issues because there's
some tittle-tattle on twitter? When did that happen? No-one would work because there's always
fluffy kittens on YouTube.
The plot now turned into smuggling operation run by older Skripal, possibly with some participation of this daughter.
There were similar hypothesis about Litvinenko death -- that he was involved n polonium smuggling operation.
The behaviour of two people involved is unprofessional -- they took public transport so they were strictly bounded by train
schedule. But that's logical if they were mules -- used for smuggling some substance to GB.
Notable quotes:
"... As with the fraudulent "Mueller investigation" in the US, despite the united efforts of government officials and a colluding, servile mass-media insisting that there's a (sinister Russian) "there" there, I foolishly thought that the overall absence of actual evidence, or even a plausible rationale connecting the dubious dots, was an overreach that would rapidly reach a fatal point of diminishing returns. ..."
"... But I underestimated the staying power of Big Lies, and the Big Liars who tell them ..."
"... Another oddity, the hotel the men stayed at, which was supposedly contaminated by Novichok as discovered on May the 4th - I did a news search for this hotel for the period March - September 4th and couldn't find a single reference to it being cordoned off or investigated by the police. Did they let people continue to use the hotel without telling them it could be contaminated? ..."
"... EVERYONE knows it's all BS. BUT, everyone talking about it gives it traction. I find this no different than the USA scoundrels worried about Syrian citizens in Idlib. ..."
"... The most worrying angle, as far as I am concerned, is the utter unbelievability of these stories. Exactly in line with 9/11 (three buildings knocked down by two planes), the Boston Marathon bombing, countless supposed multiple murders in the USA that do not seem to have taken place as officially described, MH17, and the Syrian "chemical weapons" attacks. ..."
"... So we had Bolton clearly stating in the media time and time again --- if chemical weapons are found in Idlib it would be a game changer to US policy in Syria, thus prompting those desperate cornered brutal rebels, offering a last way out of there situation. Now we have the prime minister. UK giving a statement about new evidence re Salisbury, chemical Russia. I would put a weeks wage on there being a chemical attack in Syria Idlib enytime now ! This is the UK prime minster aiding a massive brutal crime. ..."
"... It is obvious this whole novichok thing is a false flag op. The only question is why did the UK government did this. ..."
"... UK agencies have a long track record back to before WW2 running operations to get the US into a war. Their recent false flag operations inside the UK are to soften up the US/UK public in advance of the UK managed chemical weapon false flag attack in Syria they are clearly threatening in advance. ..."
"... There are times of the day when 2 passengers could arrive at an empty passport control, enter two different tunnels at the same time and arrive at exactly the same second at equivalent gates. Not many times, because it means that there is no queue at either tunnel. And 16:22 is not one of these times. ..."
"... You think that two members of a highly trained hit squad are going to walk through Heathrow together? You've got to be dreaming. Have you no concept of Operational Security? Dear oh dear... ..."
"... Historian and political analyst Vladimir Kornilov wrote an article for RIA Novosti comparing the famous 1924 SIS forgery, "Zinoviev letter", to the ongoing Skripal affair: https://ria.ru/analytics/20180905/1527822792.html ( machine translation ; the translation is good, except that "the Violins" should read as "the Skripals"). ..."
"... And with all due respect to b I don't think the airport pictures prove much. Who were these two? Why did they go to Salisbury? It looks too sloppy to be GRU. Russian Mafia contract killers is my guess. Unless the whole story is an elaborate MI6 concoction and all the CCTV photos are fake. ..."
"... A beautiful story, this Skripal affair...designed and timed to draw the public into emotional judgments, against reason and logic, immediately prior to the Russian pummeling of jihadi scum. One wonders what sort of blowback arises from such psychological conditioning. Hmmm... ..."
"... As I wrote before, the case reeks of planted evidence. A normal logic of investigation would be to inspect "probable leads" ASAP, and to perform tests ASAP. Instead, the famous door knob was tested with one month delay, and the hotel room, with two month delay. But planting evidence in an improvised mode requires planning and debates how to do it. The logistics of planting evidence are the most plausible explanation why it was done at the place where Skripals lived rather than close to the place where they together lost consciousness. Planting evidence in the hotel is simplicity itself, because it is very easy to do it in a secret lab. ..."
"... Two men (traveling together on Russian passports) are seen leaving a flight from Moscow and (in the most heavily CCTV monitored country in the world), immediately take public transport directly to and from the scene of the crime. ..."
"... Its very hard to imagine that any intelligence agency would be so sloppy as to use their own nationals, own passports, travel together, take direct flights from their own capital, use public transport, make no effort to avoid CCTV, casually dispose of vital evidence where it was certain to be found (a deadly poison left in a brandname perfume box at a charity donation bin? someone was going to open it eventually), etc. There are many more flaws but there are also more significant questions. ..."
"... Is there any strong reason to believe that US or UK intelligence were less likely to poison Skripal than Russia? Did he perhaps have evidence regarding the Steele Dossier they wanted to silence? If so, is there any reason we should not suspect the men in the picture of working for non-Russian intelligence who are deliberately trying to point the finger of blame at Russia? ..."
"... Personally, I think relity is much more mundane: the UK, given its objective reality post-Brexit, simply decided to (re)synchronize (update) its geopolitical position with the USA's. When the USA decided to jump into the madness of Russophobia after Trump's victory, the UK simply had to jump after because it is so dependent on the Americans they kinda didn't have a choice. ..."
"... They need something to try to put pressure on Russia. What tools do they have? "Skripal case", "Russian meddling in elections" (aka "Russian hackers"), "Russian doping", situation in Donbass, illegal detentions/abductions of Russian citizens (Ukraine did it with Kirill Vyshinsky in May, the US did it with Maria Butina recently etc.), cheap provocations with chemical weapons in Syria to accuse Assad/Russia. ..."
"... I would pick three directions - the "Skripal case", fake "chemical attacks" in Syria and deliberate aggravation of the situation in Donbass (terrorist act against DPR head Alexander Zakharchenko is just the beginning) are, apparently (in their opinion), the most effective measures to influence Russia to change its policy in Syria. These tools will be used. Simultaneously, or in a particular order. ..."
"... The key proposition that the police are asserting is that the Skripals were poisoned by 'delayed reaction'. The alleged suspects were out of Salisbury 3 hours before the Skripals exhibited signs of poisoning, nerve agents, however, act immediately. If the 'door handle theory' is not physically possible, which it is not, then that leaves out the assassin hypothesis. Most likely, as I have always said, is that this is about Sergei's skulduggery, he took delivery of the agent from these guys for eventual passing over to the White Helmets via their MI6 handlers. All went pear shaped because of a leaky bottle. Sergei realised something was wrong so hurried his meal so he could check it out, reached the park bench with Julia and the saw that the bottle was leaking and began to feel ill, Julia through the thing away and went down herself. ..."
Some commenters there who claim to be familiar with the airport have already noted that
the men were surely exiting from parallel walkways ("channels"), and/or that the CCTV clock
was simply malfunctioning.
Even if both claims are true, it doesn't explain away the remarkable congruence between
the men's supposedly separate and independent progress through the walkways. Again, some
commenters who purport to be personally familiar with the location assert that there are
visible differences in the "two" walkways shown in the photos-- but to me they look
identical.
This is still another dodgy, ambiguous piece of "evidence" to prop up the ongoing Big Lie.
In the weeks following the Skripal event, the UK officials began making such ludicrous and
incredible assertions that I naïvely expected that their colossal deceit would blow up
in their faces sooner than later.
As with the fraudulent "Mueller investigation" in the US, despite the united efforts of
government officials and a colluding, servile mass-media insisting that there's a (sinister
Russian) "there" there, I foolishly thought that the overall absence of actual evidence, or
even a plausible rationale connecting the dubious dots, was an overreach that would rapidly
reach a fatal point of diminishing returns.
But I underestimated the staying power of Big Lies, and the Big Liars who tell them.
Another oddity, the hotel the men stayed at, which was supposedly contaminated by Novichok as
discovered on May the 4th - I did a news search for this hotel for the period March -
September 4th and couldn't find a single reference to it being cordoned off or investigated
by the police. Did they let people continue to use the hotel without telling them it could be
contaminated? Did nobody notice police and men in hazmat suits there? Or was the name of the
hotel d noticed?
Everyone,,, EVERYONE knows it's all BS. BUT, everyone talking about it gives it traction. I find this no different than the USA scoundrels worried about Syrian citizens in
Idlib. Anything the West says or does is USDA Grade AAA horse hockey.
As to the UK government being able to fake the involvement of GRU agents - remember that
Sergei Skripal himself was a British spy while working for the GRU. Why not others?
The most worrying angle, as far as I am concerned, is the utter unbelievability of these
stories. Exactly in line with 9/11 (three buildings knocked down by two planes), the Boston
Marathon bombing, countless supposed multiple murders in the USA that do not seem to have
taken place as officially described, MH17, and the Syrian "chemical weapons" attacks.
The official explanations of all those stories are so weak and inconsistent that they
would be rejected as plot lines for Dr Who or CSI. So what is their little game? I can think
of two unpleasant possibilities.
They are trying to calibrate exactly how grotesque a set of lies they can pass off
without any public protest or outcry.
They are compiling a list of the few people who are both intelligent and bold enough to
point out the obvious discrepancies in public.
So we had Bolton clearly stating in the media time and time again --- if chemical weapons are
found in Idlib it would be a game changer to US policy in Syria, thus prompting those
desperate cornered brutal rebels, offering a last way out of there situation. Now we have the prime minister. UK giving a statement about new evidence re
Salisbury, chemical Russia. I would put a weeks wage on there being a chemical attack in Syria
Idlib enytime now ! This is the UK prime minster aiding a massive brutal crime.
This prime minister got in to power by a slim margine on the back of 3 false flag terror
attacks 2 in London one in Manchester persuading the public to go for the get tough vote .
Are we gulable or what ?
UK agencies have a long track record back to before WW2 running operations to get the US into
a war. Their recent false flag operations inside the UK are to soften up the US/UK public in
advance of the UK managed chemical weapon false flag attack in Syria they are clearly
threatening in advance.
This is beyond ridiculous that the dried out husk of the UK is beating its chest for war
with Russia. I almost wish that they would get their war and be beaten flat.
Just yesterday the Russian embassy in the UK released this statement: Today marks exactly six months since the Russian citizens Sergei and Yulia Skripal were
taken to Salisbury District Hospital under obscure circumstances...
There are times of the day when 2 passengers could arrive at an empty passport control, enter
two different tunnels at the same time and arrive at exactly the same second at equivalent
gates.
Not many times, because it means that there is no queue at either tunnel.
And 16:22 is not one of these times.
My experience through those boarding bridges is that when boarding people walk normal pace
and when exiting they do so at a faster pace down the bridge. I guess they want get to their
luggage quickly.
Køn @ 14 "In fact anyone insisting that this timestamp is some gotcha loses a lot of
credibility in my eyes."
Don't be a gallah, Køn! You think that two members of a highly trained hit
squad are going to walk through Heathrow together? You've got to be dreaming. Have you no
concept of Operational Security? Dear oh dear...
The two strong-looking men take it in turns to carry what looks like a light backpack which
is kind of odd in itself. If nerve gas had either been sprayed or smeared, one or both would
have to have used a full protective suit, which consists of a bulky gas mask, jacket,
trousers and substantial boots, which would have called for a much bigger backpack.
These photos show the same time but different locations. These are the security barriers
between passport control and the baggage reclaim hall, there are a number of parallel gates
that open automatically and are monitored by CCTV. The high resolution photos on the Met
website show a different camera angles: The Petrov photo shows a white flat surface with a
thin red stripe in the lower right corner and the top of the wall panels on the upper left.
The Boshirov picture show a much wider red stripe (and no white surface) and the top of the
panels is not visible. So you have two different gates entered at the same time.
I'm no expert but allow me to play devil's advocate. What if they have two cameras on
different angles with separate receivers in case one goes offline and their clock is not in
sync so the second camera stamps same time when it's one second later on first. It just seems
that if there was Photoshop involved they would think of changing the timestamp and inserting
person in precisely same angle. Of course it doesn't explain why they would take pictures
from two different cameras, but maybe face appeared clearer?
Which airports have parallel disimabarkation tunnels then? I've been through 4 airports in 3
different countries in the past two months and each time it was a single tunnel. The only
time I've seen two tunnels was when I was on a flight witha first class and even then it sort
of branched off, near the door of the plane.
Could it be the same corridor at two different locations at the same moment? This would
explain the different angles of the cameras, which maybe were placed at a similar location to
the railings etc.
Historian and political analyst Vladimir Kornilov wrote an article for RIA Novosti
comparing the famous 1924 SIS forgery, "Zinoviev letter", to the ongoing Skripal affair:
https://ria.ru/analytics/20180905/1527822792.html
(
machine translation ; the translation is good, except that "the Violins" should read as
"the Skripals").
Deltaeus... kindly please desist from insulting me in anitpodean. I make no assertions about trained or untrained hit squads or how they might behave. I am merely saying that anyone who thinks these timestamps represent anything suspicious
or out of the ordinary is chasing their own tails.
The UK authorities present pictures of two men that travelled together on a flight from
Moscow to London Gatwick. They went through parallel security sluices at the same time as
they were walking together. At which point they were automatically photographed. It could
just as easily have been that the time stamp was 1 second apart or even 2 seconds, or as is
in fact the case, less than 1 second apart. NOTE: They may have triggered the automatic
camera 999ms apart and still had the same timestamp so it is not strictly accurate to say
that they were pictured at exactly the same time. The sluice appears to be about 4 metres
long up to the point where the camera is triggered. I can walk 4 metres in less than 2
seconds. Which does not give a large time frame in which the walking pace of these two men
can diverge.
There is so much more suspicious and contentious in todays UK announcement that it is
ridiculous and counter productive to waste time on an easily explained time stamp.
This is an obvious fabrication of evidence. What they did was to take 2 photos from the same
tunnel using the same camera at different times, but with the camera rotated about 20 degrees
between them (notice the slightly different fish-eye lens distortions). Afterwards they
flipped one of the images horizontally and added time-stamps to the images, but forgot to
change the times between them.
Gatwick not Heathrow. I highly suggest reading the
comments to Craig Murray's blog post. Yes, as here there're some repetitive comments, but
many good points are also raised. Perhaps the best is the lack of a "tag" identifying the
camera location as at the security station you have many CCTV images that are very similar:
Something like Jetway2 Customs4, or some such. IMO, the photos and story are contrived just
as the rest of the hoax is--except for the fact that at least one person has died and likely
the Skripals most certainly--she wanted to return to Russia and take Sergei with her.
Well done UK comrades! So now you will release all the cctv from the original Salisbury
incident so we can see every detail of the cunning ruskies eh! including the entire street
videos, Mill pub and park videos too; and in high resolution this time please. Plus as the
case is solved would you be so kind as to release the complete OPCW reports and the Porton
Down reports too.
Can't have enough open government in the worlds foremost democracy now, can we?
Sy Hersch blames the poisoning of Skripals on the Russian mafia who found out he was working
with MI6 to reveal their European operations.
Could these two guys be of the Russian mafia? Them being not of the Russian IC might
explain how the poison was less than lethal for all who came in contact.
@49 Sorry Sy but your theory doesn't hold up. Teresa May has said they were from the GRU.
Here are her exact words...
"Based on this work, I can today tell the House that, based on a body of intelligence,
the Government has concluded that the two individuals named by the police and CPS are
officers from the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU.
The GRU is a highly disciplined organisation with a well-established chain of command.
So this was not a rogue operation. It was almost certainly also approved outside the GRU at
a senior level of the Russian state."
Here is an interesting side note, relating to the statement made by "Sue Hemming, the CPS
director of legal services" (e.g. as in
this Guardian piece .
We will not be applying to Russia for the extradition of these men as the Russian
constitution does not permit extradition of its own nationals. Russia has made this clear
following requests for extradition in other cases. Should this position change then an
extradition request would be made.
This is a blatant lie. Russia's Constitution (available here in Russian states the following in Article 63,
Section 2:
В Российской
Федерации не
допускается
выдача другим
государствам
лиц,
преследуемых
за
политические
убеждения, а
также за
действия (или
бездействие),
не
признаваемые
в Российской
Федерации
преступлением.
Выдача лиц,
обвиняемых в
совершении
преступления,
а также
передача
осужденных
для отбывания
наказания в
других
государствах
осуществляются
на основе
федерального
закона или
международного
договора
Российской
Федерации.
Which means (my own translation, but Google Translate is your friend if you do not believe
me):
In the Russian Federation it is not permitted to extradite to other states individuals
who are persecuted for their political beliefs, as well as for actions (or inaction) that are
not deemed criminal in the Russian Federation. Extradition of individuals accused of
committing a crime, as well as transfer of convicts to serve their sentences in other states,
is performed on the basis of federal law or international agreements of the Russian
Federation.
I must confess that I am not up on the most current version of Russian criminal law, but I
believe "attempted murder utilizing a banned chemical weapon" does still qualify as a crime
over there, and, moreover, is not considered "political beliefs". But, of course, an official
extradition requests would entail also handing over the Crown's evidence against the accused,
which...well, clearly there is so much of it that the Crown just doesn't wish to share
any.
Perhaps the best is the lack of a "tag" identifying the camera location as at the security
station you have many CCTV images that are very similar: Something like Jetway2 Customs4,
or some such.
Se my post @45 (animation link). The camera location is the same in both images,
they just rotated the camera, and flipped one image horizontally. If you download the MET
"originals" and repeat what I did you find the match to be 100%. With identical time stamps,
you know this is fabricated evidence. There is really no other plausible or (even possible)
explanation.
It isn't the GRU (Glavnoye Razdevyvatel'noye Upravleniye, Main Intelligence Directorate) any
more. In 2010, the name was changed to GU (Glavnoye Upravleniye, Main Directorate).
"Norwegian" is correct. These pics have been tampered with bigly. "Kon" points out that one
has a "red line" while one has a more solid looking red area. That is explained by the
picture flipping and tilting. The red line is a framelike border of something. In one pic we
see that part that's further from the camera and it looks like a slim red line. In the other
pic we see the part of it which is closer to the camera, and is ALSO the corner of the line,
so it appears to be something completely different when it's actually just 2 parts of the
same puzzle.
My bet is that they were taken at different times of day, those tunnels always let natural
light in. Unless a filter was intentionally applied(to further suggest two tunnels). There
has been some photoshop fussing with the other identifying blobs - like the dirt on the
camera lense and on the floors have been erased or blurred in the flipped pic! It's mad
obvious.
Thanks Norwegian, I am posting that gif all over the place.
Thanks for your reply! Another comment mentioned the ability of such digital cameras to
self-crop as both pics are cropped as someone provided the pixel dimensions. IMO, this is
just more BigLie piled atop the preceding BigLies--doubling-down is the Neocon way after all.
All timed with Idlib, no doubt. My question along with many others: Where are the other
passengers having to travel through the same portals?
My explanation: Human images were added to an image(s) of an empty portal(s).
"It is virtually a confession from the police". Yes, one doesn't know whether to be hopeful
of a whistleblower, or just devastated at the incompetence of the so-called intelligence
agencies behind these fabrications. It's hardly ever the former unfortunately.
Nice work with the gif, it appears exactly how you describe it... just amazing fuckery. Re:
the timestamp, its so sloppy it pretty much a taunt: 'none of you sheep give a toss cos
there's not a critical thought amongst ya'
@65 Good question. And with all due respect to b I don't think the airport pictures prove
much. Who were these two? Why did they go to Salisbury? It looks too sloppy to be GRU. Russian Mafia contract killers is my guess. Unless the whole story is an elaborate MI6 concoction and all the CCTV photos are
fake.
It may be the release of this material was scheduled to coincide with the US sanctions
announced a few weeks ago, as those were said to be motivated by the Skripal case, but then
held back for domestic political reasons, as May's position has weakened just the past two
weeks. The bonus gratuitous finger-pointing at Corbyn would serve its purpose today or back
in August.
It all relies ultimately on" a body of evidence gathered by intelligence" and we know from
recent past experiences of anglo/ ameriocan Intelligence that that cannot be trusted to be
either valid or reliable .
Please people these photos were taken in exactly the same place. Nothing has been
rotated.
Notice on the right hand side there is a a small piece of a red security notice in the two
photos. You will need to see the original police photos to see this. In only one of the four
lanes is that possible. The one on the right as viewed from the exit. notice that this is the
only lane where the steel handrail on the right extends so far on the white panel. Two
different photos of the same lane with the same timestamp. ???? I'd say in both images are
fake.
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.1570429,-0.1626642,2a,89.7y,192.36h,83.5t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5aRAGxER5MlF-9kpw8ZyRQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Ort 17
Yes, it appears, like me, you are enjoying our latest visit to Wonderland where a great many
things are possible... all you need to do is believe. Christopher Steele has done a smackdown
job of reinvigorating the Non Fiction shelves at my library. Who knew high treason and golden
showers could ever work together.
A beautiful story, this Skripal affair...designed and timed to draw the public into
emotional judgments, against reason and logic, immediately prior to the Russian pummeling
of jihadi scum. One wonders what sort of blowback arises from such psychological conditioning. Hmmm...
I wouldn't say these images prove anything either way.
Perhaps they are doctored, but what if they were from customs entry points side-by-side?
The two men have been walking together so presumably they'd go through the customs walkways
at exactly the same time. These are not photos from the walkway off the plane - that much is clear.
On the spectrum of what is going on you have to go from one end (all this evidence is
completely fabricated - these might be images of 'dead men' so no one can step forward to
personally refute them) all the way over to the Brits are telling the truth.
Most likely, it's somewhere in the middle, but impossible to say exactly where.
Even without the time stamp discrepancy I am at loss to understand what the photos prove. Absolutely nothing. I suppose they just want to keep the story in the publics mind in
preparation for the next "Russia did it " false flag. Coming soon to a theater near you.
Ever notice September-November makes for the most exciting times? No wonder many season
premiers start in winter/spring now
Why now, when the CCTV 'evidence' must have been available for months? Just like the Douma
pantomime and subsequent bombing of Syria, this is clearly setting the scene for a western
assault on Idlib, possibly this weekend.
@71 Nice theory, except that the security notice in those police photos appear to be mounted
far too low to correspond with their location in that google maps image, even on the one lane
that you nominate. You can see that best in the "Boshirov" photo where the top-left of the
notice can be seen.
In the google maps image the signs are at head-height, so a line drawn from the ccd to a
"pretend eyeline" in Google Maps would suggest that the security camera would be recording
the bottom-left of that sign, not the top-left corner.
That walk-though was recorded in September 2017.
The security footage was filmed in March 2018.
It isn't a stretch to believe that between these two dates the signs were moved lower and
closer to the guardrail.
Anyone in Ol' Blighty want to walk up to those gates at Gatwick and tell us?
Presumably they were on the same flight? If they have identified the flights - presumably
the Russians would be able to ID these guys at the other end - in some way at least.
Russia needs to do more to get back their national Yulia Skripal . She's been brazenly
abducted by UK regime. If Brit Sh disappear na Russian imagine the fate of Julian Assange if
he steps out of that embassy
@71 Just to be clear about what I am saying, because my previous post may be confusing: if
you look at the two security shots and note the top-left corner ("Boshirov") and left-flank
("Petrov") of those signs then both suggest that the bottom-left corner of that security
notice will be just above (as in almost but not quite level-with) the top of the guardrail.
Unless there is massive foreshortening and distortion in those security camera feeds then
I would suggest that those signs have been moved between September 2017 and March 2018.
In which case, of course, your observation is not going to be valid.
Two Russian nationals . Brits decide they are Russian assassins . Were they seem committing
an assassination ? Imagine any Russian tourist now could be labelled an assassin and abducted
like Yulia Skripal and held incommunicado . Russia should take Britain to court over this
behaviour
As I wrote before, the case reeks of planted evidence. A normal logic of investigation would
be to inspect "probable leads" ASAP, and to perform tests ASAP. Instead, the famous door knob
was tested with one month delay, and the hotel room, with two month delay. But planting
evidence in an improvised mode requires planning and debates how to do it. The logistics of
planting evidence are the most plausible explanation why it was done at the place where
Skripals lived rather than close to the place where they together lost consciousness.
Planting evidence in the hotel is simplicity itself, because it is very easy to do it in a
secret lab.
OTH, pictures have semi-plausible explanation and Ruslan Boshirov is not a frequent name,
probably Muslim (Boshir/Bashir is an Arabic name, ev/ov is a Russian ending).
Two men (traveling together on Russian passports) are seen leaving a flight from Moscow
and (in the most heavily CCTV monitored country in the world), immediately take public
transport directly to and from the scene of the crime.
Its very hard to imagine that any intelligence agency would be so sloppy as to use
their own nationals, own passports, travel together, take direct flights from their own
capital, use public transport, make no effort to avoid CCTV, casually dispose of vital
evidence where it was certain to be found (a deadly poison left in a brandname perfume box at
a charity donation bin? someone was going to open it eventually), etc. There are many more
flaws but there are also more significant questions.
Is there any strong reason to believe that US or UK intelligence were less likely to
poison Skripal than Russia? Did he perhaps have evidence regarding the Steele Dossier they
wanted to silence? If so, is there any reason we should not suspect the men in the picture of
working for non-Russian intelligence who are deliberately trying to point the finger of blame
at Russia?
Leaving that aside, is there any reason not to think the men n the picture may have been
members of organized crime for some reason upset with Skripal? This might explain the lack of
professional tradecraft.
In short, even if we accept that the people in the photographs were responsible for the
poisonings, there has been no evidence presented to link them to the Russian government other
than the fact that they travelled directly from Moscow on Russian passports, a fact that
should actually be seen as making it less likely they were Russian agents.
Fyi, there are 2 terminals at Gatwick, north and south. Though, as Pft, Julian and others
have said, what do these pictures really say at this stage...? Only guilty by the logic of
highly likely.
"Ruslan Boshirov" is supposed to be Tajik. I noticed the last name "Boshirov" too
("Boshir" = Tajik rendering of "Bashir" or "Bashar").
Bashar / Bashir is a common boys' name and surname in some Muslim countries (but maybe not
Iran). Also a common surname among Christian communities in Lebanon. A former governor of New
South Wales had that surname. Both her parents were of Lebanese background.
Ruslan is a common boys' name in Russia and countries that used to be part of the Soviet
Union. It is derived from the Turkic name Arslan. As Tajiks are an Iranian-speaking people, I
am not sure if the name is popular with them. From what I have been able to find out online,
Tajiks seem to prefer Persian names.
Hmm, someone in Britain didn't do their homework terribly well.
Dr. Wellington Yueh , Sep 5, 2018 9:36:16 PM |
link
Heh...it seems to be working. We're now talking about this instead of the Idlib campaign.
Well, if Hersh has the evidence for this, I won't be doubting him. I'm sincerely open to
any good theory -- the only thing I'm certain is that it wasn't the Kremlin: there's simply
no gain for Russia in this.
Personally, I think relity is much more mundane: the UK, given its objective reality
post-Brexit, simply decided to (re)synchronize (update) its geopolitical position with the
USA's. When the USA decided to jump into the madness of Russophobia after Trump's victory,
the UK simply had to jump after because it is so dependent on the Americans they kinda didn't
have a choice.
Maybe, in a parallel universe, if Corbyn had won the 2017 snap election, we could
visualize a different position from the British. But that door is definitely close now -- and
even if he had won, we have to face the fact the UK is simply the natural ally of the USA in
the European Peninsula (the most stable one -- of course there are valuable American
satrapies in Poland, the ex-Yugoslavian republics not-named Serbia, the Baltic States and the
new, desintegrated, nazi-Ukraine; but they are of the military outpost-type, nearer the
"danger").
This is nothing more but an endless conglomeration of lies. Not just mistakes or fallacies,
but a deliberate lies. It is clear for all adequate people who have brains.
Why it is now the British authorities decided to shake off the dust from the forgotten
"Skripal case" and to revive it? Well, Syria is the answer, of course. In particular,
upcoming (in fact, already started) Idlib liberation.
They need something to try to put pressure on Russia. What tools do they have?
"Skripal case", "Russian meddling in elections" (aka "Russian hackers"), "Russian doping",
situation in Donbass, illegal detentions/abductions of Russian citizens (Ukraine did it with
Kirill Vyshinsky in May, the US did it with Maria Butina recently etc.), cheap provocations
with chemical weapons in Syria to accuse Assad/Russia.
I would pick three directions - the "Skripal case", fake "chemical attacks" in Syria
and deliberate aggravation of the situation in Donbass (terrorist act against DPR head
Alexander Zakharchenko is just the beginning) are, apparently (in their opinion), the most
effective measures to influence Russia to change its policy in Syria. These tools will be
used. Simultaneously, or in a particular order.
By the way, one must not exclude possible chemical provocations in Ukraine. Ukrainian
terrorist regime has not used it yet, but all is possible. Especially now, after "Skripal
case" is revived and some fake "chemical attacks" are definitely will happen in Idlib (giving
FUKUS a "legitimate reason" to launch aggression on Syria again). The CyberBerkut hacker team (a kind of Fancy Bears) recently
reported that chemical provocations in Ukraine (in Donbass) are in preparation stage, and
that American instructors participate in organizing of this provocation. Not a fact that this
will happen, of course, but still this possibility must not be ruled out.
As for these two men, "discovered" a half of a year after the incident... For any sane
person, the proposal to believe that these two are GRU agents is an insult to his
intellectual abilities. "GRU agents", who flew direct(!) Flight from Moscow, and flew back
the same direct(!) Flight. "GRU agents", who in general did not even tried to disguise
themselves, and, as if specifically, tried to be caught by all surveillance cameras in the
UK. "GRU agents", who used their passports(!) instead of coming to the UK secretly (for
example, through Ireland). "GRU agents", who left the "Novichok" traces wherever possible,
and then carelessly threw the bottle on the street. "GRU agents", who for some reason decided
to use such a strange, dangerous and uncomfortable method as "poisoning the victim with a
chemical warfare agent(!)" instead of easily and unnoticeably shoot a victim from a gun with
a silencer (or strangle the victim at home). "GRU agents", who did not notice anything for
eight(!) years, and then suddenly woke up and realized that they released Skripal from Russia
"without punishment"...
I can continue this endlessly. The longer the list of lies becomes, the longer the list of
disproof.
@65 virgile.. that is what some of us have concluded from the start.. phony passports or
phony characters - hard to know what one is looking at here, isn't it?
@83 brian.. it is the court of public opinion, brought to us via the western msm... guess
who is winning? msm with ignoramus's in tow, or not? - i agree with your comments @85.. no
evidence whatsoever, but that doesn't stop the russian smearing, which may be the main motive
here on the part of the uk..
@84 piotr.. i agree - planted and long after the fact..
@87 jen.. that is what i got from someone sharing a russian story via translation - which
i shared @42..
from my link at 42 which is a translation from a russian news outlet.. see the link @42 for
more..
"According to official data, Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov flew on March 2, 2018
from Sheremetyevo to London Gatwick Airport. According to Fontanka, 150 passengers were
registered for the flight of Aeroflot SU2588.
The suspects bought tickets on foreign passports of the "65" series, the document numbers
differ by the last digit: ... 1297 and ... 1294.
Apparently, in the hands of Boshirov and Petrov already had return tickets, and for two
consecutive flights from Heathrow to Sheremetyevo - evening on March 4 and night 5-th. The
British authorities believe that the suspects used the first.
There are almost no open sources of information about Boshirov. According to the
"Fontanka", he was born on April 12, 1978 in Dushanbe, was registered in Moscow in a
25-storey house on Bolshaya Naberezhnaya street.
In 2015, he was brought into two executive proceedings for automobile fines received with
a difference of three days, on July 20 and 23. The oddity is that the production numbers are
not in order. The first assigned 433048, the second - 432322, although they were issued by
one unit - the interdistrict department of bailiffs to collect administrative fines number 1
in Moscow. On the portal of the magistrates of the capital there are no cases of
administrative violations against Ruslan Boshirov. Also it is not in the database of
executive production.
"Fontanka" phoned long-term residents of the "Boshiro" house on the Great Embankment. They
live on the same stairwell. "In the apartment you named, only an elderly woman lives," the
correspondent replied. "We carry her money, she collects for cleaning the cleaner." A man was
never seen in the apartment and was not seen at the entrance. We can only assume that this is
the son of the hostess, who is registered at the address, but who has never lived here. "
Boshirov's network activity is no different either. The pages created under this name and
last name in 2014 are empty. On Facebook, Boshirova has one friend registered, a girl from
Ukraine. The profile "VKontakte" contains information that Boshirov graduated in 2004 from
the geography department of Moscow State University in the direction "Hydrology of the
land".
The shoulder bags held by the two "suspects", as seen in the CCTV stills from the two
airports, are not seen in the Salisbury CCTV footage from the Sunday. Instead, in Salisbury,
the suspect in the black jacket wears a light-coloured backpack on arrival at the train
station, and the suspect in the blue jacket wears what appears to be that same backpack in
the stills from an hour later as they return to the Salisbury train station. Presumably the
backpack carried the applicator and then was later ditched.... but looking at the applicator
itself it is hard to fathom how it would not leak, either in flight or in the backpack, even
inside its alleged box. The Met police report claims that the bottle allegedly discovered
later "contained a significant amount of Novichok."
On the Sunday morning in question, the suspects allegedly walked directly to the Skripal
household from the train station (approximately 25 minutes), poisoned the Skripal door within
minutes of arrival, then immediately returned to the train station. This operation was
allegedly facilitated by a 90 minute "reconnaissance" mission the previous day, although
there are no CCTV images from this mission. Why and how the men knew they would not be seen
at the doorway on Sunday is not explained.
According to the Met Police report, swabs at the suspect's hotel room were done on May 4.
Porton Down alone confirmed the presence of Novichok from these swabs. The Met report adds:
"Two swabs showed contamination of Novichok at levels below that which would cause concern
for public health." ???? As far as I am aware, that Russian suspects may have flown in and
out of Britain on that weekend has been discussed since March, but a positive ID of
"Novichok" in a suspect's London hotel room is new information - strangely never referred to
before. The otherwise entirely circumstantial case depends on the presence of the chemical in
the hotel room, as there is otherwise no direct connection of these men to "Novichuk",
perfume bottles, or the Skripal house (the CCTV footage can only place them in the
"vicinity").
This case retains its improvised nature. Something seems to have been botched somewhere in
the original March events, and the proclamation of Russian guilt was announced too soon and
too unequivocally to back down from. The Novichok in the perfume bottle and now the two
alleged suspects with the alleged trace Novichok in the hotel room appear to be semi-clumsy
additions to the evidence designed to buttress the faulty story after the fact.
This is simply another fine example of the Theory of Tells. The Dark Agents NEVER allow the
strange evidence that they release to the public to be totally coherent or rational. They
always insert impossible artifacts. If the narratives they create were reasonably coherent,
they would never have the proper effect of causing profound cognitive dissonance in the mind
of the public, they could therefor never achieve the necessary degree of fear, uncertainty
and doubt.
That would invite people to ask pertinent questions. There must always be a few strategic
red herrings. So they always leave strategic tells.
They are different photographs a few seconds apart as can be seen by the figures at
the very back of the jetway who move a tiny bit closer to the camera after the first suspect
passes.
However, the timestamps are then fake and represent a mistake on the part of the person
*creating* the evidence. He fucked up and put the same stamp on both pictures.
These pictures were taken a short time apart, but not at the time stamped... i.e. boarding
a different flight. A different flight. The timeline is hokum . They did not fly in
and out at the times stated or on the flights stated.
It is even conceivable that the person cooking the books wanted to include something that
would show it was hokum, that he or she wasn't completely on board. I wonder who it was?
The doors that have those "Do not enter" symbols facing us or the greeting area are open
in b's pictures because the individuals have just passed thru them. Therefore you only
faintly see the grey back of the symbols.
Also, note how in one Google photo the steel guardrails are on paneling right beside the
security signs while in the other Google photos it shows the guardrail separated from the
security signs with an empty panel except for the corridor furthest to the right. So the
correct photo is the former one and the individuals went through two exactly similar
side-by-side corridors simultaneously, which means the photos might be legit. Also, there are
at least two or more cameras on the ceiling facing corridors which explains the different
angles. It looks like photos are authentic.
@86 Well that explains why in one photo there's an extra glass panel and in the other the
panel with the guardrail is beside the panel with the security signs! There are two sets of
corridors in the airport.
The photos in the article are Therefore most likely authentic.
The key proposition that the police are asserting is that the Skripals were poisoned by
'delayed reaction'. The alleged suspects were out of Salisbury 3 hours before the Skripals
exhibited signs of poisoning, nerve agents, however, act immediately. If the 'door handle
theory' is not physically possible, which it is not, then that leaves out the assassin
hypothesis. Most likely, as I have always said, is that this is about Sergei's skulduggery,
he took delivery of the agent from these guys for eventual passing over to the White Helmets
via their MI6 handlers. All went pear shaped because of a leaky bottle. Sergei realised
something was wrong so hurried his meal so he could check it out, reached the park bench with
Julia and the saw that the bottle was leaking and began to feel ill, Julia through the thing
away and went down herself.
Interesting that Theresa May brought up and then dismissed the possibility of a rogue
operation. This tells me she is determined to pin the blame on Putin no matter what. I am
sure that the smarter elements of British security have a pretty good idea of what has
occurred. They will say nothing and they would be quite happy to keep Theresa Mays narrative
out in the public domain. Cooperation from Sergei is guaranteed, he has been caught once
again in a betrayal, as he always does because he is one of lifes losers.
Predictions 1 these guys have a connection to Julia's boyfriend.
Prediction 2 the 'Novichok' is decades old material obtained from the black
market and related to the black market material used in a previous Russian assassination.
The agent would be largely degraded to a less toxic degradation product, that doesn't
matter as its purpose, I believe, is for propaganda not killing. Amateur hour handling with
these ridiculously inappropriate and unsafe containers says a lot.
Fascinating to see the tinfoil hat brigade turn out in such numbers to rant and rave about the
"Deep State!" and poor, honest Donald Trump as a freedom fighter who is daily sacrificing
himself for the good people of America.
Why do bullies always pretend to be victims?
As with science, human nature can usually boiled down to the most likely answer, the simple
observable truth. Such as; Donald Trump's entire life is a story of greed, vulgarity and self
promotion to the exclusion of all else. He did not, in his 8th decade, suddenly develop a
desire to serve the American people at his own expense. He is in the White House doing exactly
what he has always done, he is pursuing whatever makes him happiest in the moment with no
regard to consequences, morality or even common sense.
Sounds like a palace coup to me: first, news of the forthcoming Woodward book (and excepts);
then-coincidentally-today's "anonymous" and 'Gutless' article in the Times.
As far as I'm concerned, this entire hellish administration is sheer "madness" and a very
clear indication that this country is in its agonizing twilight.
Each and every senior official in this administration is an enabler of this "shithole"
human being and current president, so there is no such thing as bravery here, just covering
one's tail if a coup were to occur.
Not once, as has been mentioned here and elsewhere, has this 'Gutless' wonder decried the
immorality of family separation, employing white racists as policy makers, shredding the
social safety net for millions of this nation's most vulnerable; an outlandish Pentagon
budget and etcetera.
What is solidly on display in this unfolding miasma is a firmly entrenched kleptocracy,
enabled and supported by U.S. corporations and the death of democracy.
The Woodward book seems to me just more kiss and tell stories of the Michael Wolff ilk
(remember him?). The juiciest quotes - Trump being called an idiot by Kelly - is denied by
Kelly himself and most of the others are ex-employees.
A better - more objective - book would
get past the unconventional, apparent chaos of the Whitehouse and perhaps investigate whether
Trumps methods have or will bear fruit.
That perhaps, as David Lynch said, traditional
politicians can't take the country or the world forward - they can't get things done anymore
because they are afraid of political consequences or media backlash. Trump and his ego
doesn't seem to care about that - is that a good thing or a bad thing? Trump has turned
everything on it's head and liberals find themselves allying with establishment politicians
and business groups. It is a fascinating period of political change and time - and better
journalism - will eventually judge Trump more objectively.
'Pence... not a dangerous, mentally ill megalomaniac'
Pence is more dangerous – make that outright terrifying – than Trump. Yes.
Trump is a senile vulgarian oaf – but he doesn't really believe in anything and is
motivated only by his greed and pathological need for self-aggrandizement. He's mentally
incompetent in a very obvious way, which renders him laughably inept at trying to bring his
more odious policy objectives to fruition (in fact, inept at everything, pretty much).
Pence is far more sinister, because he's a dementedly fanatical believer in a
fundamentalist and authoritarian mutation of religion – a crazed zealot. While
sometimes able to imitate the superficial demeanour of a person of sound mind, he is in truth
utterly deranged.
While Trump lies and denies obvious specific facts almost as a reflex, he doesn't really
sustain his warped world view consistently or with conviction that lasts longer than it takes
to play his next round of golf.
Pence vehemently espouses a whole alternative reality based
upon his religious fantasies, and believes he has a mission to impose his delusional ideas in
a punitive and repressive manner on his country's entire population, permanently. He may have
the cunning to be chillingly effective at realising his most ghastly ambitions.
Trump represents a temporary aberration; a collective brain fart. Pence could be the
instigator of a new dark age for the USA
Having seen this type of character assassination visited on Bill and Hillary Clinton,
character assassination before any reported crimes have been proven against them or for that
matter any sexual misdemeanors as president are proven, what exactly is going on here?
I totally disagree with this type of thing even if the person is someone I don't
understand much. The world has come to a dangerous place where digital lynching without
reference to law seems to be the prevailing modus operandi.
A little word of warning. Be careful what you wish for. If Don can be removed prior to the
next election, (and I don't believe that would happen), then Mike Pence takes the reins. He
has just as many crazy notions as his current boss, but is an experienced politician who
knows the ins and outs of Congress. He may get more of the programme through than little Don
can. And that would not be good.
He's done it before. Lots of times.
Example: one of his posts back in April:
"Trump is a genius. Nobody can take him down, the man is a fighter, you punch him and he'll
punch you back 10 times harder. The FBI, Democrats and MSM have tried to take him down since
he decided to run for president, yet he's standing tall and with a 50% approval rating."
There's no point in engaging in discussion with folks like that ...
Welcome to postmodernist politics folks. It will continue to degenerate until, in despair,
people turn toward an orderly system of politics; the Chinese system, the Russian system or
even a coherent religious system. Counsellors will be on hand for those who feel hurt or
upset by the return to authoritarianism -- they will be able to get great treatment in
re-education centres. Just a matter of time before our current system just crumbles from
within.
Yeah they're sucking it direct from Ayn Rand's teat. Bunch of sociopaths. And I think most
political scientists are well aware that citizens united was the death of American democracy
as a representative political system. The illusion of functionality has collapsed under the
weight of corruption. Trump is really just a symptom of that. A giant orange enema of the
state.
LOL. The west is about to collapse. There is no more money to finance the Ponzy Scheme of the
everlasting growth you seem to think is natural. while everyone is distracted in this
dualistic BS, the planet is slowly shutting down her ressources.
The Russia after years of
sanctions have developed an economy that make them less dependant on other countries. So
They will probably less affected by what is coming.
Unless you live in you own bubble, maybe
you noticed that Occidental countries have become empty shells...gutted from their skills at
making stuff. It is all virtual production now...all banking stuff, numbers insurance...most
skilled stuff are either in Germany or in Asia...what is going on?
Trump is a megalomaniac I agree, but he is not dangerous and is not mentally ill.
Mental illness is a real thing and you shouldn't casually trivialize it in this way.
Finally anyone who runs for office as President of the USA is by very definition a pretty
extreme megalomaniac. So you have two points that are not real and/or could be considered erroneous
discrimination and one point that is a prerequisite for any POTUS candidate.
Looking for a reason to impeach him is a ridiculous back to front thing to do and is itself
proof that any impeachment will fail. To impeach someone you must first start with a very
obvious reason.
It's simply not possible to impeach a president because you don't like their politics or
their personality. This whole searching for a reason to impeach is itself evidence that any
impeachment is politically motivated and the very optics of this serve only to strengthen
Trump's own political support in direct opposition.
Trump is President because the DNC was captured by very stupid and deeply corrupt
people.
Many say Mike Pence could have been the one behind the op-ed, because the unidentified author
singled out the late John McCain as "a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our
national dialogue." The word isn't that commonly used. But Pence has used the word with some
regularity. Yet the word could have been a ploy to divert attention from the real author, who
claimed to support many of the GOP policies – "effective deregulation, historic tax
reform, a more robust military and more."
No doubt the current crisis works for Pence: "Given the instability many witnessed, there
were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a
complex process for removing the president." Of course he and the GOP didn't want to
"precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration
in the right direction until -- one way or another -- it's over." But they don't want Trump
to finish his term and hope that he'll soon be gone.
Pepperoni Pizza is absolutely correct. We DON'T know his staff are going behind his back - we
have this anonymous bollocks as the totality of our evidence.
This op-ed is going to absolutely confirm, in the eyes of Trump supporters, all his whines
about being thwarted by the Deep State. It's going to increase his support among the crazies,
and it's also useful for the Republicans who want to ditch him in favour of Mike Pence.
The whole thing stinks to high heaven and for the Democrats or the 'resistance' to see it
as some kind of bonus is insane. Even if you take it at face value it's a disgusting piece of
authoritarian, we-know-best hypocrisy. If you look at its actual effects, the net result is
not likely to benefit the forces of sanity in any way.
The media's complacency about all of this, and their failure to actually report on the
Republican trajectory and the bigger picture, is criminal. Instead we get YET ANOTHER bit of
'oh look the wheels are just about to come off the bus!', and all the while the Republicans
are gerrymandering and purging voter rolls like crazt before the midterms, and of course
refusing to change their unaccountable electronic voting machines and - did you read THIS one
in the news? - blocking a bill which would have audited the election results.
Tl;dr: The US, and by extension the planet via environmental destruction and possibly war
on top, is utterly fucked.
"... Mr anonymous also concedes that the administration has done some good things .. like .. a robust military. Now call me old fashioned, but having a military with twice(three times .. four times) the capability of the rest of the world put together and spending enough yearly to run the whole of Africa .. probably India too, just on a means of killing .. and this even before the US military became .. robust?.. ..."
Mr anonymous also concedes that the administration has done some good things .. like .. a
robust military. Now call me old fashioned, but having a military with twice(three times ..
four times) the capability of the rest of the world put together and spending enough yearly
to run the whole of Africa .. probably India too, just on a means of killing .. and this even
before the US military became .. robust?..
What is wrong with you people .. national security?.. Laughable .. when is your security
ever, ever, ever threatened! And yet people starve, people don't have clean water to drink
..
Perhaps were the US to help lift the basic burdens of millions who have bugger all, then
there wouldn't be so many suposed 'enemies'. I do believe film maker Michael Moore has voiced
this very same thing .. but then, what purpose all those shiny new expensive killing
machines?..
Something is seriously wrong in America .. and it ain't just Trump!
This is a very poor op-ed piece. Simply calling the President "a crazy loon " isn't political
analysis, or at least not the sort of political analysis I would be willing to pay for. Nor
do I think the thesis that certain members of the administration are busy trying to shore up
their reputations in the face of a sinking presidency holds water. Firstly, unless the
current investigations provide incontrovertible evidence that the President was engaged in
criminal activity I don't think there is any change that he will be impeached. Secondly, if
you wanted to protect your reputation surely the thing to do would be to resign and maintain
a dignified silence while you are writing your memoirs. Or if you really were part of a
secret clique protecting the American constitution against a reckless President you would
keep quiet and get on with your important business. It seems to me that this anonymous piece
was either a clumsy attempt to further damage the President or a sophisticated attempt to
galvanise his support base by "proving" that the President is being undermined by unelected
traitors. Or something else completely might be going on. That's why I would like to read a
thoughtful opinion piece by an informed observer.
Sounds like there's a treasonous public servant there, doing their best to subvert the will
of the people. And of course loudly supported by the squealing hard left guardian mob.
Looking at the type of far left fascists crawling out of the woodwork, I would say
Trump is provoking utter derangement in all the right people.
"the corrupt metropolitan elites have swindled them again"
-Who appointed these 'corrupt metropolitan elites' if it was not Trump himself? Who are these
people-Betsy DeVos, Wilbur Ross and Steve Mnuchin- quite apart from Jeff Sessions and the now
disgraced Michael Flynn? Trump appointed them, they weren't forced on him by the "corrupt
metropolitan elites". Is Trump to be given a free pass for his own mistakes?
What many commentators here seem to fail to recognise, because of their political bias I
suppose, is that there is a ground swell of dissatisfaction with the political consensus that
has seen the working class and lower middle class disenfranchised or at least their perceived
interests ignored. As a result, populist ideologies, as espoused by Steven Bannon, and
others, and exemplified by leaders like Donald Trump have thrown away the rule book with all
its aims to support the extremely wealthy and have reached out to those that want jobs before
green policies, law and order before gender diversity programs and so on.
I doubt that many of the readers here will receive the message but we are witnessing a
revolution that I see as significant as the rise of the sans-culottes in the early part of
the French Revolution. That didn't end well for the sans-culottes or their aims but we can
hardly blame them for trying. Today the retrenched car worker in the US can hardly be blamed
for being unhappy that the CEO of a car company receives a huge pay rise and bail outs from
the government and similar stories in other areas.
Vive la revolution.
Some of this stuff is clearly nonsense. Example: the insider claimed Trump is an admirer of
dictators:
"In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators,
such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, and
displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded
nations."
And yet the forthcoming Bob Woodward book claims Trump told his defence secretary he
wanted to kill Assad:
Donald Trump ordered his defence secretary to assassinate Syria's president Bashar
al-Assad and "kill the f****** lot of them" in the leader's regime, in the wake of a chemical
attack against civilians, according to a new book.
Defence secretary James Mattis is said to have told the president during a phone call he
would "get right on it" before hanging up the phone and instead telling an aide: "We're not
going to do any of that. We're going to be much more measured." In the wake of the chemical
attack in April 2017, the president's national security team developed options that included
the more conventional airstrike that Mr Trump eventually ordered.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The anti-Trump lot can't have it both ways. He can't be a fan of dictators but also want to
kill them! It's clear there is lying or exaggeration on both sides. The people out to impeach
Trump (or sell books!) will lie too.
he reversed the war in afghanistan? drones? did he prosecute bankers? does he favor
increasing offshore drilling? now it looks like he's renegotiating clinton's nafta and
pushing for some version of obama's trade treaties. trump is the invading python, and the
democrats and establishment republicans are the alligators; whichever wins, the small furry
animals get eaten. i just hope they don't start world war 3 while they're settling
things--trump looks to be doubling down on obama's syria policy too, and support of the
current ukrainian government.
'Fraid so. Every new generation of neocons regurgitates the same discredited lies from the
previous generation, and suckers believe them all over again. Even the title "neocon" or
"neoliberal" is a lie: there's nothing new about them.
Trump was not only openly attacked during the nomination process, the Republican Party
nominee who was selected to fight Obama in 2012 -Mitt Romney- delivered a savage attack in
which he described Trump as a con-man and a chronic liar -yet the same people who could,
there and then have told Trump to get lost backed him. Trump has been attacked from the start
and every time and all of the time said to his attackers: so what? I dare you to remove me
from the nomination, I dare you to remove me from the Office of President. This is a man who
is challenging the governance of the US in a manner no other President has done before, and
so far, he is still winning. That is the scary part.
Trump is threatening Deep State corruption by placing his own family members in positions of
power and profiting from charging the nation for his and his staff's repeated use of Trump
Tower and Mar-a-Lago? That's a bizarre way of draining the swamp.
The US political system has many flaws, not least that the President can be elected on an
apparent electoral college landslide while losing the popular vote. But then again no
country's political system is perfect, human nature being what it is.
However, Trump is clearly not up to the job. Not by intellect, understanding of world
affairs, honesty, temperament, respect for the law, nor constitution. The list goes on
frankly.
The system has gone bad. Trump hasn't "drained the swamp", he's made it far deeper. That
said, "the system" such as it is should work in the hands of honest men and women of
integrity. The trouble is they're few and far between in the GOP as it wilfully ignores
issues in which they would be clamouring for a Democrat president to be impeached.
I sincerely hope the GOP get a thrashing in the mid-terms which may, just may, give them
pause for thought. A Democrat Congress might also actually hold Trump to account. The only
danger there is that he lashes out with even less self control.
Dangerous times.
I assumed it was an effort at creating some sort of record of resistance. Does anybody
really believe Paul Ryan is retiring from the 3rd most powerful position in the US Government
to "spend more time with family"? The rats are fleeing a sinking ship. Even if Trump serves
out a full four years, anybody too closely tied to this stupid shit-storm of an
Administration will be tarred in public eyes. But, American voters are notoriously forgetful,
and getting out before the ship goes down will probably work.
Funny shit. "the mole" wrote an Op/Ed piece, that contains no information of a sensitive
nature. S/he wrote of their own personal observations working in the White House. There is
nothing illegal in that.
I get that you might not have any functional understanding of
US law, but it is deeply disturbing that the President of the United States is calling for
the arrest of a citizen exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights.
The op-ed piece being anonymous makes me wonder if Mr Trump himself put someone up to do it.
What better way of stirring up the base ahead of the mid-terms than talk of undemocratic
factions within the administration and fifth columnists to be rooted out for the cause. It
also offers the president another cudgel against the press that will appeal to his core
constituencies.
Even if Mr Trump isn't capable of coming up with such a scheme, there are certainly those
around him who are.
The statements in the opinion piece are horribly anti-pluralist anti-democratic in
themselves. The writer's nationalist appeal to 'American' unity at the end is based on
everyone uniting around US Republican principles of neo-liberalism, inequality and
militarism. S/he would use a false unity against Trump to impose the worst kind of
conservative fundamentalism and eliminate anything more progressive from the political
spectrum.
Maybe this is mainstream neo-liberal thinking but it's the end of a plural, democratic
state. There would be no more room to discuss inequality, climate change, race or gender
discrimination or new welfare provisions. Just an offer of false unity around hard neoliberal
principles. I guess it's a very similar game to Brexit, which is a choice between
life-threatening asset striping of the UK or May's 'hard right soft Brexit' super
Thatcherism.
The op-ed represents a shocking critique of Trump and is without precedent in modern
American history. Former CIA Director
John Brennan , who has sparred fiercely with the president, called the op-ed "active
insubordination born out of loyalty to the country, not to Donald Trump".
"This is not sustainable to have an executive branch where individuals are not following the
orders of the chief executive," Brennan told NBC's "Today" show. "I do think things will get
worse before they get better. I don't know how Donald Trump is going to react to this. A
wounded lion is a very dangerous animal, and I think Donald Trump is wounded."
In it, the anonymous author describes Trump as amoral, "anti-trade and anti-democratic" and
prone to making "half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions".
The writer claims aides had explored the possibility of removing Trump from office via
the 25th amendment , a complex constitutional mechanism to allow for the replacement of a
president who is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office", but had decided
against it.
British Assassination Campaign Targeting Russian Exiles?
Over the past decade or so, a disturbing number of Russian nationals living in Britain have
met untimely deaths. The victims – at least 14 – have been high-profile
individuals, such as oligarch businessman Boris Berezovsky or former Kremlin security agent
Alexander Litvinenko. All were living in Britain as exiles, and all were viewed as opponents of
President Vladimir Putin's government.
Invariably, British politicians and news media
refer to the deaths of Russian émigrés as "proof" of Russian state "malign
activity". Putin in particular is accused of ordering "the hits" as some kind of vendetta
against critics and traitors.
The claims of Russian state skulduggery have been reported over and over without question in
the British media as well as US media. It has become an article-of-faith espoused by British
and American politicians alike. "Putin is a killer," they say with seeming certainty. There is
simply no question about it in their assertions.
The claims have also been given a quasi-legal veracity, with a British government-appointed
inquiry in the case of Alexander Litvinenko making a conclusion
that his death in 2006 was "highly likely" the result of a Kremlin plot to assassinate. Putin
was personally implicated in the death of Litvinenko by the official British inquiry. The
victim was said to have been poisoned with radioactive polonium. Deathbed images of a
bald-headed Litvinenko conjure up a haunting image of alleged Kremlin evil-doing.
Once the notion of Russian evil-doing is inculcated the public mind, then subsequent events
can be easily invoked as "more proof" of what has already been "established". Namely, so it
goes, that the Russian state is carrying out assassinations on British territory.
Thus, we see this "corroborating" effect with the alleged poisoning of a former Russian
double-agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter in Salisbury back in March this year.
What actually happened to the Skripals is not known – who are said to have since
recovered their health, but their whereabouts have not been disclosed by the British
authorities. Nevertheless, as soon as the incident of their apparent poisoning occurred, it was
easy for the British authorities and media to whip up accusations against Russia as being
behind "another assassination attempt" owing to the past "established template" of other
Russian émigrés seeming to have been killed by Kremlin agents.
For its part, the Russian government has always categorically denied any involvement in the
ill-fate of nationals living in exile in Britain. On the Skripal case, Moscow has pointed out
that the British authorities have not produced any independently verifiable evidence against
the Kremlin. Russian requests for access to the investigation file have been rejected by the
British.
On the Litvinenko case, Russia has said that the official British inquiry was conducted
without due process of transparency, or Russia being allowed to defend itself. It was more
trial by media.
A common denominator is that the British have operated on a presumption of guilt. The
"proof" is largely at the level of allegation or innuendo of Russian malfeasance.
But let's turn the premise of the argument around. What if the British state were the ones
conducting a campaign of assassination against Russian émigrés, with the
cold-blooded objective of using those deaths as a propaganda campaign to blacken and
criminalize Russia?
In a recent British media interview Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov was typically harangued over alleged Russian malign activity in Britain. Lavrov rightly
turned the question around, and said that the Russian authorities are the ones who are entitled
to demand an explanation from the British state on why so many of its nationals have met
untimely deaths.
The presumption of guilt against Russia is based on a premise of Russophobia, which prevents
an open-minded inquiry. If an open mind is permitted, then surely a more pertinent position is
to ask the British authorities to explain the high number of deaths in their jurisdiction.
As ever, the litmus-test question is: who gains from the deaths? In the case of the alleged
attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, would Russia risk such a bizarre
plot against an exile who had been living in Britain undisturbed for 10 years? Or would Britain
gain much more from smearing Moscow at the time of President Putin's re-election in March, and
in the run-up to the World Cup?
The more recent alleged nerve-agent poisoning of two British citizens – Charlie Rowley
and Dawn Sturgess – in the southern English town of Amesbury revived official anti-Russia
accusations and public fears over the earlier Skripal incident in nearby Salisbury.
The Amesbury incident in early July occurred just as a successful World Cup tournament in
Russia was underway. It also came ahead of US President Donald Trump's landmark summit with
Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.
Again, who stands to gain most from these provocative events? Russia or Britain?
Another revealing twist in the presumed narrative of "Kremlin criminality" came from a
recent interview given to Russian
news media by the daughter of the deceased oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Of course, her side of
the story received no coverage in the British media.
Liza Berezovsky believes that her father's death in 2013, while living in exile in Britain,
was the dirty work of British state assassins. The case has added importance because it links
directly to the previous death of Alexander Litvinenko, who was also living as an exile in
Britain.
Berezovsky's daughter believes that her father wanted to return from Britain to Russia so
that he could live out his old age in his native country. She claims that the oligarch had
vital information on how the death of Litvinenko in 2006, reportedly from radioactive polonium
poisoning, had actually been staged as a smear against Putin and the Kremlin.
Boris Berezovsky, his daughter claims, played a key role along with the British state in
orchestrating the demise of Litvinenko to look like an assassination plot carried out by the
Kremlin. It was Berezovsky who apparently suggested that Litvinenko, with whom he was an
associate, shave off his hair in order to drum up the suspicion of Kremlin poisoning.
Liza Berezovsky contends that, seven years after Litvinenko died, her father was preparing
to divulge the dirty tricks involving the British state and their anti-Russian campaign. She
said the oligarch wanted to atone for his past misdeeds and to make his peace with Mother
Russia. She believes that British state agents got wind of his plans to come clean, which would
have caused them an acute international scandal.
In March 2013, just days before he was due to depart from Britain, the oligarch was found
dead in his mansion near Ascot, in the English countryside, apparently from suicide caused by a
ligature around his neck.
In the end, however, a British civil coroner did not conclude suicide, and left an "open
verdict" on the death. An eminent German pathologist hired by Liza Berezovsky provided
post-mortem evidence that her father's body showed signs of his death having not been
self-inflicted. He was, in their view, murdered.
It is not beyond the realms of possibility that British secret services are running an
assassination program on Russian exiles. These exiles are often used for a time by the British
state as media assets, presented as high-profile critics of the Kremlin and lending testimonies
to much-publicized allegations of "authoritarianism" and "human rights abuses" under Putin.
At some opportune later time, these Russian dissidents can be liquidated by British agents.
Their deaths are then presented as "more proof" of Russian malign activity and in particular
for the purpose of criminalizing President Putin and his government.
Considering how London has become an international haven for Russian oligarchs whose wealth
is often tainted as being proceeds from criminal activity against Russian laws and who
therefore are easily framed as Putin opponents – the British state has ample
opportunities for setting up "assassinations" and anti-Putin provocations.
Such a nefarious British program is by no means unprecedented. During the 30-year armed
conflict in Northern Ireland ending in the late 1990s, it is
documented that the British state ran clandestine assassination campaigns against Irish
republican figures, as well as ordinary citizens, as a coldly calculated political instrument
of state-sponsored terrorism. It was an instrument honed by the British from other colonial-era
conflicts, such as in Kenya, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Malaysia (formerly Malaya), and in
several Arab countries like Bahrain and Yemen, as detailed by British historian Mark
Curtis in his book Web of Deceit.
Adapting such heinous techniques for a contemporary propaganda war against Russia wouldn't
cost any qualms to British state grandees and their agents. Indeed, for them, it would be
simply Machiavellian business-as-usual.
"... The time that "Boshirov and Petrov" were allegedly in Salisbury carrying out the attack is all entirely within the period the Skripals were universally reported to have left their home with their mobile phones switched off. ..."
"... But the Metropolitan Police state that Boshirov and Petrov did not arrive in Salisbury until 11.48 on the day of the poisoning. That means that they could not have applied a nerve agent to the Skripals' doorknob before noon at the earliest. ..."
"... But there has never been any indication that the Skripals returned to their home after noon on Sunday 4 March. If they did so, they and/or their car somehow avoided all CCTV cameras. Remember they were caught by three CCTV cameras on leaving, and Borishov and Petrov were caught frequently on CCTV on arriving. ..."
"... The Skripals were next seen on CCTV at 13.30, driving down Devizes road. After that their movements were clearly witnessed or recorded until their admission to hospital. ..."
"... In general it is worth observing that the Skripals, and poor Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, all managed to achieve almost complete CCTV invisibility in their widespread movements around Salisbury at the key times, while in contrast "Petrov and Boshirov" managed to be frequently caught in high quality all the time during their brief visit. ..."
"... This is especially remarkable in the case of the Skripals' location around noon on 4 March. The government can only maintain that they returned home at this time, as they insist they got the nerve agent from the doorknob. But why was their car so frequently caught on CCTV leaving, but not at all returning? It appears very much more probable that they came into contact with the nerve agent somewhere else, while they were out. ..."
"... they may have been meeting them, outside the home. The evidence points to that, rather than doorknobs. Such a meeting might explain why the Skripals had turned off their mobile phones to attempt to avoid surveillance. ..."
"... If "Boshirov and Petrov" are secret agents, their incompetence is astounding. They used public transport rather than a vehicle and left the clearest possible CCTV footprint. They failed in their assassination attempt. They left traces of novichok everywhere and could well have poisoned themselves, and left the "murder weapon" lying around to be found. Their timings in Salisbury were extremely tight – and British Sunday rail service dependent. ..."
The time that "Boshirov and Petrov" were allegedly in Salisbury carrying out the attack
is all entirely within the period the Skripals were
universally reported to have left their home with their mobile phones switched
off.
A key hole in the British government's account of the Salisbury poisonings has been plugged
– the lack of any actual suspects. And it has been plugged in a way that appears broadly
convincing – these two men do appear to have traveled to Salisbury at the right time to
have been involved.
But what has not been established is the men's identity and that they are agents of the
Russian state, or just what they did in Salisbury. If they are Russian agents, they are
remarkably amateur assassins. Meanwhile the new evidence throws the previously reported
timelines into confusion – and demolishes the theories put out by "experts" as to why the
Novichok dose was not fatal.
At 09.15 on Sunday 4 March the Skripals' car was seen on CCTV driving through three
different locations in Salisbury. Both Skripals had switched off their mobile phones and they
remained off for over four hours, which has baffled geo-location.
There is no CCTV footage that indicates the Skripals returning to their home. It has
therefore always been assumed that they last touched the door handle around 9am.
But the Metropolitan Police state that Boshirov and Petrov
did not arrive in Salisbury until 11.48 on the day of the poisoning. That means that they
could not have applied a nerve agent to the Skripals' doorknob before noon at the
earliest.
But there has never been any indication that the Skripals returned to their home after
noon on Sunday 4 March. If they did so, they and/or their car somehow avoided all CCTV cameras.
Remember they were caught by three CCTV cameras on leaving, and Borishov and Petrov were caught
frequently on CCTV on arriving.
The Skripals were next seen on CCTV at 13.30, driving down Devizes road. After that
their movements were clearly witnessed or recorded until their admission to hospital.
So even if the Skripals made an "invisible" trip home before being seen on Devizes Road,
that means the very latest they could have touched the doorknob is 13.15. The longest possible
gap between the novichok being placed on the doorknob and the Skripals touching it would have
been one hour and 15 minutes. Do you recall all those "experts" leaping in to tell us that the
"ten times deadlier than VX" nerve agent was not fatal because it had degraded overnight on the
doorknob? Well that cannot be true. The time between application and contact was between a
minute and (at most) just over an hour on this new timeline.
In general it is worth observing that the Skripals, and poor Dawn Sturgess and Charlie
Rowley, all managed to achieve almost complete CCTV invisibility in their widespread movements
around Salisbury at the key times, while in contrast "Petrov and Boshirov" managed to be
frequently caught in high quality all the time during their brief visit.
This is especially remarkable in the case of the Skripals' location around noon on 4
March. The government can only maintain that they returned home at this time, as they insist
they got the nerve agent from the doorknob. But why was their car so frequently caught on CCTV
leaving, but not at all returning? It appears very much more probable that they came into
contact with the nerve agent somewhere else, while they were out.
"Boshirov and Petrov" plainly are of interest in this case. But only Theresa May stated they
were Russian agents: the police did not, and stated that they expected those were not their
real identities. We do not know who Boshirov and Petrov were. It appears very likely their
appearance was to do with the Skripals on that day. But they may have been meeting them,
outside the home. The evidence points to that, rather than doorknobs. Such a meeting might
explain why the Skripals had turned off their mobile phones to attempt to avoid
surveillance.
It is also telling the police have pressed no charges against them in the case of Dawn
Sturgess, which would be manslaughter at least if the government version is true.
If "Boshirov and Petrov" are secret agents, their incompetence is astounding. They used
public transport rather than a vehicle and left the clearest possible CCTV footprint. They
failed in their assassination attempt. They left traces of novichok everywhere and could well
have poisoned themselves, and left the "murder weapon" lying around to be found. Their timings
in Salisbury were extremely tight – and British Sunday rail service dependent.
There are other possibilities of who "Boshirov and Petrov" really are, of which Ukrainian is
the obvious one. One thing I discovered when British Ambassador to Uzbekistan was that there
had been a large Ukrainian ethnic group of scientists working at the Soviet chemical weapon
testing facility there at Nukus. There are many other possibilities.
Yesterday's revelations certainly add to the amount we know about the Skripal event. But
they raise as many new questions as they give answers.
The op-ed is nauseating because it tells us the truth why they do it: Because conservatives got
their tax cuts, deregulation and all the other conservative politics that gamble with people's
lives. It's disgusting.
I am outraged at describing Trump's administration as a "pirate ship"!
Pirate ships were in
reality the most egalitarian institutions that existed in the 17th century. Their articles
laid out that both the captain and quartermaster (who divided the spoils) served at the
pleasure of their crew, and that the entire crew had rights to a fair portion of the
proceeds.
On a real pirate ship, Captain Trump would have lost his job long ago and been abandoned
on some tiny island with a single shot in his pistol.
"... The professor who reportedly assisted the FBI's Russia probe as a confidential source is at the center of a Defense Department whisteblower complaint that alleges government contractor abuses, as well as excessive payments with taxpayer dollars, according to interviews and documents reviewed by Fox News. ..."
"... Earlier this month, conservative watchdog Judicial Watch announced it was suing the Defense Department on behalf of Lovinger to force the release of emails and other electronic messages after Lovinger had his security clearance suspended. ..."
"... Bigley, who is representing Lovinger pro bono, said his client flagged the concerns about contractors -- including Stefan Halper , the professor -- as early as 2016, to Lovinger's leadership at the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), which is like an internal Pentagon think tank. ..."
The professor who reportedly assisted the FBI's Russia probe as a confidential source is at
the center of a Defense Department whisteblower complaint that alleges government contractor
abuses, as well as excessive payments with taxpayer dollars, according to interviews and
documents reviewed by Fox News.
The complaint was filed by attorney Sean Bigley on behalf of Pentagon lawyer Adam Lovinger.
Earlier this month, conservative watchdog Judicial Watch announced it was suing the Defense
Department on behalf of Lovinger to force the release of emails and other electronic messages
after Lovinger had his security clearance suspended.
Bigley, who is representing Lovinger pro bono, said his client flagged the concerns about
contractors -- including
Stefan Halper , the professor -- as early as 2016, to Lovinger's leadership at the Office
of Net Assessment (ONA), which is like an internal Pentagon think tank.
1) You pay your taxes
2) You pay your employees
3) There will be no asset stripping
Bill Browder (of Magnitsky fame) broke all these rules while pillaging Russia. From
1995–2006 his company, Hermitage Capital Management, siphoned untold billions of
dollars out of Russia into offshore accounts while paying no taxes and cheating workers of
wages and pensions.
Putin put an end to US and UK backed shysters stealing Russia blind. Is it any wonder the
western oligarchs hate him with such a passion?
By now anyone with an opinion on the Skripal poisoning has already decided if they believe
the official narrative or not. Still, the event and the ongoing media coverage around it
presents an opportunity to understand more than we might think.
The British government claim is that a "military-grade nerve agent", one of a group of nerve
agents supposedly called 'novichok' (which simply means 'newcomer'), was used by Russia on
Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury. They reach the conclusion that Russia is to blame
because, they claim, the nerve agent used is "of a type developed by Russia."
Russian daily newspaper Kommersant recently released a 6-page
document they claim constitutes the British government's official case against Russia. They
summed up the 'evidence' as follows:
Military-grade Novichok nerve agent positively identified at the UK's Defence Science and
Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, an OPCW-accredited and designated laboratory Novichok
is a group of agents developed only by Russia and not declared under the CWC A violation of
the fundamental prohibition on the use of chemical weapons (Art. 1 CWC) First offensive use
of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War We are without doubt that Russia is
responsible. No country bar Russia has combined capability, intent and motive. There is no
plausible alternative explanation As of Sunday 18 March, we count over thirty parallel lines
of Russian disinformation
Note the 2nd point, that " Novichok is a group of agents developed only by
Russia and not declared under the CWC ."
In an interview with AFP, the former Russian scientist who participated in the development
of "Novichok" in Russia in the 70s and 80s, Vil Mirzayanov, stated that if Russia was not
responsible for the poisoning:
"The only other possibility would be that someone used the formulas in my book to make such a
weapon.
Mirzayanov's book, published
in 2008 , contains the formulas he alleges can be used to create "Novichoks". In 1995, he
explained that
"the chemical components or precursors" of Novichok are "ordinary organophosphates that can be
made at commercial chemical companies that manufacture such products as fertilizers and
pesticides."
So the British government claim that this type of nerve agent can only be Russian, and was
only developed by Russia, is demonstrably false. In fact, in her statement to
the House of Commons on 12th March 2018 , British Prime Minister Theresa May contradicted
that claim when she said:
"It is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve
agent of a type developed by Russia. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as
'Novichok' . Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by
world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down. "
In the world of nerve agents, in order to positively identify a sample, you must
have your own sample for comparison and positive identification.
In a judgement at the British High Court on 22nd March on whether to allow blood samples to
be taken from Sergei and Yulia Skripal for examination by the Organisation for the Prohibition
of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), evidence submitted by the Porton Down laboratory to the court
(Section 17 i) stated:
"Blood samples from Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were analysed and the findings indicated
exposure to a nerve agent or related compound . The samples tested positive for the
presence of a Novichok class nerve agent or closely related agent. "
Again, Porton Down must have had a sample of the alleged nerve agent used to
poison Skripal and his daughter. That can mean only one of two things: that Porton Down
obtained the nerve agent from some other party, or manufactured it on site . Porton Down is,
after all, in the business
of producing chemical weapons (ostensibly to test them on anti-chemical weapon equipment).
Note also that the wording used in the quote above includes the possibility that the agent
used on Skripal was not even 'Novichok' but rather a "related compound" or something "closely
related." So even Theresa May's statement that the British MoD had "positively identified"
'Novichok' seems false.
In
an interview with German Deutsch Welle , bumbling UK Foreign Secretary Boris
Johnson was directly asked if scientists at Porton Down had samples of 'Novichok', to which he
replied:
" They do . And they were absolutely categorical and I asked the guy myself, I said,
'Are you sure?' And he said there's no doubt."
So the only thing we can presume to be 100% certain of in the poisoning of Skripal
and his daughter is that the nerve agent used was in stock at Porton Down, 8 miles from the
site of the poisoning.
In the 5th point in the British government 6-page 'dossier', the British establishment
claims:
"We are without doubt that Russia is responsible. No country bar Russia has combined
capability, intent and motive. There is no plausible alternative."
We know that other countries have the capability. Claiming to have no doubt about
someone's intent is nonsense. So we're left with motive. Did Russia have a motive to poison
Skripal and his daughter? Motives for a course of action are intrinsically linked to the result
of the action. The obvious and predictable result of using a nerve agent that was originally
developed in Russia in the 1970s to poison a former Russian spy living in the UK and working
for British intelligence is that Russia would be blamed and universally condemned for it. So if
Russia was motivated to further downgrade its reputation on the international stage, then sure,
Russia had motivation to poison Skripal and his daughter.
The problem is that there is no evidence that Russia desires to damage its own reputation in
this way. Is there evidence that anyone else has such motivation? For those that have been
paying attention to world affairs over the past 6 or 7 years, I'll presume that you don't need
me to answer that one.
So when we remove the unfounded and contradictory claims around the Skripal poisoning, the
actual facts of the case are rather limited:
Skripal lived in Salisbury, England, and had
been working for MI5 for 8 years. It is reasonable to assume that he may, therefore, have had
access to sensitive material, possibly useful to foreign governments, including Russia. As
such, he may have posed an 'intelligence threat' if he returned to Russia. According to a close friend , Skripal had
recently decided that he wanted to go back to live in Russia and petitioned the Russian
government to that end. Not long thereafter, Skripal was poisoned with a substance that was in
stock at a British Ministry of Defense facility, 8 miles from where he was living. The British
government blamed Russia for his poisoning. This accusation must be seen in the context of a
years-long anglo-American black propaganda campaign designed to marginalize Russia and thereby
limit its ability to effectively assert itself as a globally influential player. I've heard
people make the argument that any investigations of what really happened in Salisbury can only
ever be guesswork, that we can never be 100% sure. Of course, that's true to a degree,
especially when dealing with evidence which may be held back from public disclosure because of
reasons of "national security". But such people tend to use this line of thinking simply to
avoid taking a position, because taking a position scares some people, especially if it is not
the official position. It's also not very realistic or practical. If we were to hold all
statements and claims to the same level of proof, our court systems would become obsolete.
Rarely is there enough evidence to find a criminal guilty with a 100% degree of certainty.
That's why courts hold the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" and allow for
circumstantial evidence.
Insistence on absolute proof fails to recognize that, as humans, we don't navigate our lives
and make decisions on the basis of 100% proof. Instead, we use something akin to 'past form'.
For example, if I intend to take the train at 9.15am from platform 1 in the morning, I cannot
be 100% certain that the train will be there at 9.15am, or that it will be there at all that
day. Instead, I actively assume that it will be there based on the circumstantial evidence I
have accrued through repeated observations that when I go there at that time the train is
there. You could even say that the train is very likely to be there because it has the means,
motive and opportunity.
That's how we go about our daily lives, at least. But in cases of guilt and innocence we
probably need a higher standard. Many suspects may have means, motive and opportunity at the
same time. That doesn't mean they're all guilty. And a history of similar crimes does not
necessarily mean that a suspect is guilty of one particular crime. So what to do in a
case like the Skripal poisoning? The only thing we can do is compare competing hypotheses and
the degrees to which they are consistent with all the facts available. In other words, which
scenario is more likely given the known facts?
In answering the question of who poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter, we lack 100%
proof that the British government (or some element thereof) was responsible for the attack,
just as we lack 100% proof that the Russian government was responsible. In fact, the evidence
and reasoning provided by the British government does not actually support the Russian
hypothesis over competing hypotheses, because we would see the same evidence if the attack were
carried out in order to frame Russia. If evidence applies equally to two or more competing
hypotheses, naturally that evidence cannot be used to support one hypothesis over the other,
which is precisely what the British government is doing.
In contrast, the British government's apparent access to the precise nerve agents in
question, close to where Skripal lives, their full access to Skripal himself, their past form
in fabricating evidence of chemical weapons usage by other states, and their clear intent to
wage a vicious and underhanded demonization campaign against Russia, all combine to allow us to
actively assume that the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter was the work of the British
government itself. Is it beyond a reasonable doubt? Perhaps not, but it is currently
the only hypothesis that makes sense given the evidence available. And until more evidence is
made available, it is the only reasonable conclusion to make.
An established web-based essayist and print author, Quinn has been writing incisive
editorials for Sott.net for over 10 years. His
articles have appeared on many alternative news sites and he has been interviewed on several
internet radio shows and has also appeared on IranianPress TV. His articles
can also be found on his personal blog JoeQuinn.net .
It's hard to even decipher the official narrative, it's an incoherent mess, lacking any
motive, lacking any factual content.
Where we have facts, e.g. 3 actual admissions to hospital and compare with the narrative,
130 lives threatened, it's makes May's announcements appear total nonsense
It's all very well western MSM and governments asking us to believe their narratives but
their story lines never make sense ... they just lack logical consistency and tend to have
glaring plot holes .... it's all hypocritical BS
Lol. Is there anyone on SOTT who believes the official narrative?
I've been knitting a sweater waiting for some really good 'official' evidence;
I'm about to start in on a new one and perhaps a blanket after that.
The thing about official narratives is that they try to appeal to the 'plausible lie'
(repeated often enough on the news - and nothing new here to SOTT readers), and in a court of
law (or world opinion) this type of lie, as we know, can do the trick in peoples heads.
Double-down on it all with rolled out authoritarians and the MSN public can be like putty -
moldable.
Thanks for writing such a good article - nice work!
This whole episode disgusts me, and that is what is, an episode, in the pathological drama
that is enfolding in the world today.
It has no bearing or relevance to what is occurring in the real world, it's a staged
political act.
These so called politicians in the west are so inept, they are no longer able to judge or
respond to the will of the people, for which they have been elected I might add, they resort
to extraordinary measures to keep the electorate on side.
Unfortunately, it seems to be missing the mark, evidence all the mass unrest in the US, UK
and Europe.
The so called Austerity measures have done nothing more than to create more chaos on an
already chaotic situation, fueled by emotional fervor.
And of course, we have the MSM fueling the fire. At one time it was described as the 5 th
Estate, No longer, it is a collaborator and cooperator in the message that the political
elite want to send to the masses.
Well it's a free choice one can believe the evidence that is presented from whatever news
source one wants to watch, read or listen to. Personally I think there should be a warning
message, like on food labels, that if one listens, watches or reads the MSM, it is a case of
buyer beware, in the case of MSM, it is a case of your mind beware, and that is the most
important thing as far as I am concerned, ones own personal integrity is not compromised, the
ability to discern truth from lies.
Joan ''...These so called
politicians in the west are so inept,...''
The politicians are not the ones running the show. Big money is. Really big
money. Consortiums of major banks and oil companies for example. The Rockerfeller family is
another one. I forgot the number but I do remember their fortune is unbelievably colossal.
They are in everything. Just a handful of people are running the show from behind the scene.
Surely you know that.
demore Yes I do know that. And what we are witnessing is a show for public consumption
It has no relation to what is happening in th real world. Business with Russia continues,
although they may have to jump more hurdles, the space station continues, banking and finance
continues. trade continues, cultural exchanges continues.
So this is a purely a staged political event to sway the peoples to back a pathological
ideology.
They live in a bubble of there own reality and unfortunately they are trying to get people
to pierce the bubble and enter that reality.
Consider for example this picture which shows Mr. Skripal and his daughter Yulia presumably
in the pub or the restaurant they visited before they collapsed. Who is the third person,
visible in the mirror between them, who took the picture?
Is this third person the MI6 agent Pablo Miller who in 1995 recruited Skripal as British
double agent. Miller who was also involved in handling the MI6 assets Boris Berezovski and
Alexander Litvinenko. Pablo Miller who lives close to Sergej Skripal in Salisbury and is
considered to be his friend? The same Pablo Miller who worked with former MI6 agent
Christopher Steele's Orbis Business Intelligence which created the 'dirty dossier' about
Donald Trump? How deep were the Skripals involved in making up the fake stories in the
anti-Trump dossier for which the Clinton campaign paid more than $168,000 dollars. Did the
Skripals threaten to talk about the issue? Is that why the incident happened?
Without going too far into the gymnastics of the Skripals' poisoning, it is quite probable
Theresa May may have known there was going to be a poisoning of the Skripals, before the
actual poisoning took place. Check the timings of the released 'certainty' data.
Her unprotected visit to the sites should also be a clear indication of 'something'.
What is the name of the 'containing' hospitals, and where is it located?
Isn't this scenario following a distinct parallel path to Iraq's WMD, starting with the
very similar vial, and posture?
I appreciate the good analysis that Joe here and others elsewhere have done to lay bare the
dishonesty and fraud of this staged incident. However, after so many such faked affairs I
think another response is necessary.
1. The First Response by Russia and others should be to flatly and bluntly say it is a
bunch of lying shit. By this I mean that Russia et al should stop being so damned reasonable.
That this sort of stuff should be flung back at the accusers with defiance.
2. Russia et al should inflict immediate and painful measure on the perpetrators. Hit them
hard where it counts. Seize assets, arrest nationals, attack economically, impose sanctions.
Make it clear that whatever they do to Russia can be taken in stride. But the west is fragile
and weak and greedy and so not able to receive return blows. Do this with an air of 'we can
take it, we will dish it out, you can't hadle it'.
3. Split the Europeans. Pitch soft to some countries like Italy but pound others like the
UK. They are weak, they will fold.
4. Announce bold new military undertakings. Up the building of weapon systems. Increase
the reserves, deployment. Make it very clear there will be a price and Russia is prepared to
inflict serious pain.
5. Continue to buddy up to China. Dramatically increase economic protection measure.
Prepare to attack and undermine western currencies and markets.
The bragging and posturing of the west is a gambler's last throw. They cannot maintain by
force or any other means cohesion. Faced with painful resistance parts of the regime will
grow fearful and capitulate. Make for civil war. Let them destroy themselves. This is the
cheapest and safest way to put the lot out of business.
But, China, Russia and honest people in the west need to show some teeth to set this in
motion.
Yeah Ned, but I think that's exactly what they want Russia to do, and they ain't playing that
game. it must be maddening to them to poke and prod them and they are, like you say, so damn
reasonable,
So where is the 'Novichok' talk coming from? Well, someone in the British government
propaganda staff watched the current seasons of the British-American spy drama Strike Back.
(reverse causality IMO - it was planned, possibly predictive programming and
conditioning)
Nina Byzantina points to the summaries of recent episodes:Episode 50 ran in the U.K on
November 21 2017 and in the U.S. on February 23 2018:
Meanwhile, General Lázsló shuts down Section 20, forcing Donovan to work in
secret. She discovers that Zaryn is in fact Karim Markov, a Russian scientist who allegedly
killed his colleagues with Novichok, a nerve agent they invented.
Episodes 51 ran in the U.K on November 28 2017 and in the U.S. on March 2 2018:
Section 20 track Berisovich's meth lab in Turov where Markov is making more Novichok and
destroy it, though Berisovich escapes with Markov.
Episodes 52 ran in the U.K on January 31 2018 and in the U.S. on March 9 2018:
Section 20 track down Maya, a local Muslim woman Lowry radicalised, to a local airport.
When she attempts to release the Novichok, Reynolds shoots her. The Novichok is fake however,
as Berisovich does not want an attack committed in his country. ... By the time Section 20
arrives, Berisovich had already called in the FSB to extract Markov and confiscate the
Novichok. Yuri resurfaces to kill McAllister and Wyatt. However they turn the tables and
strangle him to death. They then manage to engage the FSB and contain the gas. But in the
process Reynolds is exposed. Markov works on an antidote but is killed by the Russians before
he can complete. McAllister improvises and saves Reynolds, before Novin blows up the lab.
Lowry uses the remainder of the gas to kill Berisovich for trying to betray her.
Here is a clip from the series: [ Link ]
See article here: [
Link ]
Sadly, however, facts and logic are not being used by the masses here as the proles have
been sufficiently programmed, that they will 'knee jerk' without analysis, without open
minds, and will do what the PTB's MSM tells them to do.
When absolute proof beyond reasonable doubt that the official story of 9/11 came out; to
wit: the proof of explosive Alumino Sulfate? Nano sized unexploded particles in the dust of
WTC, a friend, newly introduced to the 'bigger truths', asked, 'Well how are they going to
explain this away?"
I told him, just like they did in not talking about WTC7. You never knew about it until
2003 when I told you. Same approach here."
Well, assuming your point is true, the more valid it is, the more it will be ignored.
Given that Russia had ample chance to kill Skripal when he was imprisoned there for
several years, there's obviously a complete lack of a motive on Russia's part. And further
given the abundant means, motive and opportunity of, by, and available to, the British
government, it looks beyond reasonable doubt to me.
The logic behind the official narrative that Russia did it because Skripal was Russian and
'novichok' was originally developed by Russians is not far off believing that standing in a
garage makes you a car. But clearly this is how the UK gov & Co see it.
Well, they're not much of 'intellectual Ferraris', are they. More like three-wheel
bicycles ridden by a child with special educational needs.
By now anyone with an opinion on the Skripal poisoning has already decided if they believe
the official narrative or not. Still, the event and the ongoing media coverage around it
presents an opportunity to understand more than we might think.
I don't even get eye-rolls these days when I talk with True Believers.
I've been noticing that the tactic now employed most often, (other than simply avoiding
eye contact and scurrying away), is to interrupt, be louder, to spin anxious, meandering and
waaaaay-off point diatribes which go on for many minutes at a time without letup, repeatedly
referencing totems and touchstones like, "Scientific peer review is the only thing
separating us from chaos!" -and canned talking points which may or may not have any
bearing on the subject.
The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #1 – The
Motive
When I began writing about the Skripal case, I was moved to do so by three main
considerations.
Firstly, I really am passionate for the truth, and whatever the truth happens to be in
this case, I strongly desire it to be made manifest. It was clear to me fairly early on that
this was not happening.
Secondly, I am also very passionate about concepts such as the rule of law, innocent until
proven guilty, and the apparently quaint notion that investigations should precede verdicts,
rather than the other way around. And so when I saw accusations being made before the
investigation had hardly begun, verdicts being reached before the facts were established, I
was appalled -- appalled that this was happening in what we British pride ourselves is the
Mother of Parliaments, and equally appalled that this meant the investigation was inevitably
prejudiced and – pardon the expression – poisoned from the off.
Thirdly, the incident happened to have taken place pretty much on my doorstep, which made
it of even more interest to me.
Nothing I have seen in the intervening time has persuaded me that my initial impressions
were wrong. In fact, the whiff of rodent I first detected has only become stronger as time
has gone on and the case has become -- frankly -- farcical.
"... the United States expelled 60 diplomats back in March, and more recently they have effectively declared economic war on the Russian Federation – all in response to unproven and inconsistent assertions of a botched assassination attempt against an old spy in a quiet Wiltshire City. Such a response ought to raise the suspicions of any sentient being that all is not what it appears. ..."
"... The first question to be asked is this: What exactly does she mean by "the motive"? By including that definite article before the word "motive", she implies that there is only one "motive" – the ..."
"... it is known -- although woefully unreported because of a media ban -- that Mr Skripal was connected to the man behind the so-called Trump Dossier, Christopher Steele. Personally, I am reasonably convinced that Mr Skripal had a hand in putting this dossier together, given his connections to Steele, and since it was almost certainly authored by a Russian "trained in the KGB tradition" . ..."
"... Might this give a motive to some very powerful groups who are nervous about the origins and details of this dossier coming to light? Yes, of course. Then why is it not a line of possible enquiry? Answers on a postcard to the Department of the Blindingly Obvious. ..."
"... Mrs May had no right to state that the Russian Federation had "the motive". The best she could have said at that stage, without taking other possibilities into account, was that they had "a motive". The motive she does present is particularly feeble and does not explain why the Russian Federation would have wanted Mr Skripal in particular dead, and at that particular time. Mr Skripal's recent activities indicate that there were others with possible motives to assassinate or incapacitate him. dmonished 2 February 2016 by his FBI handler. This was in vault dump. ..."
"... If Sergei was Steele's only "source" obviously his disappearance was essential. ..."
"... My first question is : who is protecting Chris Steele right now ? I think it´s MI6. But I don´t think that they are happy to be forced to do that. Maybe there was an order of UK government to hide Steele. Because he meddled in some other things not related to the Dossier, but to Cambridge Analytica and Brexit and Fifa and . ..."
"... Don't understand why standard clean-up operations for fentanyl poisoning are ignored here. it includes protective clothing and hosing down public areas where the fentanyl may be present. Sunday evening clean-up at Maltings was SOP for fentanyl. This is not mysterious. ..."
"... Moving from a fentanyl od diagnosis to an unknown agent occurred Sunday evening. SDH stated that in the announcements on Monday. ..."
"... I am beginning to wonder if Bailey was even poisoned at all. Was it all just a PR exercise? Was he told to get himself to hospital on Tuesday morning so that the nerve agent story would have at least one other person involved. If he was feeling ill, why did he drive himself to hospital – he could have collapsed at any second! ..."
"... Two SDH physicians had a completed training in a highly specialized program at Porton Down shortly before 4 Mar. It's been hinted that one or both were on duty 4 Mar. ..."
"... Having followed your excellent blog for some weeks now, I've become convinced that there are four distinct elements to this affair: two opposing clandestine ops, an almost unbelievably idiotic false flag charade, and a random death:- ..."
"... 1. Operation 'Let's Keep Tabs on Sergei'. Run by MI5/6/SB to make sure their double agent doesn't come to any harm or become a triple agent. Electronic tagging, email monitoring, phone tapping, and friendly chats ever now and then. Worked well for years, then the wheels fell off on 4th March. ..."
"... 2. Operation 'Let's Extract Skripal'. Run by an unknown security agency but possibly contracted out to another. Deniable soft extraction so he could be wheeled out later to give evidence concerning the Trump Dossier, with or without his co-operation. The plan included his daughter, because she was needed to ensure Sergei said what he was supposed to say when the time came. Phase One carried out successfully on 4th March. Phase Two delayed by HMG playing silly games, but eventually mission was accomplished. ..."
"... 3. The 'Let's Blame Putin' Charade. When MI6 reported to its ultimate boss that an ex-Russian spy had been poisoned, Boris would have rightly assumed the culprits were probably Russian. But then, remembering how Lavrov humiliated him at that press conference in Moscow last December, he decided to make sure Russia did get the blame and take the rap for it. With the help of the new inexperienced Defence Secretary and others, he came up with a hastily and ill-conceived plan to show that the poison could have only come from Russia, ensuring Russia's guilt. The Home Secretary at the time, Amber Rudd, did not buy into it so had to be replaced, but others – including the overworked Theresa May – were taken in. The narrative quickly fell apart, but having persuaded the world and his wife of Putin's guilt, there was no going back. The hole Boris dug just got deeper. And all the evidence – or the lack of it – had to be destroyed. No wonder Boris resigned. ..."
When I began writing about the Skripal case, I was moved to do so by three main
considerations.
Firstly, I really am passionate for the truth, and whatever the truth happens
to be in this case, I strongly desire it to be made manifest. It was clear to
me fairly early on that this was not happening.
Secondly, I am also very passionate about concepts such as the rule of law,
innocent until proven guilty, and the apparently quaint notion that investigations
should precede verdicts, rather than the other way around. And so when I saw
accusations being made before the investigation had hardly begun, verdicts
being reached before the facts were established, I was appalled --
appalled that this was happening in what we British pride ourselves is the Mother
of Parliaments, and equally appalled that this meant the investigation was inevitably
prejudiced and – pardon the expression – poisoned from the off.
Thirdly, the incident happened to have taken place pretty much on my doorstep,
which made it of even more interest to me.
Nothing I have seen in the intervening time has persuaded me that my initial
impressions were wrong. In fact, the whiff of rodent I first detected has only
become stronger as time has gone on and the case has become -- frankly -- farcical.
Not only that, but the reaction to the case has been simply incredible. For
instance, the United States expelled 60 diplomats back in March, and more recently
they have effectively declared economic war on the Russian Federation – all
in response to unproven and inconsistent assertions of a botched assassination
attempt against an old spy in a quiet Wiltshire City. Such a response ought
to raise the suspicions of any sentient being that all is not what it appears.
I still do not have any clear idea of what happened on that day, but what
I am certain of is that the official narrative is not only untrue, but it is
manifestly inconceivable that it could be true. There are simply too many inconsistencies,
too many holes and far too many unexplained events for it to be true. And whilst
part of me would dearly love to leave this wretched case behind for a while,
whilst it is still ongoing, and especially as it is now being used to push us
even closer to the brink of war (economic warfare is often a prelude to military
warfare), I find that hard to do.
What I would therefore like to do in a series of 10 short pieces over the
next couple of weeks or so, is attempt to expose some of the very many holes
in the official narrative. At the end of it, I may well put it all together
into one PDF, so that it can be sent somewhere, where it can be completely ignored
by those that matter. Enjoy!
"In conclusion, as I have set out, no other country has a combination
of the capability, the intent and the motive to carry out such an act."
For the purposes of this piece, I am not interested in her comments on capability
or intent, but simply what she describes as "the motive".
The first question to be asked is this: What exactly does she mean by "the
motive"? By including that definite article before the word "motive", she implies
that there is only one "motive" – the motive – and that only one party
– the Russian Federation – possessed this. Which is of course manifest nonsense.
She might at that stage have said that they possessed "a motive", but without
looking into what Mr Skripal was up to, and the contacts he had, she was in
no position to state that they had " the motive".
Imagine the following scenario: A farmer called Boggis is found shot dead
in his barn. It is known that a week earlier, he had a very public quarrel with
another landowner, Bunce, about the boundaries between their lands, and that
the two of them had to be separated before they came to blows. Could it be said
of Bunce that he had "the motive"? Well, it would be reasonable to suggest that
he had "a motive", but without looking into other circumstances and other characters
connected with Boggis, it would be disingenuous to claim that he had "the motive"
as if only he might have had one.
As it happens, Boggis had been committing adultery with the wife of another
neighbouring farmer called Bean, and Bean had found out about this two days
before Boggis was found dead. What now? Does Bean have a motive? Very possibly.
So too might Boggis' wife. Perhaps even Bunce's wife. Who knows without examining
the facts more closely?
And so herein lies the first whiff of rodent. Mrs May asserted that the Russian
Federation possessed "the motive", implying that there was only one possibility,
which is something that could only be ascertained by proper investigation of
Mr Skripal, his circumstances and what he was up to. She therefore committed
what is a most basic fallacy in the investigative process.
The second question to ask is this: she says she set out "the motive" in
her speech, but what actually was that? Here is what she presented as the motive
in her speech:
"We know that Russia has a record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations
– and that it views some former intelligence officers as legitimate targets
for these assassinations."
This won't do. Firstly, many countries have records of conducting state-sponsored
assassinations, and not always against their own nationals. But secondly, the
claim that the Russian Federation "views some former intelligence officers as
legitimate targets for these assassinations" is not a motive. At best it is
a claim, but it is not a motive. A motive for an attempted murder, such as this,
would need to give a reason for carrying it out on that particular person at
that particular time. Simply saying that they view some former intelligence
officers as legitimate targets for these assassinations does not explain why
they are supposed to have decided to assassinate this particular man, at this
particular time, especially since they released and pardoned him in 2010. It
also does not explain why they apparently decided to wreck all possible future
spy swaps, since Mr Skripal had been part of such a deal, and assassinating
him would put an end to such deals.
But the most important question to ask is this: are there any other parties
with a possible motive for this crime? Even without a particularly careful investigation
of the details of Mr Skripal's life, contacts and circumstances, I can say assuredly
that there were. For instance, it is known -- although woefully unreported because
of a media ban -- that Mr Skripal was connected to the man behind the so-called
Trump Dossier, Christopher Steele. Personally, I am reasonably convinced that
Mr Skripal had a hand in putting this dossier together, given his connections
to Steele, and since it was almost certainly
authored by a Russian "trained in the KGB tradition" .
Might this give a
motive to some very powerful groups who are nervous about the origins and details
of this dossier coming to light? Yes, of course. Then why is it not a line of
possible enquiry? Answers on a postcard to the Department of the Blindingly
Obvious.
In summary:
Mrs May had no right to state that the Russian Federation had "the motive".
The best she could have said at that stage, without taking other possibilities
into account, was that they had "a motive". The motive she does present is particularly
feeble and does not explain why the Russian Federation would have wanted Mr
Skripal in particular dead, and at that particular time. Mr Skripal's recent
activities indicate that there were others with possible motives to assassinate
or incapacitate him. dmonished 2 February 2016 by his FBI handler. This was
in vault dump.
Fusion GPS only got contract from Hillary April 2016, who then subcontracted
to Steele.
But Steele was FBI asset prior to dossier being started. Was he an asset or
a feeder of MI6 disinformation into US politics/intelligence?
That McCain ended up giving the dossier to Comey, when that dossier was written
by a supposed FBI "asset" would indicate the latter. If Sergei was Steele's only "source" obviously his disappearance was essential.
"CC Pritchard said officers at the scene underwent a "decontamination process"
at Salisbury District Hospital overnight on Sunday and into Monday morning,
after details of the attack became clearer."
But didn't Bailey drive himself in only because he said he didn't feel
well sometime on Monday evening?
@Jo. Yes, one version of the story says Bailey and two colleagues were checked
out at the hospital and then discharged, but that Bailey drove himself back
after feeling unwell and was readmitted.
I want to present my own thoughts on party A and B, that some posters here
have developed.
My first question is : who is protecting Chris Steele right now ?
I think it´s MI6. But I don´t think that they are happy to be forced to
do that.
Maybe there was an order of UK government to hide Steele. Because he meddled
in some other things not related to the Dossier, but to Cambridge Analytica
and Brexit and Fifa and .
MI6 has to hide the Skripals, too. The reason is simply to prevent that
Steele, Miller and the Skripals will ever be interrogated by the Trump fraction.
The dodgy dossier became a heavy burden on the UK Government since Steele
became known as the author.
It is an open secret that the UK Government has secretly done everything
possible to prevent Trump's presidency. Who knows what else will come to
light ?
In another post I had mentioned the role of Alexandra Chalupa and her
Ukraine connection. She's an ambassador to the Ukraine for the DNC.
Chalupa collected dirt on Paul Manaford for a long time.She emailed DNC that she'll share sensitive info about Paul Manafort "offline"
including "a big Trump component that will hit in next few weeks" (which
never happened, at least by Alexandra Chalupa).
Then her private Yahoo email account was hacked and a few days later DNC
fired Chalupa. WHY ? Maybe because DNC needed to keep her activities off-site,
where a FOIA can't touch them ?
But what happened on the very day Chalupa is fired ? Oh, Christopher Steele
is hired. What a coincidence.
And what happens FIVE DAYS after Christopher Steele was hired ? Oh, he publishes
his first report on his dossier, a report that discusses FIVE YEARS of investigation.
I mention Chalupa, because I strongly suspect that much of the Trump
dossier goes back to Chalupa's research. These, in turn, are based largely
on information provided by the Ukrainian intelligence service SBU.
The DNC wanted to use this information against Trump, but they couldn´t
use Chalupa as the source. So the idea was born to hire Steele for the job.
Outsourcing.
The FBI has probably contacted its loyal vassal MI6 and discreetly referred
to "common interests".
Steele then changed the dossier to obfuscate Chalupa's authorship. But he
made decisive mistakes.
One mistake may have been to involve Sergei to some extent.
So I'm assuming that FBI and MI6 have a common interest in preventing
Steele, Miller and the Skripals from speaking.
Maybe MI6 contacted Sergei some time before and offered him to change his
identity. But Sergei refused. However, he was now alarmed and made plans
to return to Russia.
A dilemma for FBI and MI6. They now had to find another way to prevent Sergei
from speaking.
The idea of a Russian nerve agent was born. That killed two birds with one
stone.
Who executed the plan ?
FBI alone
MI6 alone
FBI and MI6 together
A third party that was willing to support the plan. This third party could well be from Ukraine. They hate Russia, they feared
that their share of the Trump dossier could come to light.
Moreover, in the West, they can not distinguish well between Ukrainians
and Russians if the perpetrators were unmasked.
Moreover, various sources, including the German BND, have pointed out that
Ukraine may still have Novichok stocks.
Bailey's job was to shadow the Skripals and report it. But he knew nothing
of the plan.
I think, the attack itself happened in or around the Mill Pub and Bailey
witnessed it.
However, I have no idea if the attack was done open or hidden.
I guess hidden. Something contaminated was being smuggled into the red bag,
perhaps already in the Zizzi, which the Skripals then discovered, wondering
how it came in the bag, and what both were touching.
Bailey was contaminated later, when he touched the same item (maybe a perfume
in gift wrapping) inside the red bag ?
In the run up to and including the war of the Iraq II WMD Debacle, Mi6
were fractured, even the bosses Dearlove and Scarlett that were running
their own pro Blair operations in conflict with the rest of the service.
Dearlove and Scarlett had their own objectives which were not comparable
with each other (personal and professional but mainly personal) or the rest
of their service.
Mi6, Mi5, DiS (or whatever they are all called now) with GCHQ have their
own infighting and conflicts of interest; within themselves, their sister
services, commercial / pension interests and those of the government ..
And of course what is in the best interest of the nation. (the police forces
are inconvenient uneducated, unfocussed rabbles that get in the way if they
involve themselves in anything more than issuing speeding fines)
Add to that Ministers fighting each other, Labour MP's trying harder
to bring down Corbyn than May, the Israeli and US interests ever present
wherever you look.
And top that with the US shambolic lessons to all other developed governments
in the world and the examples they display of their own decorum. Clinton
v Trump. FBI v CIA. (How many intelligence services are there? How many
agendas have they got?) And the Sickly twisted occultist hand the CIA has
in global drug production / distribution, unmetered oil windfalls, blackmail
scams (honey traps, murder, vice, paedophilia). An organisation with limitless
wealth and income streams, zero conscience, morality or single objective
other than to control the surf / goyim / proletariat. No objectives other
than to invoke misery, pain, suffering and death with crime, wickedness,
fear and perpetual global wars so the elite can remain that way and enjoy
their rewards.
And we wonder why Salisbury happened, what it is about, who is doing
something about it, why are they lying and covering up, who is to blame?
Sputnik makes an unfortunate choice of words in trying to paraphrase the
Guardian article:
"The spokesman for Salisbury district hospital, where Charlie Rowley was
taken, told The Guardian that *none* of the hospital's patients was receiving
any nerve agent-related treatment at the moment."
The Guardian article actually says,
"The hospital said it could not speak about individual cases but stressed
it was not treating anyone for the effects of novichok poisoning at the
moment."
So, nine, not nether.
More interesting is that the truth of the strained relationship between
Charlie and his brother is becoming more apparent. A mutual friend told
me a few weeks back that Charlie was estranged from his family by choice.
Hearing that put a very different perspective on his brother's effusively
confusing statements to the press.
Regarding the family relationship, when Charlie was in court for drug dealing
last year (?) he was additionally charged with stealing Ł2,000 (I think
that was the amount) from Mr Matthew Rowley. So I too remain to be convinced
of the 'brotherly love'.
" he was additionally charged with stealing Ł2,000 (I think that was the
amount) from Mr Matthew Rowley". That, to me, is a very odd fact. We are
told that Charlie is a drug addict on his uppers (i.e. skint), yet he had
Ł2000 that his brother (perhaps with an underlying motive to put Chalie
on cold turkey – oh, wait, oink, , flap, , oink, , flap, ) sought to relieve
him of responsibility for it.
As to the mangling of the message mentioned by lissnup, both the Guardian
and Sputnik would probably have got the original story from PA, following
which they would then have put their own brand of spin on it.
The identity of the Skripals in contained in the witness statements – those
who were present at the time and clearly saw them:
FEMALE DOCTOR: "A doctor who was one of the first people at the scene
has described how she found Ms Skripal slumped unconscious on a bench, vomiting
and fitting. She had also lost control of her bodily functions. The woman,
who asked not to be named, told the BBC she moved Ms Skripal into the recovery
position and opened her airway, as others tended to her father. She said
she treated her for almost 30 minutes, saying there was no sign of any chemical
agent on Ms Skripal's face or body. The doctor said she had been worried
she would be affected by the nerve agent but added that she "feels fine."
She clearly states that she found Ms Skripal slumped unconscious on a
bench, vomiting and fitting and that she had lot control of her bodily functions.
I don't know of anyone who has the ability to spontaneously evacuate their
bladder and bowl at will, more especially a female in front of a crowd on
onlookers. The doctor put her in the recovery position, that means on her
side, so there would have been visible evidence of Yulia having lost control
of her bodily functions.
FREYA CHURCH: "Sixteen minutes later [that is, after being seen on CCTV],
personal trainer Freya Church, 27, came across the victims slumped on a
bench. She said they seemed 'out of it' and assumed they were on drugs.
"It was a young, blonde and pretty girl and it was definitely the man that's
been pictured in the news – the guy that's a spy. She was passed out and
he was looking up to the sky and I tried to get eye contact to see if they
were okay. They didn't seem with it. To be honest I thought they were just
drugged out as they were in a weird state. There are lots of homeless people
here so I just thought they were homeless."
Freya Church clearly identifies them, "It was a young, blonde and pretty
girl and it was definitely the man that's been pictured in the news – the
guy that's a spy." She also says "I tried to get eye contact to see if they
were okay", so she had a clear view of their faces.
Destiny Reynolds, 20, who works in Ganesha Handicrafts in the centre,
said: "I saw quite a lot of commotion – there were two people sat on the
bench and there was a security guard there. They put her on the ground in
the recovery position, and she was shaking like she was having a seizure.
It was a bit manic. There were a lot of people crowded round them. It was
raining, people had umbrellas and were putting them over them."
She says "It was raining, people had umbrellas and were putting them
over them." so these too would have had a clear view of the Skripal's faces.
Not one of these people, or the other witnesses, has come forward to
say it wasn't the Skripals, unlike DS Bailey, they are not subject to a
gagging order by way of the The Official Secrets Act.
All these witnesses would have assumed they were the Skripals because the
media claimed that they were. So did the Wiltshire police at least, at that
time. This is not of evidential value.
Freya Church has been proven to be an unrelaible witness. Destiny Reynolds
may not have had a clear view of their faces at all, especially as she said
that there was quite a lot of commotion, and "There were a lot of people
crowded round them. It was raining, people had umbrellas and were putting
them over them." How far away was she?
I'm also suspicious of that anonymous 'female nurse'. I had read that
this first responder was a 'male nurse' too. Apparently, s/he was a military
nurse, and had had experience with the African Ebola outbreak. S/he apparently
spent 30 minutes with the Skripals! Was it her who made the original emergency
call?
Besides, descriptions differ. CCTV evidence has been suppressed, and
that alone suggests that they were not the Skripals, and so does the police
interest in the Market walk footage. So, no, I'm not at all convinced.
I've not read any posts here since last night, so this post must be read
bearing that in mind.
I briefly replied to John Bull's four points, but I'd like to say more
on this. His first point related to the surveillance op being conducted
on Sergei. I said more or less that this would have been standard procedure
in this type of case, and the work would have been carried out by MI5 watchers.
In 2006 Special Branch was merged with the Met's Anti Terrorism Branch to
become the Counter Terrorism Command, and I'm pretty sure that DS Bailey
would have been seconded to that organisation, and that he was Sergei's
'front-line' case officer. His roles would be to protect Sergei (an SIS
asset) and to pass on intelligence to MI5's regional liaison officer at
Bristol.
Now John Bull was assuming that those involved in this operation were
one of two competing parties. The second party being covered in his second
point. This is where I disagree. I don't count MI5's role here as being
one of the two parties, for it is at least theoretically neutral.
The other party is not neutral, and that is MI6. It is MI6 who were (and
still probably are) acting in competition with the unknown group. Both groups
were involved in planning a their own Skripal operations prior to 4th March.
Let's call this unknown group, Group X – This shadowy group represents certain
US political interests.
This is what I said in my original post (19th at 3.50pm) that first brought
the dual-party theory into the light:
"Let's suppose [the film] was their source of poisoning inspiration.
Let's also suppose that two competing groups became involved at different
stages. Let's say there was a pre-planned, well-organised operation prepared
by group A, but when group B somehow learnt of it, a hurried attempt was
made by group B to scupper group A's plan – which might have failed. Just
speculation, but it would account for many anomalies. These two groups could
be two different intelligence agences, or one of them possibly being a rogue
faction within an intelligence agency".
This remains the bare bones of my theory, and I was deliberately being
rather coy about it at the time. Of course, another party that quickly became
involved in all this is the British parliament itself, and I suspect that
MI6 sought urgent advice from government ministers when they realised Group
X's intentions. (They would have only given them information on a need-to-know
basis). MI6, wanting to protect their assets as well as Britain's interests,
attempted to neutralise Group X's plan at short notice. It was the hurried
nature of all this, along with extreme political pressure, that caused mistakes
to be made. Secret heated discussions between the US, UK and *French* governments
have no doubt been going on about this situation ever since 4th March.
I could say much more, but for now, I'll try and catch up with a long
backlog of posts !
Competing groups might explain the 15:47 CCTV image if it was indeed Sturgess
and Rowley, not the Skripals. If the Skripals were to be whisked away alive,
a couple who could be mistaken for them, walking in a direction away from
the point of disappearance and after it could be used, should the need arise,
to deflect from the real circumstances by Group A. However, Group B, hastily
interfering with Group A's plan, causes a public scene, making the red herring
couple a liability instead of an asset – which might explain the release
of the footage (part of Group A's original plan) but the lack of an appeal
for help by local authorities (because the plan was FUBAR, making the pre-planned
release of the CCTV footage a mistake).
Miheila, I am not surprised to hear MI5 are in Bristol.
Two other odd occurrences doing to mind. The cricketer Ben Stokes' charging
decision being inexplicably sent to London.
Thanks Noone very interesting. I signed this too, about ending the 'special
relationship', (which in my opinion was toxic and one-sided ever since it
began):
https://action.larouchepac.com/declassifyukdocs
Brexiteers go on so much about 'British sovereignty', yet they ignore
the fact that Britain has effectively been a vassal of the USA for decades.
I'm not saying Kier Prichard did it on his own, and the Met have their burden
to carry, but what this man has achieved in such a short time is truly breathtaking.
Wilts police are now a laughing stock, not just in Salisbury or Wilts
but the UK and internationally. The public trust level must be as low as
it can possibly get. The rank and file must be suffering humiliation, worthlessness,
shame and depression. Motivation must be zero.
What a jerk, why do that to yourself, your reputation, your family, your
colleagues, your force of 20 20 years ? Is he really that thick, so stupid
that he couldn't see this coming and when he did he had a chance to say
enough is enough or is that side of his character so flawed that he is either
too cowardly or just unaware of what people think of him?
"ACC Pritchard said: "I have a huge sense of pride taking over the reigns
as Temporary Chief Constable for a force I have served for more than 20
years.
At least Basu has had the good grace to keep his mouth shut and go into
hiding.
I can't see how he (and others ) can avoid criminal prosecutions but
it won't be long until the civil prosecutions begin which will cost the
tax payers dear. But those who are involved can expect (if they do manage
to stay out of jail) to now spend much of the rest of their lives fighting
litigation
They brought it on themselves and unfortunately us but none more so than
Dawn.
Justice for Dawn!
"Mike has been a fantastic leader and he leaves us in great shape – both
in terms of engagement amongst officers and staff and, externally, as evidenced
in our strong Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue
Services (HMICFRS) gradings.
"We are blessed with outstanding officers, staff and volunteers across
our organisation who achieve great things every day and who strive to provide
an excellent service to all of our communities.
"Now is the time to look forward and to continue, as we've always done,
with our values and communities at the heart of everything we do.""
Peter, They are all useless. It seems to be the only qualification needed
these days. Now Jeremy Hunt is calling for more sanctions on Russia – this
simply proves that he is ignorant as well as useless.
For years Russia has been dedollarising; Russia will manage just fine
with more British sanctions (and American sanctions for that matter) and
the most damage will be done to British companies that will be shut out
of Russia – not because of anything Russia has done but because of what
their own idiotic government has done.
TPTB are cretins!
With immediate effect, I am starting a personal 'buy Russian' campaign.
If I find anything in the shops that is 'made in Russa', I will buy it in
preference to anything made in the EU. Every little helps!
Ditto. There is another country that I and my relatives never buy fresh
produce from, always going for South African or South American alternatives,
or – if they're unavailable – going without. I can't say publicly which
country as I might get a visit from the boys in blue!
CF
Alexander Goldfarb is/was a friend of Sergei Skripal, Alexander Litvinenko,
Boris Berezovsky and Nikolai Glushkov.
Associated with George Soros :
Goldfarb was among the first group of Russian exiles in New York whom Soros
invited to brainstorm his potential Foundation in Russia. In 1991 Goldfarb
persuaded Soros to donate $100 million to help former Soviet scientists
survive the hardships of the economic shock therapy adopted by the Yeltsin
government.
From 1992 to 1995, Goldfarb was Director of Operations at Soros' International
Science Foundation, with many more Soros projects to follow.
Here is a chronology of Goldfarb's press statements.
One gets the impression that he has prompted TM how to argue.
March 6
Quote : Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, Mr Goldfarb said:
"The Russian secret services and the regime of Mr Putin had the motive and
the opportunity to do this. And they did it before. I mean, it's only natural
for any reasonable person to suspect them."
Mr Goldfarb, a close friend of killed dissident Alexander Litvinenko, said
he has a theory as to why Russia could be behind the latest alleged poisoning.
The microbiologist and activist said it is not a spy theory but instead
a political move.
He said: "It is a political motivation and it has to do with the elections
of the President, which will happen in Russia in about ten days from now
and the major problem for Putin is the turnout because his main opponent
has been barred from participating and he has called for a boycott of the
elections.
"So Mr Putin is worried there are few people who come people who are apathetic
in Russia so this will be used regardless of whether Putin did it or not.
"He has a way to invigorate his nationalistic and extremely anti-western
rhetoric."
Mr Goldfarb said the "majority" of Russians would perceive the "poisoning"
as the right thing to do as they view Putin as a leader that can "get his
enemies wherever they are across the globe."
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/927751/Russian-spy-poisoned-Salisbury-London-Alexander-Litvinenko-Sergei-Skripal-Putin-spy-swap
March 8
Quote : Former-spy Sergei Skripal, his daughter and a policeman have been
poisoned in Salisbury in what is suspected to be a state-sponsored hit.
But it is not the first time this has happened as Alexander Litvinenko,
who was former Russian secret service officer who defected to the west,
died in November 2006 after he drank tea laced with radioactive polonium-210
at the Millenium Hotel in Mayfair.
His friend Alex Goldfarb appeared on Newsnight to warn that it was the inaction
from the UK on the Litvinenko murder which led to the recent suspected attempted
assassination.
Mr Goldfarb said: "For 10 years the British Government refused to admit
that the Litvinenko murder was a state-sponsored crime and up to the very
public inquiry which happened in 2016 they maintained this is just a regular
criminal matter.
"The moment an English judge ruled that it was a state-sponsored murder
and in all probability ordered by Putin David Cameron went on TV and said,
'we knew it from day one'.
"So they were trying to keep it quiet to not to annoy Putin and they invited
other attacks like this.
"If the response now will be the same, only words without any actions, there
will be a third and a fourth attempt."
He added: "I would pick the Putin theory because he is the only one who
had a motive and an opportunity too and he has been shown beyond any reasonable
doubt to be involved in the previous assassination – I mean Litvinenko who
was my friend.
"He has a motive. His motive is the elections which are coming in about
10 days and there is a very low turnout expected and he needs to energise
his nationalistic, anti-western electorate."
"So, he wants to portray himself as a tough guy who can get his enemies
anywhere in the world and who has been presenting himself as the only thing
that is protecting Russia and the Russians from the plotting and the scheming
of the west."
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/928729/bbc-newsnight-russia-spy-war-bbc-news-Sergei-Skripal-assassination-latest-Putin
March 17 DailyNewsUSA
Quote : Alex Goldfarb, a friend of both men as well as a prominent critic
of Russia, insisted Vladimir Putin must have ordered both hits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwpV7n-rLTU
March 18
Quote : Police insist they have discovered no connection between the strangling
of former businessman Nikolai Glushkov, 68, at his London home last Monday
and the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury
a fortnight ago.
But Alex Goldfarb, a friend of both men as well as a prominent critic of
Russia, insisted Vladimir Putin must have ordered both hits.
Mr Goldfarb told BBC Radio 4: 'There is no connection in a forensic sense
probably, but if you look at the larger picture of politics, I am convinced
that no murder of this sort could have happened without the personal approval
of Putin or some of his immediate deputies.'
Mr Goldfarb was also close to former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who
was murdered with radioactive polonium-210 in London, and exiled tycoon
Boris Berezovsky, who was found dead at his Surrey home in suspicious circumstances.
'All of these in my view have the common denominator of Mr Putin flexing
his muscle,' said Mr Goldfarb, a scientist who lives in New York.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5514213/Murder-Putin-critic-linked-Skripal-nerve-agent-attack.html
Could you elaborate on those similarities please? I've had a look but didn't
see any. The CCTV footage is terrible quality but what "image" I get does
not coincide with available photos of Glushkov.
Goldfarb is certainly a person to be avoided – with friends like that
who needs enemies? Litvinenko's dad suspects Goldfarb was his son's assassin.
The claim is made in that youtube video that Goldfarb was Skripal's friend
as well. It would not be a surprise but it would be good to obtain confirmation.
I agree, Liane, and have commented here about it. Glushkov has a young,
pretty, blonde daughter. I am not sure if it was the same daughter who reportedly
discovered his body.
"I would like to reassure you all that Nick is receiving medical intervention
and care from highly specialist medical practitioners experienced in these
matters."
Why did Pritchard say "highly specialist medical practitioners experienced
in these matters" instead of something less specific? Who are these "highly
specialist" and "experienced" practitioners? The medics at SDH were quite
humble in the Newsnight programme – I am sure none of them would regard
themselves as 'highly specialist and experienced' in treating a nerve agent.
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9
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NEWS5th JuneKier Pritchard says DS Nick Bailey poisoned at Skripal house
Exclusive by Rebecca Hudson @JournalRebecca
EXCLUSIVE
Dt Sgt Nick Bailey.
DETECTIVE Sergeant Nick Bailey was poisoned with a nerve agent when he
and other officers attended Sergei Skripal's home looking for evidence including
signs of drug use or suicide notes.
9
Chief Constable Kier Pritchard told the Journal he had watched evidence
from body-worn cameras used by officers who first attended the scene on
March 4, and that their response to the incident was "first class".
"We would not have known from those first hours what we were dealing
with. At that time we didn't know, and why would they, if there was anything
other than a medical incident, or something that was drug-related or something
more sinister," he said.
CC Pritchard said DS Bailey was one of a team of officers who attended Mr Skripal's home in Christie Miller Road, after the Russian former-spy
and his daughter were found slumped on a bench in the city three months
ago.
He said officers were looking for information to establish a timeline
of events and explain why the Skripals had fallen "gravely ill", as well
as making sure there was nobody else affected.
"That [information] could be a suicide note, it could be evidence of
drugs, it could be evidence of some form of substance," CC Pritchard added.
And he said DS Bailey (pictured) and his family are still receiving support
from Wiltshire Police.
CC Pritchard said: "Nick has been to Wiltshire Police headquarters, he
came in last week and that was a very positive step forward.
"This has been a long three months for many of us can you just imagine
the impact on your children and your wife and your family life when all
you're trying to do is your job? My heart absolutely goes out to Nick and
his family over all that they've suffered."
CC Pritchard said officers at the scene underwent a "decontamination
process" at Salisbury District Hospital overnight on Sunday and into Monday
morning, after details of the attack became clearer.
And, following that, Wiltshire Police set up a "welfare cell" to help
affected officers understand and work through the psychological effects
of the attack.
"We have supported over 90 members of our staff in either one to one
sessions or group meetings," CC Pritchard revealed. "Of course one of those
90 will be Nick Bailey".
CC Pritchard shared his pride in Wiltshire Police, and the citizens of
Salisbury, for their response to the "colossal events".
"We [Wiltshire Police] have the ability and the confidence to be able
to deal with international and global issues. I hope that provides real
confidence to the public of how proud they can be.
"And I want to put on record how proud I am of the community of Salisbury.
They have demonstrated the true brilliance of a community.
"Despite a global issue, and despite the massive impact, the way the
Salisbury general public has responded has been exemplary."
'Spacemen' in The Maltings on Sunday evening officers at the scene underwent
a "decontamination process" at Salisbury District Hospital overnight on
Sunday and into Monday morning
Why would that be? SDH suspected a nerve agent by 6am Monday morning,
not Sunday evening.
The only way anyone could have suspected more than a drug overdose on
Sunday would have been prior knowledge but if someone had prior knowledge
and did not ensure that ALL emergency responders were protected, that would
not just be negligent
The only way anyone could have suspected more than a drug overdose on
Sunday would have been prior knowledge
Yes and no. Don't understand why standard clean-up operations for fentanyl
poisoning are ignored here. it includes protective clothing and hosing down
public areas where the fentanyl may be present. Sunday evening clean-up
at Maltings was SOP for fentanyl. This is not mysterious.
Moving from a fentanyl od diagnosis to an unknown agent occurred Sunday
evening. SDH stated that in the announcements on Monday.
Liane, it wasn't just protective clothing it was the full 'moonsuit' but
not everyone wore one. When I mentioned prior knowledge, I was thinking
of Rob's idea that British intelligence might have got wind of an FBI/CIA
plot to use an agent from Porton Down. If there been any prior knowledge,
then allowing any first responders to be at the scene not wearing full hazmat
gear, would have been a crime in itself.
Remember that Kier Pritchard had his first day on duty on March 5. Maybe
he was not well informed about Bailey´s part in the case.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu has taken over from Mark Rowley
as the new Assistant Commissioner responsible for leading counter terrorism
nationally on March 5.
March 1 a new temporary assistant chief constable has been selected at Wiltshire
Police. ACC Craig Holden joined Kier Pritchard.
So who was Bailey´s supervisor on March 4 ? Deputy Chief Constable Paul
Mills ?
I am beginning to wonder if Bailey was even poisoned at all. Was it all
just a PR exercise? Was he told to get himself to hospital on Tuesday morning
so that the nerve agent story would have at least one other person involved. If he was feeling ill, why did he drive himself to hospital – he could
have collapsed at any second!
If it was a bit of LARPing, that would at least explain why he didn't
need a tracheostomy.
I am beginning to wonder if Bailey was even poisoned at all.
My guess is that he wasn't. He felt ill and as instructed went to the
hospital on Tuesday to get checked out. Game was on at that point; so, he
was put in a bed for observation and not allowed to leave. Drugged. That
would be surreal, wouldn't it?
As I followed this segment in real time, there was a sense of elation
in the media that they had a third victim. A first responder. Then they
scrambled trying to explain what a DS would have been doing at Maltings;
so, they switched it to he was at the house. Then there were questions as
to why it took so long for the alleged poison to effect him. Somehow that
got dropped as they continued to make different claims about where he'd
been; finally settling on both Maltings and the house.
Paul and Marie, if Bailey was not poisoned the OPCW has to lie !
They took blood samples of all three on March 22. After that Bailey was
released.
I´m convinced that Bailey was poisoned with the same nerve agent, whatever
agent that might be.
The OPCW did not lie – but they were deceived. The OPCW says they checked the identities of the individuals they tested
against IDs. How hard would it be for the government to issue a passport
on the 'name' of Nicholas Bailey?
This raises the question again of how the OPCW acquired the samples they
took away with them. As I understand it the OPCW scientists who came to
the UK are not clinically trained – they are effectively lab technicians
– so they do not have the training to "take" samples from patients. They
are reported as "collecting samples" but to my knowledge from reading other
reports and articles it was UK medical staff who "took" the samples – and
then handed them over to the OPCW. Even if they took the samples in front
of the OPCW, I bet at some point they said something along the lines of
"Oh hang on a minute, I just need to go and put labels on these phials back
in a minute".
Two SDH physicians had a completed training in a highly specialized program
at Porton Down shortly before 4 Mar. It's been hinted that one or both were
on duty 4 Mar.
But Bailey did not check in until 6 March. Were PD specialists there throughout?
Why didn't they just take the patients to PD instead of risking contaminating
a public hospital?
I recall reading at some point that Bailey drove himself to SDH on Monday
morning. Try as I might, however, I couldn't find it again. I know there
is a comment on MoonOfAlabama mentioning the same thing but it does not
have a link.
Then Mark Urban said in the Newsnight programme that Bailey drove himself
there on Tuesday morning .
Those were not PD specialists but SDH physicians that had received PD
training. That might be in addition to PD scientists that SDH spokespersons
have said were there as well. So, plenty of professionals focused on nerve
agent poisoning could have been there during the first 36 hours.
SDH had a whole new unoccupied wing they could have commandeered to isolate
the patients. Also to keep regular SDH staff and their eyes away from the
patients as well. Wouldn't that be preferable to transporting them to PD
with so many eyes watching?
But that was my original point. A training course does not make anyone:
"highly specialist medical practitioners experienced in these matters" Where does the 'experience in the matters' come from?
I'm posting this reply to Max_B here because this is the second time that
there's been no 'reply' option to his posts. No idea why, but the blue word
inthe corner is missing.
If you really "don't care", Max_B, then why on earth are you making such
a fuss over it ? I do care. And after accusing me of getting my facts wrong
(over Lavrov) you apologise to newcomer (Новичoк) Cherrycoke only when s/he
corrected you. Maybe you forgot.
Anyway, you say: "Fentanyl's and Carfentanil *are* nerve agents, I understand
you want to rely on a much narrower definition of nerve agent that only
includes Organophosphates, but that definition is just not accurate".
In your opinion only; not professional opinion which has for decades
treated organophosphate agents as nerve agents, and fentanyls as (narcotic-analgesic
type) incapacitants.
You said, "The substance responsible for the Salisbury and Amesbury incidents
isn't an Organophsophate, that's why they are scrabbling around for a redefinition".
I agree with this, although we are only surmising that the Salisbury/Amesbury
substance is not an organophosphate (due to symptoms), for no-one has actually
specified its nature. And yes, I can see that they are scrabbling around,
and so are you ! Fair enough. But how can this explain why nobody has officially
specified what this chemical is ? As far as I can tell, it doesn't. Why
can't they simply be open about its nature and honest about their scrabbling
?
Yes, of course opioids depress the CNS, but so do lots of substances
such as alcohol, and, yes Peter, even axes ! This does not make them nerve
agents for they do not inhibit acetylcholinestaerase – crucial to the definition.
Wikipedia: "Nerve agents, sometimes also called nerve gases, are a class
of organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanisms by which nerves transfer
messages to organs. The disruption is caused by the blocking of acetylcholinesterase".
I perfectly understand the argument over BZ versus Carfentanyl, but surely,
rather than redefine the latter as a nerve agent, why not simply redefine
it as an opioid chemical weapon ? Organophosphate and carbamate pesticides
are officially (and biochemically) nerve agents, but they're not chemical
weapons. In the same way, most opioids are not chemical weapons but some,
such as the fentanyls should be. Salisbury has highlighted this failing,
hence the scrabbling about.
To include certain opioids as nerve agents (rather than opioid CW's),
then the official, long-established and generally-accepted scientific definition
must be changed which would only invite more confusion.
Agreed.
Opioid receptor agonists are not nerve agents.
However, if carfentanil was suspected then unprotected contact with the
victims would not be the protocol.
The true first responders were the heroes.
Unless they knew enough ahead of time to not be afraid.
"The true first responders were the heroes."
And they were who ? By the testimony of some who were aware of them (i.e. the unfeeling Freya
Church) just walked on like The Good Samaritans they most certainly are
not!
Perhaps there was an assumption that in an, allegedly, druggie infested
town like Salisbury, most people would ignore the histrionics of the pair
on the bench and walk on, leaving it to 'the first responders' to deal with
it. Convenient, if it worked.
If, and it is an if, the lady doctor and the nurse rushed to give the two
prone figures first aid without considering their own safety then these
two are the only heroic ones in this shambles.
As of 4 Mar, there has been no known fentanyl overdose in Salisbury. First
responders would have been trained in what to look for and how to proceed
in a fentanyl od situation, but practice makes perfect. There's not that
much difference in the emergency response protocols for fentanyl and carfentanil.
The difference is in the medical treatment in the hours and days after the
first couple of hours, and symptoms, treatments, and responses rather than
tests for the presence of carfentanil is the guide for physicians.
Rob, you are a great one for making lists of questions. You may have this
one on a list already:-
If HMG knew that Russia had declared death to all traitors, what measures
did they take to protect Sergei Skripal, a confirm traitor but also a member
of our security services. And why were those measures so lamentably unsuccessful?
Listen to Javid. The UK has never said what happened, (that's why we
have the Blogmire) and I don't recall ANY Russian account, other than denial
and show us evidence.
Glen needs to improve on his nodding skills. He is about three seconds too
slow.
Time and practice will no doubt improve this.
Having followed your excellent blog for some weeks now, I've become convinced
that there are four distinct elements to this affair: two opposing clandestine
ops, an almost unbelievably idiotic false flag charade, and a random death:-
1. Operation 'Let's Keep Tabs on Sergei'. Run by MI5/6/SB to make sure
their double agent doesn't come to any harm or become a triple agent. Electronic
tagging, email monitoring, phone tapping, and friendly chats ever now and
then. Worked well for years, then the wheels fell off on 4th March.
2. Operation 'Let's Extract Skripal'. Run by an unknown security agency
but possibly contracted out to another. Deniable soft extraction so he could
be wheeled out later to give evidence concerning the Trump Dossier, with
or without his co-operation. The plan included his daughter, because she
was needed to ensure Sergei said what he was supposed to say when the time
came. Phase One carried out successfully on 4th March. Phase Two delayed
by HMG playing silly games, but eventually mission was accomplished.
3. The 'Let's Blame Putin' Charade. When MI6 reported to its ultimate
boss that an ex-Russian spy had been poisoned, Boris would have rightly
assumed the culprits were probably Russian. But then, remembering how Lavrov
humiliated him at that press conference in Moscow last December, he decided
to make sure Russia did get the blame and take the rap for it. With the
help of the new inexperienced Defence Secretary and others, he came up with
a hastily and ill-conceived plan to show that the poison could have only
come from Russia, ensuring Russia's guilt. The Home Secretary at the time,
Amber Rudd, did not buy into it so had to be replaced, but others – including
the overworked Theresa May – were taken in. The narrative quickly fell apart,
but having persuaded the world and his wife of Putin's guilt, there was
no going back. The hole Boris dug just got deeper. And all the evidence
– or the lack of it – had to be destroyed. No wonder Boris resigned.
4. A Tragic Death. Four months after Skripal, a couple in Amesbury were
hospitalised for drug misuse; just two of the many cases SDH would have
dealt with during the year. But having been persuaded by HMG that the Skripals
had been poisoned with Novichok-that-only-comes-from-Russia, the local authorities
took no chances and assumed the two from Amesbury had been likewise affected.
HMG, desperate to keep their narrative alive, leapt on the incident to re-ignite
the anti-Russian rhetoric and claim Dawn's death was 'murder', 'a terrorist
act', 'a war crime' etc. etc. The narrative was even more idiotic than the
first one (a scent bottle in a litter bin for four months!) – and ironically,
it blew the gaff. They said Dawn was poisoned by the very same Novichok-that-only-comes-from-Russia
and died because she received 10-times the dose Skripal got. But we know
she took eight days to die. It could not have been Novichok.
Perhaps the police should stop trying to hunt down non-existent assassins
and investigate Boris Johnson. The crime? Misconduct in public office, which
carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
When I was writing my scenario below, I started to realise that rather
than satirical it could be factual.
Little Gavin might be working under that man who would be king's tutelage.
Gavin having told the Russians to shut up, does not do well under questioning.
'A tragic death'
If Salisbury and the aftermath was not already crazy, Amesbury hit new heights
of idiocy.
A woman was taken from a house with poisoning in the morning but others
in the house were not taken to hospital for observation.
Later the same day, the other occupant of the same house fell ill. Decontamination
tents were sent to the location but were not used. Instead police put the
second victim in an ambulance with no protection whatsoever.
Just watch this short video and ask yourself – what were the police thinking!!**??
Two days after Dawn and Charlie had been admitted to hospital, and as a
direct result of the Amesbury incident, Detective Sergent Erin Martin of
Salisbury CID took the " unusual step " of issuing an official warning
via Wiltshire Constabulary to " drug users " in south Wiltshire
"to be extra cautious" , . "We are asking anyone who may have
information about this batch of drugs to contact the Police", " where the
drugs may have been bought from, or who they may have been sold to."
John, you're poaching my theory ! The one I hinted at in an earlier post
(yesterday I think).
Like you, I'm convinced that two opposing covert ops are involved.
Your point 1. would be standard practice. Sergei would have been subjected
to discreet surveillance by MI5 watchers and GCHQ throughout his British
exile. Most likely heroic DS Bailey was his local case officer. But let's
not forget that Sergei was still working for MI6 and that Pablo Miller was
probably still his controller (line manager). There's a saying, 'once an
intelligence officer; always an intelligence officer' – a saying which certainly
holds true for many ex-SIS folk. It was his covert activities that lead
to your next point.
Your point 2. is more or less exactly what I had worked out myself, and
I'll be working on the finer details for some time yet.
Your point 3. is spot on too. This is the opportunistic 'political capital'
angle I mentioned in an earlier post.
Your point 4. I see this as a crude continuation of the above. A further
opportunity. Nothing more.
Eventually, we'll be joining more and more dots together. Good work,
John !
"Party A is British Intelligence, whereas Party B is perhaps some sort
of Trump supporting element of US Intelligence/military. The Skripals are
therefore currently under their protection. Have I got that right?"
Broadly yes; that is the bare bones of what I currently think.
You counter with:
"Party A would be FBI/CIA Intel with nerve agent from US part of Porton
Down, and Party B would be British Intelligence believe what Party A is
about to do is potentially disastrous, and so try to stop it."
I have two particular issues with that idea. I mention them, to see whether
they can be answered in a way that allows us to build a scenario around
your idea.
Firstly, when you say FBI/CIA, what you really mean is Cabal. The FBI/CIA
would be acting on behalf of HRC/DNC/Obama/etc. to remove an individual
who could expose them and throw light on their illegal activities – specifically
spying on Trump. Why would May/M_5/M_6 want to stop that? They are in exactly
the same boat and do not want their role to be disclosed either. Also Sergei
was nothing but an expense for HMG; they already had all the information
he was ever going to give them.
Ah, you say, British intelligence didn't like the idea of a nerve agent
being set loose in Salisbury. OK, well why not just have a word with the
FBI/CIA and agree to do it in a way that keeps everyone (except Sergei)
happy. I am sure that between FBI/CIA/M_5/M_6/HMG, there was something that
they could all agree would do the job and not threaten the whole of Salisbury.
Why not just get him at home?
But that isn't my biggest problem.
Secondly, Sergei was on British soil. If HMG/M_5/M_6 got wind of a plan
to kill him, why would they not just take him off the streets immediately?
Get him into protective custody. He had already been to the police to say
he was in fear of his life, so get him somewhere safe. Then there is no
need for any 'nerve agent' attack at all. The FBI/CIA might be a bit miffed
but Trump would not complain; he would say British intelligence did a great
job!
In this case, Bailey visits Sergei on Saturday morning and says: "Right
Sergei, go and get Yulia and then we will take you in. You will be safe
for the rest of your life. All you have to do is give me the SD card and
we will take care of the rest." Job done and it would have saved an awful
lot of ferreting around in rubbish bins ever since.
So if party A was indeed some black op of the FBI/CIA, why did party
B let it proceed right up to 4 March and then try to thwart it at the last
moment, instead of just killing it stone dead? If party B didn't stop the
FBI/CIA earlier and Bailey was sent in to save the Skripals, it rather looks
like they didn't get the SD card anyway
Good points Paul. For now, the only thing I'll say is with regard to the
second problem, which is this. It would all depend on when this plot was
discovered. If it was days or weeks in advance, then yes, you're absolutely
correct. But if it was some time on the morning or even early afternoon
of 4th March, then that would change things. And to be frank, even if there
was a "cover up" of a "cover up" it doesn't look like it was very well thought
through.
If party B discovered the plot on Sunday morning, they would have had
the whole day to find Sergei and take him in. Sergei wasn't trying to hide;
they would have found him easily on council CCTV. There would also have
been police cars all day outside Sergei's house, waiting for him and police
would have been crawling all over the city.
If party B discovered the plot at, say, 2pm and Sergei was not at home,
they still had options. Surely the police would have launched their procedures
for something like a bomb threat. The city would be closed off immediately
and police would have been everywhere. People would have been told to evacuate
the city and get to safety. Given 2 or 3 hours, procedures would exist to
minimise the risk to the general public.
Even if they only had one hour's notice, I can't see the police doing
nothing and allowing a nerve agent to be deployed.
I should add that I still believe that on the Sunday and Monday, the Wiltshire
police were honest and did a proper job. Some very funny details emerged
very quickly by Monday evening they knew that this was a scam and on Tuesday
the Met was brought in to cover it all up.
I should add that I still believe that on the Sunday and Monday, the
Wiltshire police were honest and did a proper job.
Agree.
on Tuesday the Met was brought in to cover it all up.
Disagree. The Met or Met CT was in the lead as early as 7:00 PM on Sunday
and no later than 9:00 PM. Publicly for the next day and a half SFD and
SDH referred to the Met as a 'partner,' but one of the local police seniors
did say on Monday or Tuesday that they were relieved of command on Sunday.
Okay – so what do you do with the subsequent statements from SDH/NHS that
have clearly stated that on Sunday evening, SDH contacted NHS "Radiation,
poison, etc." and NHS "Radiation, poison, etc" promptly contacted Met CT?
Did Met CT respond with, "We're busy with our tea and crumpets and it's
not our patch anyway?"
The Monday announcements were issued by SDH and hours later the SPD,
but we now also know that by 06:00 on Monday buzz about unknown agent and
Skripal had spread throughout several UK agencies. Do you seriously think
that SDH and SPD were in the lead that day? That referring to 'partners'
was a simple nicety?
Is there not even a semi-automatic communication link from SPD to Wiltshire
PD and the Met? Shortly after the incident, if we accept a Skripal neighbor
eyewitness, a SPD patrol car stopped at Skripal's house. That indicates
that Skripal has been preliminarily identified as one of the bench people.
Even if that eyewitness is wrong, nobody disputes that a team of police
arrived at Skripal's house sometime between 7:00 and 8:00 PM and by all
accounts gained access to the house and searched it. If the Met or Met CT
had any boots on the ground by then, they wouldn't have had enough to handle
the search on its own. So, of course, local police assets were involved
in this.
Do you think Craig Holden and Cara Charles-Barkwrote the statements they
read on camera on Monday evening? Statements that only covered the barest
of information,
You honestly believe that SPD operated exclusively on this matter from
Sunday evening until Tuesday?
Seemed to me that there was a bit of chaos at the law enforcement end on
Monday as they didn't get much done by that evening statement and when national
reporters were beginning to show up. SPD couldn't ascertain that a crime
had been committed. Was Met CT pushing for a crime? Somebody behind the
scenes with power sure was.
Boris had his script ready to go as soon as Rowley (Met CT) announced
that Skripal was one of the victims.
Marie, I don't know why you are ranting at me, all I did was post a link
– that is the official story! Anyway, just to correct a couple of things for you:
" police arrived at Skripal's house sometime between 7:00 and 8:00 PM"
No Bailey was there by 5pm.
" by 06:00 on Monday buzz about unknown agent"
No the buzz by 6am on Monday was about a former Russian spy. The news of
an unknown agent came later on Monday morning.
I find it helpful to be as precise as possible when so much possible evidence
is mushy or conflicts.
SPD has stated that the team of officers including Bailey went to Skripals
house Sunday evening. I don't recall that SPD has given the time of they
arrived. Skripals neighbors reported seeing several police cars and officers
at Skripals house at 7:00. As eyewitnesses aren't generally all that reliable
as to the precise time they observed something, I merely accepted 7:00 as
the earliest and allowed that it could have been as late as 8:00. Either
of which are good enough for a reconstructed timeline.
As to the report from one neighbor that a police car arrived at Skripal's
house at 5:00, there's no other evidence to support that. I'm sort of accepting
a 5:00-5:30 visit by a lone police car because checking on a home of a patient
whose identity would not have been firmly established at that point is sort
of what police do. I could have been Bailey, but I doubt it because it's
too routine. That person wouldn't have entered the house. Likely knocked
on the door and reported back that nobody was home. It's relevance for me
is that it gives a time as to when Skripal had first been identified as
one of the two possible patients.
Key Elements of the Hoax
(I say key because a big part of the Hoax has been to throw in distractions,
red herrings and a ton of irrelevant stuff to confuse and overload the story
– It is Not meant to be understood)
The Conflicting advice of Novichoks that Public Health England (PHE)
promulgated compared with that of the Organisation for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on Nerve Agents (the OPCW hadn't put anything out
on Novichok specifically for the simple reason they didn't know anything)
The Director of Public Health England (PHE) Paul Cosford saying that
Novichok actually does take a minimum of 3 hours to take effect after contact
with a large dose
"If you become ill with this stuff (Novichok) from actually coming into
contact with a significant amount of it then its within 6-12 hours, maximum
(that symptoms would occur) – 3 hours is the minimum but you have to be
in touch with a large dose.""
PHE – Risk to public remains low (Despite being dead). "This Stuff" (Novichok)
take effect in not less than 3 hours IF you get a very large dose through
the skin
OPCW – Nerve Agents are deadly, the more toxic they are the deadlier
they are. They are designed to kill. Through Skin contact will present symptoms
in 20 – 30 mins, (inhalation much quicker)
No CCTV released by police.
Which would establish the actual Time Line rather than that of the Fake
Official Narrative.
It would establish what the Skripals looked like that day and what actually
occurred at the bench (the police don't want us to know either)
It could have saved the lives of the 3 children that Sergei gave bread
to in the park when he first arrived in Salisbury that day if the boys had
been poisoned by Novichok.
Bailey's Body Cam would establish what he did at the bench and Skripal
home.
The Government Lie that it was the Russians that did it and could only
have been them.
I have a tome which addresses means and opportunity, and when I can paste
it to the Blog you will hopefully see it.
I will still bang on about Skripals and only Skripals being the park bench
victims.
We know that they were in Zizzi's after the duck feed with the boys, then
onto the Mill Pub.
As many of the recent posts had pointed out the Mill Pub has lots of CCTV
footage and the police spent quite a long time interviewing the staff. (As
one does in a terror investigation.
The Telegraph was still reporting that the Mill Pub was the last port
of call before the park bench. I think that is true. However, TPTB want
us to "ignore" that location and focus on the Novichok that dripped from
Zizzi's table.
Why?
The US media has send journalists to Salisbury very early.
For example Ellen Barry, NYT. These journalists have influenced the official
narrative to a decisive extent.
He used the Snap Fitness CCTV to establish the „fact" that the Skripals
went from Zizzis through Market Walk to the bench.
Rob, just another false translation of what Putin said about traitors.
Listen to Moran´s interpretation at 2:00 in the video.
Quote : Vladimir Putin's held a town hall session and he was asked about
this five's that had been traded and he said, and this is almost a direct
quote : „They will kick the bucket. Trust me. They betrayed their colleagues,
their brothers in arms. And they took thirty pieces of silver and are gonna
choke on all that." [End quote]
At 3:00 Terry Moran shows the CCTV of Snap Fitness.
It´s outside at the right side of the entrance.
Noone & Liane:
Excellent articles, thanks.
I recommend everyone to watch the video on Liane's link: https://youtu.be/sGqi-k213eE
15 minutes well worth watching.
"Flat Earth New" by Nick Davies. It provides a plausible reason for the
phenomena where all the new media carry the same headline and column with
minor changes – it all comes from one source via a single feed that they
all subscribe to (the Press Association, or sometimes Reuters).
We keep talking about the "official narrative". But actually, what is
the official narrative and where does one find it?
I do try to keep up with events around the Skripal case. The media regularly
and frequently cite "sources", official or otherwise. But have there been
any actual authorized statements from the government containing anything
like an "official" version of the events? There was Theresa May's statement
to Parliament in March, but has there been anything since? If so, I must
have missed it (which is quite possible).
For sure there's a media narrative. The media keeps floating new stories
or bits of new information. But the media stories are often either self-contradictory
or just plain nonsensical. Does this amount to an "official narrative"? Is the "perfume bottle" official for example? Or the novichok in the
public toilets? Or are these only media stories?
I read in earlier posts that the police have issued an "official" timeline
(contradicting earlier eye-witness accounts). Is this the case? Is there
really a police timeline that one can look up in any official source, or
is it just another media story?
Most recently the fact (?) was reported – apparently as a Guardian exclusive
– that the government is "poised" (whatever that means) to submit an extradition
request to Moscow. If true, it would be a very serious act. Has it been
officially documented, or is even this simply another media story?
I apologise if I'm talking rubbish here, but I have the impression that
there no such thing as an "official narrative" beyond what May told Parliament
in March. Everything since then has been media smoke and mirrors. Or an
I missing something?
I totally agree with you.
And it seems none of the media is inclined to pin down and demand the official
story.
It is to the government's advantage to allow the media to run with unnamed
sources to reinforce the Russia dunnit scenario, without themselves committing
to it
When I use the term "official narrative", which I do a lot, I am basically
referring to three simple claims:
That Sergei and Yulia Skripal, along with D.S. Nick Bailey, were poisoned
by a "military grade nerve agent" known as a Novichok.
That responsibility for this act lies with the Russian state.
That the poisoning took place at the home of Mr Skripal, specifically
by the application of the nerve agent to the handle of his front door.
The first two claims have been expressly made by Her Majesty's Government,
whilst the third one has expressly been made by those in charge of the investigation.
There are of course other sub-claims that form a part of this (such as
the day that Yulia and then Sergei were discharged from hospital) but these
three claims are substantially it.
The main problem with the first claim is that the Skripals are alive
and well. The main problem with the second is Russia is absolutely not the
only country or entity that could have produced the alleged substance. And
the main problem with the third claim is that it is a physical impossibility
that 2 people could have come into contact with the alleged substance, and
then collapsed at exactly the same time 4 hours later.
Everything else follows from those three basic, but demonstrably false
claims.
I agree with you completely, Rob, except for you saying that the Skripals
are 'alive and well'. In truth, we can't be sure of this. All we know for
certain is that Yulya was alive at the time the Reuters video was recorded.
I definitely agree with you. Almost nothing is "official" except that
Putin did it (whatever it was).
On your Point 3, what do we make of this post by CharlieFreak ?
I was discussing the 'door handle' theory with a relative about five or
six weeks ago and he was telling me that he had been listening to a BBC
Radio 4 'Today' interview with a Govt Security Minister the previous week
(Ben Wallace?) in which he was asked if Novichok residue had actually been
found by investigators on the door handle. According to my relative – who
has been following the case and assumed from all the publicity that nerve
agent residue had been found on the door handle – the Minister said it hadn't
but it was a plausible the theory they were working with. As I understand
it the interviewer then rhetorically remarked (without any obvious hint
of irony or incredulity) that presumably it was quite possible that the
'assassins' came back after seeing the Skripals leave the house and wiped
the door handle clean to remove the evidence!!
https://www.theblogmire.com/bbc-crimewatch-reconstruction-of-salisbury-poisonings-shelved/#comment-8643
Can this be? Not even the door handle is "official" ???
john_a,
"Is the "perfume bottle" official for example?"
Officially the Novichok was found in a "small glass bottle" in Charlie
Rowley's flat. No further details were officially given about the container.
It was Charlie who said that he had found a perfume bottle with a known
brand name, which Dawn sprayed on her wrists, and that the contents somehow
got onto Charlie's hands.
Nothing official as far as I know, except that the Hazmat guys searched
the public toilets in QEM park. Some tabloid published a ludicrous story
about Russia using that public toilet as a CW lab.
This has been said many times before, but it's worth repeating that the
police did not say when the Skripals visited the Mill pub, only that it
was "at some time after" they arrived at Sainsbury's car park in Salisbury
city centre. The police must have known more about the exact timing, since
they had plenty of timestamped CCTV footage available to them. 'Unofficially'
according to media reports, they went to Mill before they went to Zizzis,
but there does not appear to be anything to support that version of events.
– "Most recently the fact (?) was reported – apparently as a Guardian exclusive
– that the government is "poised" (whatever that means) to submit an extradition
request to Moscow. If true, it would be a very serious act. Has it been
officially documented, or is even this simply another media story?"
I guess that this is the story that originated from the Press Association
that the Russian assassins were identified from CCTV images. Nothing official
about that, in fact the Security Minister called it "ill informed and wild
speculation". However, the BBC has treated the report very seriously.
https://twitter.com/MarkUrban01/status/1020366761848385536 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43643025
If the BBC continues to say that, it must have been leaked from some
senior official source that wants the public to believe it, even if that
source does not commit to it publicly.
– You ask in another post "Not even the door handle is "official" ???"
The British authorities have not explicitly stated that the Novichok
was found on the door knob, only on the front door: "Specialists have identified
the highest concentration of the nerve agent, to-date, as being on the front
door of the address.".
However, there have been various media reports that the nerve agent was
found on the door handle. Furthermore, Sir Mark Sedwill, the UK's national
security adviser stated in a publicly released letter that Russia had previously
tested the use of door handles as a way of delivering nerve agents.
Sedwill says "DSTL established that the highest concentrations were found
on the handle of Mr Skripal's front door. These are matters of fact." So
I suppose you could call that official.
My thesis: The Skripals did not walk through the Market Walk to the bench.
I want to substantiate this thesis:
We have two CCTVs of people that are NOT the Skripals :
15:47:43 Snap Fitness shows the couple with the red bag. First published
on March 6.
Cain Prince, 28, runs Snap Fitness.
16:08:00 Jenny's restaurant shows three people. First published on March
9.
Mustafa Dalangal, 57, runs Jenny's restaurant .
How did these two CCTVs find their way into the public ?
We know that the police didn´t publish a single CCTV. Why should they release
this two ?
No, it were some journalists who found the CCTV earlier than the police.
Look at this timeline of March 5 and 6 (Reporter Liam Trim) :
Monday March 5
6pm The BBC reports the man is Sergei Skripal, 66, an ex-military intelligence
colonel who was convicted in Russia of passing state secrets to Britain
7pm At a press conference Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden
tells reporters it is not being treated as a counter-terror incident.
Tuesday March 6
09:07 The BBC named Skripal as the man who was found along with a woman
in her 30s, believed to be known to him, on a bench near a shopping centre
shortly after 4pm on Sunday.
09:37 Both supermarkets are open but there are national media providing
coverage close to the police tape.
10:34 Sergei Skripal, 66, was found slumped on a bench in Salisbury alongside
a 33-year-old woman, who the BBC understands is his daughter, Yulia Skripal.
10:53 The latest from the Press Association: „As CCTV believed to show the
pair in the moments before they were found slumped on a bench emerged, the
UK's top counter-terrorism officer, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner
Mark Rowley, said: "We have to be alive to the fact of state threats."
10:56 Freya Church, 27, the gym worker, from Salisbury, told the Press Association:
(..)
15:37 BBC home affairs correspondent sums up press conference
He's quite brutally frank here but it's true – we did not learn much from
that press conference.
https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/salisbury-russian-spy-police-substance-1302045
I guess that Craig Holden in the evening of March 5 told reporters about
a man in his 60th and a woman in her 30th were the couple found slumped
on the bench. And I suspect he also mentioned the red bag.
This gave the Press Association the idea to look for the couple on private
CCTVs.
PA was looking for a couple with a red bag and they found it at Snap Fitness.
We know for a fact that PA found the wrong pair.
Had there been another couple on the CCTV with a red bag, then they would
certainly have copied it, too ! So there was no second pair with a red bag
in Market Walk at that time !
Later on March 6 the police arrived at Snap Fitness :
Quote : Snap Fitness manager Cain Prince, aged 28, said: "Police had a good
look at the footage and were interested in these two people. It was the
only image they took away."
Mr Prince added that police said Skripal was "wearing a green coat". [End
quote]
"Police had a good look at the footage" – so, the police too didn´t see
the Skripals in market Walk !
But they found it suspicious that there was a couple who also had a red
bag. So they took it away.
The Sun knew about the Snap Fitness CCTV and the red bag. Why did they
focus on another couple ? Was the red bag couple not on Jenny's restaurant
CCTV ? But they can not have fallen from the sky. I have no logical explanation
other than this : Certain media wanted to create the illusion that the Skripals
walked the Market Walk, although they didn´t.
Conclusion : Two different reporters have spotted CCTV. But no one has
discovered the Skripals. In short, the Skripals didn´t walk through the
Market Walk.
Liane, I think you are right. And why did the police take away that image
from Snap Fitness? Because it was the couple on the bench! When the police
searched the CCTV they knew what the bench couple looked like and that was
who they were looking for.
If it had been the real Skripals on the bench, why on earth would the
police have taken away CCTV of a random couple with a red bag, yet not bothered
to take any images of the Skripals?
"Yes Mr Cain, Mr Skripal was wearing a green coat but never mind about
that; I think I will have this picture of these two other people if that's
alright with you."
Another thought, this may explain the switch in the Mill/Zizzi or Zizzi/Mill
timeline. The CCTV couple were clearly not coming from the direction of
the Mill, they were coming from Zizzi.
As the police had made a mistake in releasing the CCTV image, they may
have switched the story round and said it was the Mill first to cover up
the fact that they had (ridiculously) issued a CCTV image of 2 otherwise
random people coming from the wrong direction. By switching it round perhaps
they thought it provided some cover for having issued images of people that
were not the Skripals and left the idea in everyone's mind that the Skripals
had come from the same direction.
Paul, both CCTVs were NOT released by the police but by the press !
This fact forced them to change the story.
Why on earth was the time when the Skripals were in Mill Pub never given,
neither by police nor journalists ?
Something very significant happened in the Mill. It had 12 CCTV cameras operating that day the recordings were all seized
by the police. The Manager was was treated as a terror suspect and interviewed by police
8 times in the first week of the investigation. The Skripals went to the Mill before Zizzis
"As further details of Col Skripal's movements emerged, a source close
to Greg Townsend, manager of The Mill, revealed that he served the Russians
last Sunday afternoon and had since been treated like a "terror suspect",
interviewed by police up to eight times last week.
He said The Mill had 12 CCTV cameras, covering the large open-plan bar
area as well as the upstairs balcony and lavatories overlooking it.
"The pub has obviously remained closed for more than a week and the cordon
widened, but Greg feels like he has been kept completely in the dark, they're
not telling him anything.
"He actually served them. He's had a bit of a time of it all and is a
pending terror suspect.
"He certainly said he's being treated like one. He's had around eight
police interviews.""
Sorry the Telegraph has the opposite to the "Official Narrative" (as it
was then)
"From the car park, it was just a short walk through The Maltings shopping
precinct to Zizzi, where they ate lunch before heading to The Mill pub for
a drink."
The "Official Narrative" was never changed on Dr Davies, the Duck Boys
park location, the cctv pair being one and the same as the bench people
And the Helicopter taking Yuia and / or Sergie changed 3 weeks l was
corrected later in the leading MSM news provider the Spire FM website.
The Official Narrative is a tool of the Hoaxer and because of its unreliability
it means Pants.
Independent Tested Evidence is what is forming the Facts, if they are
false they can easily be refuted abd corrected by New Evidence eg Mill and
Council CCTV
Peter, this prompted me to look at Mr Townend's Facebook page and there
was a link to a piece about his rabbits, which were locked up behind the
police cordon, with no food or water. But thanks to his raising of awareness
on social media, the police stepped in:
"Luckily, the Luckily, Wiltshire Police stepped into the rescue the rabbits
after pub manager's plea was shared more than 100 times across Facebook.
The force today tweeted: 'We have an update on the rabbits stuck at an address
in one of [the] cordons. They have now been given food and water and are
OK. Thanks for everyone's concern.'"
Sadly the cat and the guinea pigs at 47 Christie Miller Road were not
treated with the same care. "All animals are equal, but some animals are
more equal than others" it seems.
Or, possibly, 'all police are dumb, but some are dumber than others'.
Or, one could change 'dumb' to 'unfeeling', or 'callous', or some other
derogatory term.
The cat and the guinea pigs in the Skripal's house would have been raising
hell and the cat would have been trying everything in its repertoire to
get out. Then there's the defecation and urination, the smell must have
been quite ripe. So please tell me how the officers posted outside the Skripals
and Townsend's ignored all this without comment to their superiors?
No idea. The two things that baffle me about the whole incident are:
a) If you look at the photos of police officers standing near the house,
there are three windows that are open. I would have thought the cat could
have got through one of those, and there's probably a catflap on the back
door. The cat, if not the guinea pigs, could surely have gotten away.
b) Why on earth the authorities let on about the condition of the animals.
They're not above being economical with the actualite. Why then did they
not just say, "The cat and the guinea pigs are now safely residing at a
secure location. They do not wish to avail themselves of the services of
the RSPA, or Russian Embassy, and they ask that their privacy be respected."
The affair of the pets was only made public when the Russian embassy began
enquiring about them. Until then it was the Skripals' vet who'd contacted
the police about the pets, and this happened within hours of the poisoning.
Once it became public, the government had to come up with a plausible
cover story – claiming that DSB had found them on 4th March. I don't believe
this. The DEFRA vet allegedly involved was, as far as I know, never named,
and the best they could come up with was that the Persian cat, Nash van
Drake (brought over from Russia), had been found in a 'distressed' state,
taken to PD, humanely put to sleep and incinerated. No vet should euthanise
an animal simply because it is distressed. The guinea pigs (also from Russia)
had been found dead due to lack of food and water were also taken off to
PD. I don't believe this story. Rumours of a second cat, Masyanya, bought
in England, began to circulate and it was assumed that this cat had escaped.
Neighbours will know more.
I would like to think that all the pets survived and are now safe. This
may even be true if the Skripals had been 'disappeared' according to a pre-planned
operation. If so, the pets would have been moved elsewhere shortly before
the fateful day, or on that very morning.
HMG hadn't taken into account a second cat, because they weren't aware
of one, but there certainly were two cats and I have videos of them both.
The embassy were only aware of one cat and two guinea pigs, information
that I believe came from Viktoria. As for the rabbits and fish, another
later rumour, perhaps they had been taken away earlier too. The whole pet
story strikes me as very odd. Maybe Howard Taylor, the vet, knows more than
we do. He said, "We phoned the police on day one to offer to help if they
needed it. I thought it unlikely the police would have gone to the house
and not done anything."
On 17th March it was only reported that the animals had been taken away.
It was only on 6/7th April that HMG admitted that the guinea pigs were dead
and the had been suffering.
According to The Sun: Taylor said of Mr Skripal: "He was a nice chap
and we got on well. He never said he was in fear for his life. He used the
vets for some years and I had seen his cat and his guinea pigs." Note: only
one cat mentioned.
"We contacted the police straightaway upon hearing the news that Mr Skripal
had been admitted to hospital, and a number of times afterwards, to make
them aware of Mr Skripal's pets and their needs.
We contacted Porton Down – in case the animals may have been taken into
isolation. We also offered to take care of Mr Skripal's pets in his absence.
We were never contacted by the police or Porton Down in return regarding
Mr Skripal's pets".
If we believe this official story, then why haven't the RSPCA prosecuted
the police fotr animal neglect? I'm disgusted by the RSPCA's apparent lack
of interest in this affair. Their press officer, Nicola Walker said:
"It is very sad to hear that these animals have died in such tragic circumstances.
However, we appreciate the emergency services were working in extreme and
dangerous conditions in an incredibly fast-moving operation in an attempt
to keep the public safe. We don't currently know the details of what happened
but, as part of our ongoing working relationship with police, we would like
to see if there is any learning for future operations."
Suzanne Norbury, their South-West Press Officer came up with the same
wording, and:
"Emergency services working in extreme and dangerous conditions incredibly
fast-moving operation an attempt to keep the public safe'
I go along with this assessment: "It's a string of shallow excuses. It's
nonsense. And it comes, not from the police themselves, but from the royal
body supposed to prevent cruelty to animals".
This report may have been inaccurate, but nobody can claim that the existence
of the pets was not known as early as mid March. The family vet also raised
questions at an early stage. The report also shows that somebody thought
the animals were worth "testing".
To me, this is one of the most bizarre inconsistencies in the whole case.
Were the animals removed in mid March (alive) or early April (dead)? Why
are there two different and mutually contradictory stories? What possible
interest could be served by leaving the pets inside the house? And does
it really mean that the police or counter-terror guys never entered the
house before early April? After (supposedly) finding novichok on the door
handle?
What's going on here? Did somebody calculate that a heartbreak story
about starving pets would make us all hate Russia even more? If so, I suspect
it backfired badly. British people love pets, and the story really just
makes the British authorities look inhuman. Especially because it was the
Russians who raised the issue.
Or is the whole sorry saga of the pets just a symptom of the British
authorities losing interest in the whole affair and just trying to walk
away from it in embarrassment?
Also, do the Skripals know the fate of their pets? What have they been
told, and how did they take it?
As I wrote before, it looks like a punishment of Sergei. He really loved
his pets.
Or does anybody here has the impression, that the Skripals were treated
like innocent victims ?
Sterling work as always Paul, thank you.
The note was sent from Frank Beswick (no relation) to Dr David Kelly
the week before he died. Beswick was a colleague of Kelly's at Porton Down
The writer of the letter was Frank Beswick (no relation) to Dr david Kelly,
I don't know whether it was his own letter header (the crest and coat of
arms) or that of the CDE Porton Down but this seems to indicate it was his
own personal crest & Arms
"Frank's scientific work did not interfere with his enthusiasm for voluntary
work with the St John Ambulance, in which he was a senior figure. The promotion
to the rank of commander brother within the Order of St John in 1995 delighted
him and allowed him to design his own coat of arms. This included the badge
of the Chemical Defence Establishment and a heart, a nod back to his early
work in cardiac physiology."
I Hadn't realised before but Beswick and Kelly had worked on detoxing
the island of Gruinard together
"In 1979, following the closure of the Microbiological Research Establishment,
the small microbiology programme fell into his bailiwick and this stimulated
the work to rehabilitate the Island of Gruinard, which had been contaminated
with anthrax in the early 1940s."
Well, there's no heart in the arms on that letterhead so I can't see how
they can be the arms that Beswick chose for himself. Nor do I understand
why the crest is placed separately on the left. It's only the colour and
charges in the escutcheon (shield) that makes a coat-of-arms unique to a
particular family, individual or corporate body. In a sense, the rest is
mere traditional ornament – the supporters, crest, helm, motto
Yes, I saw that Hasbrouck one when I did a quick search, but the chevron
is not engrailed and the difference is crucial. It MUST be engrailed (the
internet is still not the best way to search for these things). By the way
the Hasbouck arms would is described as "Purpure, a chevron between three
flambeaus or, flamed proper", so our friend's arms would then be:
"????, a chevron engrailed between three flambeaus (not torches) or (probably),
flamed proper (probably)". I can't guess the field colour (????), and I'm
guessing the likely colours of the torches.
I had forgotten about Ross Cassidy and was checking him out again after
Miheila mentioned him for the list of people who know more that they are
saying and found this from Sky News March 28 2018
Mr Cassidy, 61, has spent many hours with counter-terror detectives investigating
the poisoning, but would not discuss the police operation.
Mr Cassidy got to know Sergei, his wife Lyudmila, his son Alexandr (who
was known as Sasha) and Yulia.
Sergei spent a lot of time out of the country and there were times when
I didn't see him, but he used to call me his English friend. He was very
generous and never forgot my birthday, usually buying me an expensive bottle
of whisky.
On Saturday 3 March, Mr Cassidy drove Mr Skripal to Heathrow to collect
Yulia, who had moved back to Moscow and was visiting her father. It had
been snowing and Sergei asked his pal if they could use his four-wheel-drive
pick-up truck.
Last week, in a court ruling about the Skripals' medical needs, a judge
quoted the consultant treating them in Salisbury district hospital: "The
hospital has not been approached by anyone known to the patients to enquire
of their welfare."
Mr Cassidy was upset by the suggestion there wasn't anyone who cared
enough to want to go and see the Skripals.
He said: "That is misinformation, because we care. I asked the police
several times if we could go and see them, quietly and away from the media,
but I was told quite categorically that we were not allowed. We asked the
question and the answer was 'no'.
"We were also upset that if his family and friends in Russia got to hear
about this lack of concern it would cause them extra anguish."
My questions:
Why wouldn't Ross Cassidy discuss the police operation?
Why wouldn't the police let Sergei's best friend in England, visit him
in hospital?
Did the SDH consultant know that the police were preventing Sergei and
Yulia from having visitors?
If the SDH consultant did know that, then why didn't he tell the judge
that?
I'm glad you picked up on his name.
I included him, because outside the spook community, he's the only person
in England who appears to have known the Skripal family well – all four.
No wonder he was questioned for so long. I'll try to answer your questions as I see the situation. Just my opinion.
1.Why wouldn't Ross Cassidy discuss the police operation? Because he'd been threatened with dire consequences if he did. Whatever
they were, they were most likely fabricated. 'National interest' springs
to mind as the justification.
2. Why wouldn't the police let Sergei's best friend in England, visit
him in hospital? Either because he wasn't there or because – later- they were afraid that
Sergei would speak. I suspect he was never there at all.
3. Did the SDH consultant know that the police were preventing Sergei
and Yulia from having visitors? Probably none of the SDH staff did.
4. If the SDH consultant did know that, then why didn't he tell the judge
that? SDH declined to be represented in court due to feeling 'uncomfortable'.
As I said in an earlier post, whoever that unnamed doctor was, he/she was
'highly unlikely' to be from SDH, but was rather an MoD 'specialist' brought
in from elsewhere – PD or a military hospital.
Ross Cassidy may not have been willing to talk to the media, but I'm
sure he said more to family and friends. Perhaps he'd be willing to talk
to an impartial investigator, but then he might be too afraid of the consequences
– which could have been direct threats to him or his family.
He needs to be asked about police activity and visitors at the Skripals,
Sergei's pets (including the alleged rabbits and fish, not to mention Manyúnya,
the cat who allegedly escaped), any concerns he may have had leading up
to the fateful day, and so much more.
2. Why wouldn't the police let Sergei's best friend in England, visit
him in hospital?
In the US and absent a signed directive by a patient that's either unconscious
or incompetent, only next of kin are allowed to visit the patient. So, it
would be the hospital that denies a friend access to a patient. No need
for police involvement on this matter in this case.
The police, naturally, were looking for information on the patients and
at any conceivable culprits. A double whammy for Cassidy.
According to Ross Casssidy, it was the police who told him that he wasn't
allowed to visit Sergei. Have they any right to do this? If conscious and
talking, Sergei could ask to see any visitor he liked, but this didn't happen
– either because he wasn't there, didn't ask, had no friends or because
friends had been prohibited from visiting. We know RC had tried to, but
without success.
In normal circumstances a hospital wouldn't be prohibiting visitors.
Presumably RC had no means of contacting Sergei by phone either, and vice
versa. As far as we know, Sergei has been kept incommunicado ever since
4th March, if indeed he is still alive. A very worrying situation.
According to Ross Casssidy, it was the police who told him that he wasn't
allowed to visit Sergei. Have they any right to do this?
Cassidy's Sky News interview was published on 3/28; so, his interview
took place on or before 3/28. As of that date, both Yulia and Sergei were
officially unconscious or not able to communicate meaningfully. At the direction
of a hospital or for other reasons determined by law enforcement, police
do have that right.
Also, we don't have any idea if at any time Yulia and/or Sergei requested
to see Cassidy.
I see now. As you say the Skripals (or 'bench people') were still officially
unconscious at that time, so it would make sense that no visitors were allowed.
If the Skripals were there and after they had regained consciousness,
it's surely likely that they would have wanted visitors, especially a visit
from Ross Cassidy, Sergei's best friend. But I'm pretty certain that the
authorities would have prevented this at all costs, hence the lack of phone
access and Cassidy's remarks.
These exchanges about whether friends were allowed to visit the Skripals
in hospital inspired me to refresh my memories of the gross deception of
HMG regarding whether the Skripals had any relatives in Russia. At the High
Court ruling by Mr Justice Williams on 22 March, granting permission to
provide the OPCW with samples, he stated "Given the absence of any contact
having been made with the NHS Trust by any family member and the limited
evidence as to the possible existence of family members in Russia, I accept
that it is neither practicable nor appropriate in the special context of
this case to consult with any relatives [of the Skripals] who might fall
into the category identified in s.4(7)(b) of the Act". ('The Act' being
the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and s.4(7)(b) states that before delivering
what is in an incapacitated person's best interests the person ruling (in
this case Mr Justice Williams) must: take into account, in order to consult
them, the views of anyone engaged in caring for the person or INTERESTED
IN HIS WELFARE"). (my emphasis).
This statement was delivered in spite of the fact that the Sun had carried
an interview with Viktoria Skripal on 14 March about her concerns and desire
to visit/make contact with the Skripals. And in spite of the fact that the
Russian Embassy have records that on 6 March "the Embassy informed the FCO
of the request it had received from Viktoria Skripal to provide information
on the condition of her relatives.
https://rusemb.org.uk/fnapr/6481
Apologies for the misplacement of a couple of quotation marks in the above
post. I usually intend to proof read what I have written before sending
but didn't on this occasion as I am conscious that if I exceed a certain
period of time composing my message (I haven't worked out what the time
limit is) the system refuses to post it and I have to start again. That
aside, I think my meaning is clear.
Friends do not enjoy the same privileges to visit patients in hospital
as family does. (This has been a huge factor in why same-sex marriage was so necessary.)
Quote : The colonel's close friend Ross Cassidy, who lives just a few doors
from the property the Russian rented when he first arrived in Salisbury,
said he "was not at liberty to talk."
He declined to say whether his friend had spoken of fears for his life,
adding: "It's a very sensitive investigation of some gravitas. I really
am unable to divulge any information at the moment."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/06/did-treacherous-past-russian-colonel-finally-catch-salisbury/
I agree with you that Cassidy knows more, but is forbidden to talk about.
I will reply to this, but simply as a test as I can't seem to post this
afternoon,
Maybe Rob is doing some site maintenance.
I do not think SDH were involved in bad practices. The Terror Team and
PD took over.
In fact going to the courts for the second blood sample might have been
required due to SDH "resistance".
Anyone else with posting issues?
If I see that you are posting then it must be my PC or possibly the big
van with a dish on the roof at the end of my street.
A some point people stopped trying to prove the Earth was an irregular ball
shape thing and was spinning around, doing laps of our nearest star at close
on 66k mph.
They didn't stop because it wasn't true, it had just been proven beyond
doubt and there was other stuff to get on with.
Flat Earthers did come along, many having their own reasons, some just
didn't want to believe we were on a ball floating in space and prefer to
live with the idea that we live on a gurt plate.
The Hoax has been proven, the motive is not the most important feature,
murderers go to jail whether their motives are known or not.
The most important thing is to identify who was responsible for Dawn
Sturgess' death and bring them to Justice along with those that have attempted
to cover up the wicked and depraved crime.
The motives may or may not flow from that process but it is rather academic
at the moment to say the least.
Those responsible for Dawn's death are also responsible for the cover
up of the Salisbury Incident. That is what led to Dawn's death.
People responsible include
Mrs May and some of her Ministers
Salisbury and Met Police Chiefs.
These are not wild "Conspiracy Theories". They are cold, hard facts.
And we have the proof that will convict. Beyond reasonable doubt proof that
those people I have mentioned above are involved in the death of Dawn Surgess
and the cover up of the Salisbury and Amesbury Incidents.
Whenever governments bury facts, they are never up to any good. History
is full of examples of facts been hidden and whenever the lid is finally
raised, it is was never for a good reason:
Vietnam war
JFK
Iraq WMD
etc
etc
The problem for TPTB this time is that they are in a different class
to prior events – they are completely incompetent, utterly useless, self-important
fools and obvious liars. This is what 'equal opportunity' hiring does! The
good liars are gone.
Just look at all the 'officials' involved and wonder how they ever came
to get the job
I continue to believe that this saga was the reason for Johnson's resignation.
He could have survived May's Chequers debacle but he knows this story will
ruin the rest of his career, so he has done a runner. He will get as much
distance between himself and these events as he possibly can.
Paul,
Once again, I agree with everything you say.
Digressing to a different topic, it is the sheer "incompetence etc etc"
that also explains the shambles that is 'Brexit'. And these incompetents
– as I have alluded to elsewhere – are these days supported by many incompetent
civil servants. I could see the way things were heading many years ago and
that was one of my reasons for leaving the civil service 15 years ago after
more than 20 years service in the company of many intelligent and honourable
civil servants who were gradually retiring and were also expressing concerns
about the deterioration in standards at all levels. I saw the rot begin
when, about 20 years ago, the civil service opened up vacancies at all levels
of responsibility to people with administrative or managerial experience
but not civil service experience, so they hadn't acquired the ability to
work alongside and in conjunction with legal advisers or technical experts
(e.g. in my case, veterinarians and structural engineers at different times)
which is an ability that develops and improves over an extended period of
time and is integral to the successful functioning of the CS. When I joined
the CS you would attend meetings and observe how such relationships developed
and were used to achieve the intended aim many years before you yourself
might find yourself having to do it. That no longer happens – people are
just thrown in at the deep end, managed by incompetent staff and told to
get on with it, with nobody providing knowledge-based 'quality control'.
Whether or not you are a 'Remainer' or a 'Brexiteer' in principle, there
was no hope for negotiations from the outset with the useless shower that
we have in power (scope for a limerick there!). The Brexit considerations
and negotiations have been in the hands of pathetic amateurs who are at
sixes and sevens and who, after so many decades of relying on the EU to
tell them what to do, have completely foregone any ability to think for
themselves. That is the key problem, not the principle of Brexit, which
could have resulted in far more encouraging prospects had it been in the
right hands.
CF
Peter,
Exactly – one quality I found to be completely absent in 'newcomers' was
initiative. I inherited someone at middle management level who had been
in that particular policy job for about a year. I routinely asked him to
draft a straightforward (but not 'standard') letter for one of our Ministers
to send to an MP answering questions raised by a constituent about aspects
of our Department's legislation. After all, that was part of his job description.
As a middle manager responsible for that policy area he and even his subordinate
officer should be able to quote chapter and verse and why it had been formulated
in the way it had (e.g. 'based on Article X of EU Council Directive ABC');
at the very least he should have been able to work out the answers from
information to hand or by consulting expert colleagues. We had been given
the standard week or so to produce the draft reply which I could have knocked
up in a couple of hours at most. So when I hadn't been given the draft for
clearance by the morning of the required day and asked him about it he told
me I had been unreasonable to ask him to do it without telling him what
he needed to say! Needless to say, I knocked up the reply in a couple of
hours but had to forego other tasks I was supposed to do that afternoon.
When I joined the CS a Clerical Officer (2 grades below this chap) would
have been asked to provide a first draft. I could bore you with other examples
but, you'll be pleased to hear,I won't. Unfortunately that level of intellect
is all too common nowadays.
Charlie, you've described an operational organizational change that isn't
limited to public institutions. It exists in corporations as well and began
to take hold about thirty years ago. Instead of promoting from within line
staff – those who had spent years doing and moved up slowly in managerial
positions as they demonstrated management skills – into the managerial ranks,
the concept of 'universal manager' gained a foothold. As if managerial skills
are a special talent and nothing more is required to manage any operation.
In the US, business and government had to absorb all those newly minted
MBAs and those people weren't about to start at the bottom of the operational
ladder.
The two best managers I ever had the pleasure to work for didn't complete
an undergrad college degree. Yes, they did have people skills but they were
also solid in their line technical skills as well. Highly respected by employees,
colleagues, and in the industry. They had a firm grasp of the skill-sets
of their employees, how trustworthy each of their employees were, and were
immune to the sycophants.
Marie
Another change in infrastructure policy that had dire consequences and contributed
to the problems you refer to was the principle that 'no one could be deemed
a failure or to not have the aptitude to succeed with the appropriate training'.
When I began my CS employment the annual report procedure was quite emphatic
and honest about abilities. As a manager there was a range of five graded
boxes you could tick against all aspects of performance, the lowest of which
was 'not good enough', and, if repeated, this could warrant a warning from
personnel (sorry, 'human resources' now) and potentially demotion. There
was also a box where the manager had to enter what grade they thought the
member of staff would have the inherent capability of achieving by the end
of their career! For many people of all ages this was often the grade they
were in at the time but they were realistic and honest enough to accept
that it was probably right. It's arguable whether this last box served a
positive purpose for the majority of staff but, rightly or wrongly, the
intention was to motivate the best staff to continue in the CS rather than
become despondent and quit. It was decided by forward thinking, liberal
minded individuals many years ago now that annual reports should never say
anything negative, and if anything negative needed to be said then the line
management must be at fault for not overcoming their staff member's deficiencies.
George,
Yep. Another problem we are creating for the future – although the Govt
will welcome this 'problem' – is that in 'the good old days' and up until
the 1990s EVERY single official communication whether written or verbal
had to be recorded on a single officially registered uniquely numbered registry
file. Each file, where documents and 'minutes' were sequentially numbered
in date order, expanded to about 2.5″ thick and some subjects would have
multiple A,B, C etc files. If someone in Office A sent a note to someone
in Office B about a Govt issue it was obligatory to send a paper photocopy
(or carbon copy) to HQ for them to place on the file. Nothing went unrecorded.
Even internal discussions between staff would be summarised on a minute
sheet afterwards, signed by the staff involved and placed on file. The system
had to be run really strictly but it worked and we can look back and identify
why certain decisions were made and by whom. But now, with the advent of
computers and email the significance of keeping central records has gone
and I can guarantee nobody in HQ has a complete historical record of all
deliberations and communications. In years to come, conveniently for the
Govt, key information about what has been going on in this case and other
important matters will be missing.
The motive – creating a rift between the Russian and Western states – is
obvious. The perpetrators – including Yulia in the attack for publicity
– too.
It is possible that Skripal was following money laundering via real estate
for Christopher Steele and the mafia did not like it.
But the whole thing was planned for publicity.
Anybody interested in tax havens and investment .
"Perhaps the greatest challenge, with respect to Russia and more generally,
concerns the anonymity of global offshore finance. On this front, the US
administration would find some cooperation from Moscow. Economically, the
Russian treasury has been losing vast sums to offshores. Politically, the
Kremlin is keen to strengthen its control over bureaucrats and oligarchs,
two groups for whom offshore nest eggs provide an alternative to Putin's
Russia. Since 2013, the Kremlin has pursued a "deoffshorization" campaign
encouraging businesses to repatriate capital and stop registering companies
offshore; additional legislation has restricted the Russian state employees'
foreign asset
ownership. A joint US-Russian effort, however limited, at ending the anonymity
of corrupt cash flows in Western jurisdictions would serve the interests
of both countries."
In the interests of accuracy, Simpson has never claimed to have expertise
on Russia. His major calling card is the series of investigative articles
he wrote on Ukraine, circa 2005-2008, when he was a WSJ reporter. In 2014
or 2015 he was hired by Prevezon, the plaintiff in a UK lawsuit against
Browder, and later a defendant in a DOJ lawsuit. When Fusion GPS was hired
by the Washington Beacon to do oppo research on Trump, he knew nothing about
Trump. It was after the Beacon contract ended and approximately two months
after the DNC/HRC campaign hired Fusion and they outsourced the Trump-Russia
oppo research to Steele. (Personally, I suspect that Steele had been engaged
on this long before then but not by Fusion.)
Dylan Martinez who operated the camera at Yulia's post-Novihoax debut, and
who is described as the chief Reuters photographer for UK and Ireland, has
an amusing quote heading his profile page: "When editing photos I look for the truth told in the most beautiful
way."
Yulya Skripal, the embodiment of truth and beauty!
I forgot to mention that Mr Martinez covers "news, sport and the odd feature". Regardless of a possible fake tracheotomy scar, I suppose his Skripal
assignment was highly likely to be the oddest feature of his career.
https://widerimage.reuters.com/photographer/dylan-martinez
'In another curious detail in the filing, the special counsel team said
Papadopoulos had been given $10,000 in cash "from a foreign national whom
he believed was likely an intelligence officer of a foreign country." The
filing noted that the country was "other than Russia." ' CNN
Mueller strangely coy about who gave Papa 10k in cash. Was he an Orbis
collector too?
UK Government and intelligence all over the place :
Quote : Since Trump was surging ahead in the polls and scaring the pants
off the foreign-policy establishment by calling for a rapprochement with
Moscow, the agencies figured that Russia was somehow behind it. The pace
accelerated in March 2016 when a 30-year-old policy consultant named George
Papadopoulos joined the Trump campaign as a foreign-policy adviser. Traveling
in Italy a week later, he ran into Mifsud, the London-based Maltese academic,
who reportedly set about cultivating him after learning of his position
with Trump. Mifsud claimed to have "substantial connections with Russian
government officials," according to prosecutors. Over breakfast at a London
hotel, he told Papadopoulos that he had just returned from Moscow where
he had learned that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form
of "thousands of emails."
This was the remark that supposedly triggered an FBI investigation. The
New York Times describes Mifsud as "an enthusiastic promoter of President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia" and "a regular at meetings of the Valdai Discussion
Club, an annual conference held in Sochi, Russia, that Mr. Putin attends,"
which tried to suggest that he is a Kremlin agent of some sort. But WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange later tweeted photos of Mifsud with British Foreign
Secretary Boris Johnson and a high-ranking British intelligence official
named Claire Smith at a training session for Italian security agents in
Rome. Since it's unlikely that British intelligence would rely on a Russian
agent in such circumstances, Mifsud's intelligence ties are more likely
with the UK.
After Papadopoulos caused a minor political ruckus by telling a reporter
that Prime Minister David Cameron should apologize for criticizing Trump's
anti-Muslim pronouncements, a friend in the Israeli embassy put him in touch
with a friend in the Australian embassy, who introduced him to Downer, her
boss. Over drinks, Downer advised him to be more diplomatic. After Papadopoulos
then passed along Misfud's tip about Clinton's emails, Downer informed his
government, which, in late July, informed the FBI. (..)
In early September, Halper sent Papadopoulos an email offering $3,000 and
a paid trip to London to write a research paper on a disputed gas field
in the eastern Mediterranean, his specialty. "George, you know about hacking
the emails from Russia, right?" Halper asked when he got there, but Papadopoulos
said he knew nothing.
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/05/31/spooks-spooking-themselves/
PAGE 3 OF 4
Within 30 minutes (15.47 to 16.15) they are in critical condition. Charlie
Rowley describes a similar time-frame for Dawn Sturgess.
7th March – Scotland Yard Chief Medical Officer statement
"As your Chief Medical Officer, my message to the public is that this event
poses a low risk to us, the public, on the evidence we have."
METHOD OF DELIVERY
Spray: too risky, the assailants run the risk of contaminating themselves.
Also the doctor said "There was no sign of any chemical agent on Ms Skripal's
face or body".
High pressure syringe: the pressure is so great the vaccine (or nerve
agent) is pumped through the skin and immediately enters the blood stream.
The beauty of this method of delivery is there's no evidence. I think the
assailants grabbed them from behind and delivered the nerve agent directly
into the jugular vein, the site of the attack being at the corner of G&T'S.
The Skripals wouldn't have known what had just happened to them.
DS BAILEY
DS Bailey will have attended a First-Aid course, so his first action would
be to loosen any clothing round Sergei's neck and clear his airway. If you
look at photos of Sergei, he's got quite a thick neck, so DS Bailey probably
had to fiddle a bit with his clothing and this is probably how he was contaminated.
He'd unknowingly come into direct contact with a small amount of residue
nerve agent at the delivery site.
ANTON UTKIN former UN Chemical Weapons Expert in Iraq
Worlds Apart Interview 29th April 2018 – Breaking with Conventions?
"Why was Novichok agent determined undecomposed only in the blood of
Yulia Skripal? It was undecomposed. It's supposed to be decomposed under
the metabolism of the body, but they found undecomposed agent in her blood,
but not in the blood of Sergei Skripal, who got heavier exposure to the chemical
agent. That was very strange because it is not clear how it happened that
a fresh agent was in Yulia's blood."
Sounds like he suspects Yulia received a second dose while in hospital.
She was making an unexpected recovery, partly because she's healthy and
partly because of the medical treatment, so somebody gave her another dose.
Sergei wasn't expected to survive because as Anton Utkin said, he "got
heavier exposure to the chemical agent", that combined with any existing
health issues, he was simply expected to die.
PAGE 2 OF 4
"Georgia Pridham, 25, also saw the couple slumped on the bench. She said:
"He was quite smartly dressed. He had his palms up to the sky as if he was
shrugging and was staring at the building in front of him. He had a woman
sat next to him on the bench who was slumped on his shoulder. He was staring
dead straight. He was conscious, but it was like he was frozen and slightly
rocking back and forward."
"Graham Mulcock said: "The paramedics seemed to be struggling to keep
the two people conscious. The man was sitting staring into space in a catatonic
state".
"Destiny Reynolds, 20, who works in Ganesha Handicrafts in the centre,
said: "I saw quite a lot of commotion – there were two people sat on the
bench and there was a security guard there. They put her on the ground in
the recovery position, and she was shaking like she was having a seizure.
It was a bit manic. There were a lot of people crowded round them. It was
raining, people had umbrellas and were putting them over them."
Other reports: "Two police officers helped the pair before emergency
services were called at 4.15pm."
Emergency services: "There were several emergency calls."
Channel 4 "Russian Spy Assassination", 26th March 2018
Male witness: "There was a man being sick on the floor, leant over, and
a woman laying on the floor. I didn't see the woman, she was surrounded
by paramedics, but they both looked fairly ill."
EFFECTS OF NERVE AGENT POISONING
Craig Murray's article Knobs and Knockers quote from a scientist "Unlike
traditional poisons, nerve agents don't need to be added to food and drink
to be effective. They are quite volatile, colourless liquids (except VX,
said to resemble engine oil). The concentration in the vapour at room temperature
is lethal. The symptoms of poisoning come on quickly, and include chest
tightening, difficulty in breathing, and very likely asphyxiation. Associated
symptoms include vomiting and massive incontinence. Eventually, you die
either through asphyxiation or cardiac arrest".
EVENTS FROM 15.47 ONWARDS
15.47 CCTV footage, if you analyse the shape of Sergei's head and hairline
with clearer pictures it matches. Two witnesses describe Yulia as having
blonde hair. At this point, neither is showing any signs of nerve agent
poisoning.
16.03 (16 minutes later) Freya Church sees them slumped on the bench.
Minutes later, both are becoming critically ill. From witness statements,
Yulia is worse affected so the doctor attends to her and DS Bailey attends
to Sergei. The reports say two police officers, but I think it was the security
guard.
PAGE 1 OF 4
I think I've worked out how it was done and why DS Bailey was the only other
person affected. It's all down to METHOD OF DELIVERY. The attack took place
between 15.47 and 16.03 near to where they were found. The door handle is
a diversionary technique to draw attention away from this. There's someone
else calling themselves Anonymous, I'll call myself Anonymous-1 see what
happens.
TIMINGS
13.40 Arrive at car park
Feed ducks and walk to pub
Mill Pub (30 minutes)
Walk to Zizzi's
(40 mins have elapsed from arriving at the car park to arriving at Zizzi's)
14.20-15.35 Zizzi's (1 hour 15 minutes, there's specific timings)
(12 minutes after leaving Zizz's they are picked up on CCTV)
15.47 CCTV footage (older man with blonde haired younger woman with red
bag)
(16 minutes later they fall ill from nerve agent poisoning)
16.03 Freya Church see them slumped on bench
(5 other witnesses all see them on bench, with two 'police' officers and
a doctor in attendance)
16.15 Emergency service call(s)
WITNESS STATEMENTS FROM NEWS REPORTS
FREYA CHURCH: "Sixteen minutes later [that is, after being seen on CCTV],
personal trainer Freya Church, 27, came across the victims slumped on a
bench. She said they seemed 'out of it' and assumed they were on drugs.
"It was a young, blonde and pretty girl and it was definitely the man that's
been pictured in the news – the guy that's a spy. She was passed out and
he was looking up to the sky and I tried to get eye contact to see if they
were okay. They didn't seem with it. To be honest I thought they were just
drugged out as they were in a weird state. There are lots of homeless people
here so I just thought they were homeless."
FEMALE DOCTOR: "A doctor who was one of the first people at the scene
has described how she found Ms Skripal slumped unconscious on a bench, vomiting
and fitting. She had also lost control of her bodily functions. The woman,
who asked not to be named, told the BBC she moved Ms Skripal into the recovery
position and opened her airway, as others tended to her father. She said
she treated her for almost 30 minutes, saying there was no sign of any chemical
agent on Ms Skripal's face or body. The doctor said she had been worried
she would be affected by the nerve agent but added that she "feels fine."
"Witness Jamie Paine told the BBC yesterday: "Her eyes were just completely
white, they were wide open, but just white and she was frothing at the mouth.
And then the man went stiff, his arms stopped moving and still looking dead
straight."
Now here is someone who knows where Yulia is. The photographer in the Reuters
video is of Yulia making her statement is Dylan Martinez.
Reuters written reporters may know where she is as well. Reporting is
by Guy Faulconbridge. Additional reporting by Alistair Smout. Editing by
Simon Robinson and Nick Tattersall. There will be a video cameraman who
knows as well and a video editor.
Do you think you might write to them Rob and ask where she is?
And if they wont tell you, what is their reason for not telling you?
As you know any information we can get is useful Miheila. We could learn
a lot about who has Yulia, by were she was for the Reuters video and yes
you are correct to suggest that she probably isn't there anymore. Thank
you. I think they will slip up soon, its getting to be a way too tangled
web now with far to many people to keep silent.
So tangled, Denise, that I feel it's tangling the neurones in my brain!
Does anyone know when exactly that video was recorded (rather than released),
after all, the statement was mysteriously undated? Could there have been
some kind of embargo on its release until a later date?
Yulia was allegedly released on 10th April, 43 days before the video
was broadcast. According to The Sun, a 'source' claimed that she'd been
released from SDH into another hospital: ''She is in hospital on a military
base for her own protection and to monitor her health." Was the video recorded
at that military base?
Was it USAF Fairford?
Could the CIA have pre-empted MI6's hasty plans for the disappearance
of the Skripals? Perhaps MI6 had nothing planned. Maybe it was a CIA operation
from the beginning. I'll need to think about these scenarios a lot more.
Miheila, if you listen to the Daily Mail version of the video there are
a lot of police sirens at the end including bull horns. That and the aircraft
noise would point to London. It could be US Ambassadors residence in Regents
Park.
In my opinion, it was a rogue FBI op to stop "our guy" going back to Russia.
I think UK authorities knew it was happening and organised medical cavalry
to save Skripals.
HMG are caught out, to admit it would be proof MI6 surrogates were interfering
in US presidential election.
So the Feds made it look like Russia and HMG have to follow the pretence.
In my scenario some of them could be genuine. If the emergency services
were told extra medical/police/fire resources were available for that Sunday
due to the " CBW exercise" that was going on they wouldn't publicly question
it.
Maybe when the Skripals were on the bench they thought it was not "real
world" and that is why they dashed in.
But I think HMG knew Yulia had come to extricate Sergei and knew rogue elements
in UK and US "intelligence community" were trying to assassinate him.
Any contributors on here offering an alternative theory to the Hoax should
be aware (although they may be blissfully unaware) that the Hoax has been
proven.
It is a fact.
So before putting out new theories please recognise that fact and possibly
try the refute / debunk / disemble the fact before you put forward your
take.
Don't get me wrong (although a few will) I think that brainstorming and
testing theories is fine, more than fine it is essential to test ideas and
testament to the progress that this blog has contributed, advanced and assisted
public understanding in the unravelling of the case.
If you have an alternative theory please let it coincide with at least
a few facts.
@Peter
The scientific method (a la Popper): observe, deduce, theorize, predict
(i.e. show how the theory matches/predicts the things observed). And, if
necessary, adduce (i.e. defend the hypothesis).
What is never done is to insist dogmatically that one's pet theory is
the only explanation. This is because it is the duty of every scientifist
to, having produced a theory, seek to demolish it. You aren't doing that,
Peter, instead you are challenging others to demolish it.
I think fact that Sergei Skripal an ex spy may have confused issues? He
may or may not still have been actively doing intelligence but all evidence
points to accidental poisoning by drug addicts sleeping rough.
1. Reported that 40/50 rough sleepers including drug addicts, living in
area at time of Skripal poisoning.
2. Contaminated public lavatories and a "drug den" in park.
3. Council blocked off rough sleepers area and rehomed drug addicts after
Skripal poisoning.
4. Charlie Rowley rehoused at about that time?
5. OPCW not permitted to analyse all ingredients associated with poisoning
which they say makes it very difficult identifying substance
6. Two men (Kim Ferguson and Jamie Knight) forced their way through police
barricade to get to bench where Skripals had been sitting
6. Dawn Sturgess's poisoning looks like classic One Pot Shake and Bake methamphetamine
accident. Fact that fire brigade called and she was in bath suggests explosion
and burns.
7. One Pot Shake and bake produces large amounts of toxins which are dumped.
Public loos in park reported contaminated and report of a drug den there.
8. Skripals, Sturgess and Rowley did not respond to naloxone so not opioid
poisoning, this fits with it being poison from waste left from one pot shake
and bake meth.
9. Salisbury Hospital Doctor said no-one was suffering from nerve agent
poisoning.
"... "Steele notes that he is concerned about the stories in the media about the bureau delivering information to Congress 'about my work and relationship with them. Very concerned about this. *People's lives may be endangered*.'" ..."
"... If Rosenstein knew of Steele's relationship with the Ohrs prior to signing FISA, he already knew that he was signing a BS FISA application – which would be perjury. But if Rosenstein was a 'firewall', it becomes an attempted coup and sedition awkward. ..."
Key quote from Sara Carter's revelations about text messages from Christopher Steele to Bruce
Ohr in October 2017:
"Steele notes that he is concerned about the stories in the media about the bureau
delivering information to Congress 'about my work and relationship with them. Very concerned
about this. *People's lives may be endangered*.'"
Now, this might seem a bit of an aside, but does anyone reading this blog have any idea
when Yulia last came to England prior to 3rd March this year? I'm trying to get an idea of
whether she is likely to have had any idea prior to this visit of what her father was
involved in, or whether she is likely to have learnt about this on this particular visit.
Thanks Rob and we are all grateful for your capacity to harness all the contributors into a
sane dialogue.
Motive indeed:
There are the pleadings by Steele to Ohr for reassurance that the "firewall" is solid! Not
sure what that intends but surely there are a few firewalls in this saga going all the way
back on the US side to the favorite candidate, the candidates party, the party legal team
that employed Fusion GPS, Fusion GPS itself, Orbis, Steele, Sergei, and perhaps Yulia. What
might have been her potential role other than innocent visitor. We now have a clearer view of
her employment trajectory. I would bet the firewalls on the UK side are fully aluminium clad
too, and I anticipate this site and a few other emerging lines of inquiry will penetrate
those.
The furious mother in law angle is a good one and potentially worth a serious look.
Sometimes murders deliver conveniences to unforeseen parties.
The overreach of British interference in the USA election and May's complicity in that
exercise needed a very good redeeming cover and here is a dandy.
The mafiosi angle cannot be ruled out and nor can the Ukrainian possibility given their
intense penetration of the EU playing ground. Perhaps Sergei was investigating things there
too and annoyed the new mafiosi now free to roam.
But I am sure that closer to home there are others that employed Orbis to do interesting
work. How's Bill Browder these days?
Page was the fourth firewall (not Comey), but she is already gone too.
If Rosenstein knew of Steele's relationship with the Ohrs prior to signing FISA, he
already knew that he was signing a BS FISA application – which would be perjury. But if
Rosenstein was a 'firewall', it becomes an attempted coup and sedition awkward.
Nick Bailey
Charlie Rowley
Helicopter pilot
Helicopter paramedics
Land ambulance paramedics
Doctors at Salisbury Hospital
Nurses at Salisbury Hospital
Head of Porton Down
Porton Down scientists
Porton Down workers
These may know more than they are saying:
The Mill staff
Zizzi's staff
Main stream media journalists (D noticed)
Salisbury Journal journalists (D noticed)
It only takes one to talk for the whole house of cards to come crashing down.
All the named witnesses
The ebola nurse
Whoever orgainsed the rapid response from the emergency vehicles
All the police 'searching' for something
Everyone who has seen the CCTV
The guys in hazmat suits on 4 March
People 'highly likely' to know the most, and are saying nothing:
Chris Steele
Pablo Miller (aka Antonio Alvarez de Hidalgo)
MI6 people
GCHQ people
Probably CIA, NSA, US State Dept, SBU, Mossad, etc. (take your pick!)
MI5 people, including any watchers who may have been deployed
FCO people
People who know more than they are saying:
certain people in the Russian Foreign Ministry
GRU, FSB, FAPSI people
People who may know more, and may be willing to speak:
Various Salisbury witnesses, named and unnamed
Ross Cassidy
The Filmers of Distillery Farm??
Regarding "the/a motive", wouldn't Putin's alleged statement of vengeance towards the
defector, Skripal, be enough to convince the UK government of there being at least "a motive"
if not also "the motive"?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/06/traitors-will-kick-bucket-vladimir-putin-swore-revenge-poisoned/
Also, I guess I need it spelled out for me. Why would Skripal's assassination put an end to
all future spy swaps?
I don't think Putin did it -- he's not so foolish as to have such poor timing politically --
but I'm not so sure the UK government can't legitimately show a possible Russian motive, for
the purpose of helping the UK's own political timing.
Lastly, the commentators' list of complicit conspirators is just too long to make this a
real conspiracy.
But the UK Government must know that Putin's alleged promise to "choke" traitors was
nothing of the sort. It was in fact one of the most blatant propaganda pieces I have ever
seen.
The video in which he allegedly said this appeared on BBC's Newsnight and can be seen at
this link:
But the original can be found at his 2010 Q&A session when he was PM. The relevant
section begins at just after 3 hours 12 minutes, and lasts for about 3 minutes.
As you will see, his answer is basically the diametric opposite to the one the BBC piece
leads you to believe. They basically took what he said, hacked it about to extract the bits
they didn't want their audience to hear, and then put it back together (with some scary
music) to make it sound like he said something he didn't actually say.
Rob, thanks for the satisfactory explanation of Newsnight's deceitfulness. It appears that
Putin didn't give his potential future defector-spies a pass while at the same time shaming
those caught at it as being like a Judas. I wonder, though, how those thinking about possibly
selling out would read Putin's deflecting the former practice of assassination decisions as
resting on a head of state. He said it had evolved to being the decision of a special group
in the security services. Of course he (probably rightly) dissociates his government from now
operating that way. How are we to know apart from there being sufficient evidence to the
contrary? But if Putin and his security services are in truth completely innocent I don't see
how his response could have been any better.
I still don't see why an assassination would put the damper on future spy swaps. Help my
reasoning abilities.
Regarding the claim of there being a growing multitude of unwilling conspirators, I wonder
if this isn't a case, at times, of commentators taking every thought captive to the obedience
of "The Conspiracy Theory".
It might be beneficial for some agency to create a very public internet place where those
caught up as witnesses to the case can come to make their clear statements or confessions
without fear of reprisal. Possible attempts at reprisal could also be broadcast.
I still don't see why an assassination would put the damper on future spy swaps. Help my
reasoning abilities.
Tradition, it's (p)art of the deal. Country A holds a country B spy and country B holds a
country A spy. Both want its own spy back home for any one or more reasons. Why would country
A release the spy it holds in exchange for the one that country B holds if country B reserved
the option to at a later date take out Country A's spy? Spy (or alleged spy) swaps only work
with an implicit agreement that there will be no retaliation by either country against the
individuals included in the swap.
All the ins and outs involved in a spy swap are carefully considered. The swap must appear
as of equal value to the two countries. The inclusion of Skripal in the US-Russia spy swap
appeared odd to those that follow such matters as he had been a UK asset and by 2010 not of
any particularly high-value to the UK. Nothing further has been said about this by the US,
UK, or Russia; so, we're free to concoct a devious plot where none existed.
Marie, Reading what you wrote just triggered a thought usually a spy swap is where, say, US
spies caught and imprisoned in Russia, are exchanged for Russian spies caught and imprisoned
in the US. Each country gets their own nationals back. The individuals were guilty of
espionage in another country and get to go home.
That is not what Sergei was. He was a Russian national, caught and imprisoned in Russia
for treason. How did he ever get to become part of a spy swap?
Why would the UK want to take him? He had no more value to them, he had already been paid
for the information he had handed over so why would the UK agree to take him and pay for his
upkeep? What did the UK get out of the deal?
On the other side of Sergei's deal in 2010, Russia got Anna Chapman back – a Russian
national caught and imprisoned in the US
Have we been fed a pile of BS about what or who Sergei was?
Wondered if anyone would catch that oddity in the Skripal case. Likely contributed to the
head-scratching back in 2010. However, Skripal wasn't the only Russian national released to
the west in that swap. (And I'm not sure all those held by the US were Russian nationals
– nor interested enough to research that.) We're weren't fed BS about Skripal because
he was hardly ever mentioned at all. Remember, Skripal was a walk-in and for the money. Not
important enough to recruit and while he had access to confidential personnel lists he was
useful. (Not as useful as Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen were to the USSR but those two were
also walk-ins and the money is important to both.)
My two guesses on this – probably not worth anything –
1) Russia held too few spies to make the deal work. So, he threw in some that were of no
value to Russia and would be of some interest to the west to sweeten the offer. As Obama was
already under criticism for giving up more than he got in his deals, he needed numbers
(spies) to make this one look okay. The UK was told and not asked to accept Skripal. He,
after all, was their guy even if he'd screwed up and exposed the fake rock and blew up the UK
Moscow spy ring (I may be exaggerating on this point). IOW didn't need, didn't want, and had
no use for Skripal. (Also meant they had devote assets to insure he hadn't been turned into a
triple-agent.)
2) The UK asked the US to get Skripal out because they still needed to know exactly what
Skripal had told the Russian investigators. That would mean that they weren't competent
enough to figure that out and/or Skripal was given a far larger role in the UK spy operation
than Russia was able to determine.
I don't have a high opinion of MI6, the CIA, etc., but it's still tough for me to buy
scenario #2. So, I've been going with #1.
So the UK was fulfilling its role as a vassal state
You comment just gave me another thought. Cameron became PM in May 2010 and the spy swap
was in July 2010, so Cameron was then PM. It is a tradition (not a rule) that the next Tory
PM hands out a knighthood to the previous Tory PM – and May hasn't done that yet I
wonder why?
The last time it happened (and that was the first time to the best of my knowledge) was
Margaret Thatcher who refused to give one to Ted Heath – he had to wait until 1992 for
John Major to give him one (if you will pardon the expression!)
At that time, apart from the fact that Thatcher despised Heath politically, it was a very
poorly kept secret that Thatcher's refusal was driven by her knowledge that Heath was a
paedophile.
Nothing to do with the Skripals but it will be interesting to see how long Cameron has to
wait.
So the UK was fulfilling its role as a vassal state
Only if there's truth in my fiction.
May was Home Secretary as of May 2010; so, also probably on board with the spy swap -- or
it was too far along to being a done deal for she and Cameron to nix it when they came into
office.
It was the British government who insisted on Skripal being included in the spy-swap made
between 10 'illegals' (placed as sleepers in the USA at the time, and led by Anna Chapman)
and four national traitors.
These four were of more use to the West than the 10 illegals. Alexander Zaporozhsky and
Igor Sutyagin had spied spying for the USA. Gennady Vasilenko was involved in illegal weapons
possession, and the reasoning for him being included in the swap has never been
disclosed.
"Skripal is considered the more important of the two as far as Britain's security and
intelligence agencies are concerned. He is likely to be debriefed for weeks, if not months.
He will be given a home and pension if he decides to stay in Britain. The future of Sutyagin
[in Britain] is less certain He could yet return to Russia".
Pardon, but where does it say that the UK requested Skripal in the US-Russia spy swap?
Two Russians exchanged in a high-profile "spy swap" were today being debriefed by MI5
and MI6 officers at a secret location close to London.
SOP – wouldn't want to let a triple-agent into the country.
Skripal is considered the more important of the two as far as Britain's security and
intelligence agencies are concerned. He is likely to be debriefed for weeks, if not months.
He will be given a home and pension if he decides to stay in Britain.
Well, Skripal did help to blow up the UK's fake rock spy communication set-up in Moscow.
And the UK wouldn't pass on an opportunity to have Skripal tell them exactly what he'd
spilled to Russian authorities (likely everything). But that "home and pension" not only
fills in a gap about what is publicly known about Skripal but also that the UK accepted that
they were stuck with him as part of the spy swap.
Britain and the US say they have got more out of the spy swap than Russia because the
four men released by Moscow were far more serious individuals than the 10 agents handed over
by the US.
Do you think the UK and US would say they got the short end of the stick in the deal?
Superficially (the ordinary person's level of geo-political understanding), getting for
Russian four nationals (three convicted of espionage, spying for the west and serving
sentences of 15 to 18 years) for eleven low value Russians held by the west doesn't look like
the better part of the bargain. And in the US this could easily have become another
anti-Obama rallying cry for the GOP and their right-wing crazies. That seemed not to have
happened. Probably a too esoteric for that audience.
This is interesting:
One of those released to the US, Alexander Zaporozhsky, was a KGB colonel whose spying
for the US is understood to have led to the unmasking of Robery Hanssen, an FBI officer, and
Aldrich Ames, a CIA officer, two of Russia's most important spies in the US.
If true, the CIA and FBI were in debt to Zaporozhsky and the official FBI and CIA stories
of the unmasking of these two moles if fiction. I suspect that the above claim is the
fiction. Designed to add weight to why Zaporozhsky was accepted in the swap and preserved the
secrecy of whatever info he had actually passed to the US.
For now, I'll stick with my guess that the UK wasn't keen on being stuck with Skripal.
Thanks for your reply, Marie. Just so you know, I don't think the evidence supports the
poisoning having been ordered by Putin. I would only contend that if he had ordered it Putin
would have been anticipating a positive effect. It would have limited the number of UK spy
candidates willing to risk spying against Russia. (Putin probably wouldn't have foreseen the
success of the sanctions campaign.) But, in my opinion, both parties –in the future --
would continue their interest in spy swaps. In spite of the negative consequences of exposing
them to murder, why not get ones spy back and better protect them?
It might be that an imprisoned spy will prefer to complete his prison term than to get
swapped and thus to become a potential target for assassination.
I wonder what Sergei is thinking now. His daughter's life is ruined and may be in
danger.
I often wonder about how they and their family in Russia feel about this awful affair. We
tend to forget the human side of the story, but we shouldn't. Sergei, from all I hear about
him, seemed a decent kind of man. He may have been foolish for being talked into betraying
his country by Pablo Miller, but I don't see him as a bad man at heart. Maybe he was
desperate for money at the time or goinf throufgh a bad patch which would have made him more
susceptible to manipulation. Who knows?
But now his acts have somehow caused lives to fall apart and much I'm sure suffering. It's
my view that all governments are essentially evil (greedy, ruthless and self-serving), and
don't work in the interests of ordinary people – often working against them. The
evidence of history bears this out.
Craig Murray has been adamant that PM didn't recruit Skripal and that Skripal was known as a
walk-in. (It is generally accepted that at some point and for some undefined period of time
that PM was Skripal's handler.)
A "nice" man doesn't endanger the lives of his colleagues for money.
All those on the list aren't conspirators as you think of them. More like further victims
of the conspiracy. They dont know the whole story. They each only know a tiny bit of it. A
bad bit, but have been frightened so badly that they are scared to tell that little bit,
which will lead to the conspiracy unfolding. And make no mistake this is a conspiracy, a
swamp conspiracy of the tallest order.
Bob, it is not a list of "list of complicit conspirators" – it is a list of 'people who
know more than they have said'.
They are not all involved in a conspiracy, they are witnesses to the conspiracy. They each
have a story to tell that would open the lid on a part of what happened – not the whole
story.
Are they silent? I don't know, the MSM has not tried to ask them what they know, maybe
they will be happy to talk, if anyone asks.
Mrs Cooper told Rob that Sergei was wearing leather jacket and jeans – she was happy
to tell what she knew, all Rob had to do was ask. The Sun newspaper which broke the 'duck'
story and went to interview Mrs Cooper did not even bother to ask that question – or if
they did they did not reveal what she said.
The conspiracy continues through indifference of the MSM – sooner of later that will
change.
"... "A Ukrainian political consultant has revealed to Sputnik that former MI6 agent Christopher Steele sought and paid for researchers in Ukraine to concoct fake stories about Donald Trump prior his election as US president to use in the now-infamous dossier that supposedly contained damning evidence of Russia-Trump collusion. ..."
"... Radio Sputnik's Lee Stranahan spoke previously with Ukrainian political consultant and former diplomat Andrii Telizhenko about his connections to a Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative named Alexandra Chalupa who also worked for clients in Ukrainian politics. Chalupa told Politico in January 2017 that beginning in 2015, she pulled on a network of sources she'd established in Kiev and Washington to try and turn up dirt on Trump ..."
"... The BBC is a propaganda organisation. It has even admitted it. http://viewsandstories.blogspot.com/2018/04/bbc-asserts-it-is-propaganda.html ..."
"... The door handle application is a crock. If, as is claimed the alleged Novichok was pure then who made it should be known because of its purity. ..."
"... Browder just wants us to go to war with Russia so he can keep his stolen money, that's not too much to ask! ..."
On 8 July 2018 a lady named Kirsty Eccles asked what, in its enormous ramifications,
historians may one day see as the most important Freedom of Information request ever made. The
rest of this post requires extremely close and careful reading, and some thought, for you to
understand that claim.
Dear British Broadcasting Corporation,
1: Why did BBC Newsnight correspondent Mark Urban keep secret from the licence payers that
he had been having meetings with Sergei Skripal only last summer.
2: When did the BBC know this?
3: Please provide me with copies of all correspondence between yourselves and Mark Urban
on the subject of Sergei Skripal.
Yours faithfully,
Kirsty Eccles
The ramifications of this little request are enormous as they cut right to the heart of the
ramping up of the new Cold War, of the BBC's propaganda collusion with the security services to
that end, and of the concoction of fraudulent evidence in the Steele "dirty dossier". This also
of course casts a strong light on more plausible motives for an attack on the Skripals.
Which is why the BBC
point blank refused to answer Kirsty's request, stating that it was subject to the Freedom
of Information exemption for "Journalism".
10th July 2018
Dear Ms Eccles
Freedom of Information request – RFI20181319
Thank you for your request to the BBC of 8th July 2018, seeking the following information
under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000:
1: Why did BBC Newsnight correspondent Mark Urban keep secret from the licence payers that
he
had been having meetings with Sergei Skripal only last summer.
2: When did the BBC know this?
3: Please provide me with copies of all correspondence between yourselves and Mark Urban on
the
subject of Sergei Skripal.
The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the
purposes of
'journalism, art or literature.' The BBC is therefore not obliged to provide this information
to you. Part VI
of Schedule 1 to FOIA provides that information held by the BBC and the other public service
broadcasters
is only covered by the Act if it is held for 'purposes other than those of journalism, art or
literature".
The
BBC is not required to supply information held for the purposes of creating the BBC's output
or
information that supports and is closely associated with these creative activities.
The BBC is of course being entirely tendentious here – "journalism" does not include
the deliberate suppression of vital information from the public, particularly in order to
facilitate the propagation of fake news on behalf of the security services. That black
propaganda is precisely what the BBC is knowingly engaged in, and here trying hard to hide.
I have today attempted to contact Mark Urban at Newsnight by phone, with no success, and
sent him this email:
As you may know, I am a journalist working in alternative media, a member of the NUJ, as
well as a former British Ambassador. I am researching the Skripal case.
I wish to ask you the following questions.
1) When the Skripals were first poisoned, it was the largest news story in the entire
World and you were uniquely positioned having held several meetings with Sergei Skripal the
previous year. Yet faced with what should have been a massive career break, you withheld that
unique information on a major story from the public for four months. Why?
2) You were an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment together with Skripal's MI6 handler, Pablo
Miller, who also lived in Salisbury. Have you maintained friendship with Miller over the
years and how often do you communicate?
3) When you met Skripal in Salisbury, was Miller present all or part of the time, or did you
meet Miller separately?
4) Was the BBC aware of your meetings with Miller and/or Skripal at the time?
5) When, four months later, you told the world about your meetings with Skripal after the
Rowley/Sturgess incident, you said you had met him to research a book. Yet the only
forthcoming book by you advertised is on the Skripal attack. What was the subject of your
discussions with Skripal?
6) Pablo Miller worked for Orbis Intelligence. Do you know if Miller contributed to the
Christopher Steele dossier on Trump/Russia?
7) Did you discuss the Trump dossier with Skripal and/or Miller?
8) Do you know whether Skripal contributed to the Trump dossier?
9) In your Newsnight piece following the Rowley/Sturgess incident, you stated that security
service sources had told you that Yulia Skripal's telephone may have been bugged. Since
January 2017, how many security service briefings or discussions have you had on any of the
matter above.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Craig Murray
I should very much welcome others also sending emails to Mark Urban to emphasise the public
demand for an answer from the BBC to these vital questions. If you have time, write your own
email, or if not copy and paste from mine.
To quote that great Scot John Paul Jones, "We have not yet begun to fight".
Not going in to the details of the Skripals etc but what this goes to show is the
limitations of the FOI Act. The FOI Act was brought in by the Blair Govt but of course was
very much weakened in its final version. Even this was very much regretted by Blair in his
autobiography who said what an 'idiot' he had been to bring it in. Tony, you need have no
fear – powerful institutions like the BBC can block any meaningful probing because of
the limitations of the law.
Spotted this yesterday .5103 "A Ukrainian political consultant has revealed to Sputnik that former MI6 agent
Christopher Steele sought and paid for researchers in Ukraine to concoct fake stories about
Donald Trump prior his election as US president to use in the now-infamous dossier that
supposedly contained damning evidence of Russia-Trump collusion.
Radio Sputnik's Lee Stranahan spoke previously with Ukrainian political consultant and
former diplomat Andrii Telizhenko about his connections to a Democratic National Committee
(DNC) operative named Alexandra Chalupa who also worked for clients in Ukrainian politics.
Chalupa told Politico in January 2017 that beginning in 2015, she pulled on a network of
sources she'd established in Kiev and Washington to try and turn up dirt on Trump , once
his star began to rise in the Republican primary campaign." Etc etc
I can't add any cogency to the (so-far) fruitless quest for information from the BBC, but
last weeks R4 programme (still available on iPlayer) The Reunion, in which the Skripal, and
more recent 'nerve agent' attacks, were discussed and, I thought, neatly tied in with the
'Murder of Georgi Markov in the 1950s, apparently by Bulgarian secret agents, perhaps
deserves examination by listeners and researchers more interested in BBC propaganda.
A panel of 'experts', diplomats, security people, some of whom you may very well knowand who
laid claim to being 'there or thereabouts', concluded that The Skripal's incident bore all
the markings of 'state sponsored' action, though, of course, they would never know until "the
Russian archives are opened".
It all sounded thoroughly convincing (radio does when you're driving on a long-haul, I find)
but it did occur to me that the programme, though ostensibly about the 'murder of Markov' was
intended to draw the listener to inevitable conclusions about the perpetrators of Salisbury
and Amesbury 'poisonings'.
The BBC is very good at obfuscation and I felt this was a good example.
Sorry I cannot be more 'relevant' to your blog of 27/08/18.
Good luck, and please. as they say, keep up the good work.
I remember the excellent 'Media Lens' team have complained about Mark Urban in the past
with his blatant Western bias. For example, like the other overpaid political analysts and
presenters on the BBC, he doesn't question the stated but transparently dishonest premise of
the West – that they are intervening in other nations on a humanitarian basis. Like the
other wastes of space in the mainstream media, he is also quick to mention civilian deaths by
the Russians but not so quick to mention those killed by the West.
As I recall, Urban completely failed to reply to or to address the concerns of Media Lens
in a reasonable way.
"I remember the excellent 'Media Lens' team have complained about Mark Urban in the past
with his blatant Western bias."
Mark Urban is from a Western country and the broadcaster he works for is in a Western
country. Why are you so surprised that both he and the organisation he works for have a
"Western bias"? Is that so abnormal? Would you expect him to have a pro-Chinese or a
pro-Russian or, for that matter, a pro-Brazilian bias and would you be happy if he had? Would
you expect a journalist who works for RT to have an anti-Russian, pro-Western
bias?
Ramifications.
'Recently Aeroflot has been affected by US sanctions and its flights to America face possible
suspension by Washington, as the US government seeks to punish the Kremlin for its alleged
involvement in the poisoning of former double agent and Russian national Sergei Skripal and
his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March.' https://www.rt.com/trends/aeroflot-russia-airlines-international/
Russian skies could become too expensive for US airlines if Washington targets
Aeroflot
American carriers would face huge financial losses if Russia increases tariffs for the use of
its airspace in response to possible US sanctions targeting the country's largest airline
Aeroflot, an expert has told RT. https://www.rt.com/business/435599-russia-aeroflot-us-sanctions/
Klutzes all! and now the entire story is unravelling thanks to that idiot Alexander Downer
and his mate Halper. I guess their little maltese buddy Joe Mifsud is deeply underground for
a decade or two.
I hadn't really followed the implications until' your list. So there will be a chemical
attack and the OPCW will assign blame to Syria (but also possibly Syria/Russia).
The US have been making it clear that they would hold Russia accountable for any "further"
chemical weapons attacks carried out by Syria. This could used then to remove Russia form the
UN Security Council. Even for the UN to no longer recognise the Russian Government as
legitimate and instead recognise an alternative Russian Government (under Mikhail
Khardovsky). Will China fall in line?
This looks awfully close to the start of a full scale war.
The UN has been turning a blind eye to neo-con murder since 9/11. They are a busted flush.
There is no residual value or purpose for the UN in an age that backs Saudi Arabi to train
terrorists in Myanmar.
As to Senator John McCain the world will be a safer place when this terrorist is finally
removed. The UN is wholly owned by the US. The US neo-cons have sucked every particle of
respectability out of it.
" Those who antagonise the believing Muslim men and women and do not repent will be consigned
to the Fire, to dwell forever therein. " Qur'an. I am immensely proud of Donald trump for
refusing to honour him.
Frightening, and probably part of the plan. I have been reading for the last 2 days a
series of warnings by the Russians that a chemical "attack" is imminent. Not many
translations of this in the MSM. One would think that they wouldn't dare after such warnings,
but I am not optimistic. After all, how many people have read the warnings?
I've seen posts on Twitter about this warning by the Russians and you know what the
counter-argument is that they are putting forward? They contend that it's a double bluff by
the Syrians/Russians. Well, if you're intending to use chemical weapons why wouldn't you make
out that the other side are planning it as a false flag? Trouble is, Western governments will
be more than happy to go along with that in the public eye – let's face it, they know
the real truth of the situation. I note however that the Russian warning mentions the active
role in the planned false flag played by British security firm Olive. I haven't seen any
denial from them so that would suggest to a neutral observer that the Russian allegations do
have some foundation and hopefully will be enough to 'put the wind up' those planning the
event.
Further to my post at 18.08 I see a short and sweet statement on the Sputnik website that
"Olive Group has no involvement" Suzanne Piner, the company's marketing director said. So
there we have it, who are we to disbelieve them??
A great blog, Craig, and lots of good comments. I have two contributions.
1. A recent Spectator blog talked of a 'Stockade of D-notices'. Surely that means more
than the two we know about. So I guess that anyone working in the MSM must have to tread
carefully.
2. We are swimming in a sea of fake news, disinformation, misinformation, deliberate lies
and speculation. I have found only one rock worth clinging onto and it's this. The Porton
Down analyst (CC) who gave evidence to the high court which heard the blood sample
application said the analysis of the Skripals blood indicated exposure to a nerve agent or
related compound (para 17 of the judge's report). It is reasonable to assume they used the
term 'nerve agent' correctly, i.e. belonging to the group of organo-phosphorus compounds
(from the OPCW website). On the assumption CC told the truth, there are only three
possibilities:-
a. The Skripals were exposed to a nerve agent, or
b. They were exposed to a related compound that was not a nerve agent, or
c. The analysis was unable to say whether it was a nerve agent or a related compound.
If it was 'a', why did CC muddy the waters by saying 'or a related compound? Very
unlikely, bearing in mind the sensitivety of the issue.
If it was 'c', is it credible that Porton Down, world leaders in chemical weaponry, were not
able to tell if a substance was a nerve agent or not? I think not.
Which leaves 'b'. That the Skripals were not poisoned by a nerve agent.
I think we should all write to our MPs pointing this out and request a Parliamentary
Question be put to the Secretary of State for Defence (who oversees PD) asking for full
details of those blood tests and for Theresa to be briefed accordingly. She would then be
required under the Ministerial Code to correct her misleading statements to the House which
claimed the Skripals were poisoned by a nerve agent.
Hi Robert – if CC knew for sure they Skripals were exposed to a nerve agent, CC
would not have added 'or a related compound' as it only serves to confuse. CC might have said
it because he/she couldn't tell from the findings – most unlikely – so the only
reason he/she said the words 'or a related compound' was to avoid lying under oath to the
high court.
It all comes down to contaminated crack or whatever they used, especially the
Amesbury folk. They're well known imbibers a friend living there has told me.
I pass this on merely as a possible explanation from 'people who know'.
Hi Paul – yes. At the court hearing, CC was referring to the initial blood analyses
carried out by Porton Down a day or so after the poisoning. But clearly the doubt sown by the
words 'or a related compound' remained at least until 20th March when CC gave that
evidence.
I remember reading that Court of Protection judgement wording at the time and made some
notes about it, plus how this wording compared with that of Gary Aitkenhead's and the
OPCW's:
When comparing the wording from three sources – interview with head of Porton Down,
court hearing and OPCW documents – I think that there is room for the absence of
Novichok in blood samples taken from the Skripals before 22/03.
The Court of Protection judgement before Mr Justice Williams (22/03), (regarding an
application to take blood samples for the OPCW to confirm Porton Down's earlier analysis),
states that earlier blood tests carried out by Porton Down "indicated exposure to a nerve
agent or related compound. The samples tested positive for the presence of a Novichok class
nerve agent or closely related agent." (Please note the "or".) The statement comes at point
17 i):
Then, Gary Aitkenhead, CEO of Porton Down, told Sky News (04/04) that the substance they
found was "..Novichok or from that family.." (Again, please note the "or".) The statement
comes 1:27mins in on this YouTube video, which has a less edited version than on the Sky News
site, plus some interesting notes:
And the OPCW's executive summary, which has been made public, does not mention Novichok by
name, but it says that the results of their tests confirm the findings of the UK relating to
the chemical's identity, and show that the toxic chemical is of high purity. It says that the
name and structure of the toxic chemical are contained in the full classified report of the
Secretariat, available to the state parties of the OPCW.
Taken from points 10, 11 and 12 at:
I have been thinking about this as well. Please note that "nerve agent or related
compound" leaves open the possibility that the compound is not even a nerve agent.
It would be interesting to know the expert definitions of "closely related" and "family"
with regard to "nerve agent" and "novichok".
The general understanding is that it was A-234. This has never been confirmed in a public
statement, however.
Expressions like "nerve agent" subconsciously conjure up dark and sinister evildoing in
the world of James Bond and his "licence to kill", at least in the minds of most British
English speakers. The same psychology is at work when you see "Polite Notice" and
subconsciously read it as "Police Notice". Such notices are invariably unofficial, and often
impolite!
For the mischief makers, however, mere "nerve agent", with its ambiguity and murky
undertones, was not enough; "novichok" will soon be a novichok entry for 2018 in the OED.
("Новичо́к" means "newcomer", "new
guy"–as in freshman, rookie, novice.)
Modern nerve agents were first discovered in the 1930s by German industrial chemists
experimenting with organophosphorus compounds (which are defined by containing a particular
grouping of carbon, phosphorus and oxygen atoms). They were trying to make new insecticides
which would be powerful but safe(ish), but stumbled across tabun, which was powerful but very
unsafe. Given the political situation, and realising the military potential, these chemists
then pursued their research with emphasis on the extremely unsafe, and with huge success.
After 1945, having had no such success themselves, the victorious allies' chemists
"inherited" this German research; the Soviets did particularly well here, as there was much
German manufacturing infrastructure in Poland. Exactly what happened next is obviously kept
very secret, but some refinements were certainly achieved such as VX,
and–allegedly–the Novichoks. Per Chalmers Johnson: "we knew Saddam had WMD; we
had the receipts".
All very interesting (not really), and probably well-understood by a few reading this. A
problem in getting a real understanding of all this novichok/Skripal malarkey lies in some
misunderstandings of the details about the foregoing, of which few will be properly aware,
Craig included. He read history.
Firstly organophosphorus compounds are certainly not inherently toxic; DNA is an
organophosphate, as is RNA, ATP, etc. Boat loads of other basic biochemistry involves this
chemical grouping. To equate "nerve agent" (or "insecticide") with "organophosphate" is a
good start, but nothing more.
Secondly, the idea that nerve agents are new is misleading. Curare (poison) tipped arrows
have been used in South America for millenia, secretions by bufotenine toads similarly used
elsewhere, with many many other examples throughout recorded history (and beyond). These
chemicals could all semantically correctly be termed nerve agents.
Interestingly, although tabun's potency was discovered in the 30s by Schrader er al, it had
been unwittingly synthesised 40-odd years earlier. There's nothing new under the sun.
Thirdly, poisoning by ACE nerve agents (which, allegedly, includes
Новичо́к) is quick and easy(ish) to detect and
interpret in an unambiguous way. Less so more exotic and novel toxins (so obviously not eg
curare or bufotoxins, but along those lines). However, given time, a good analysis is doable
using mass spectrometry, SEM, X-ray crystallography (and other) methods.
In reply to John Bull, I wouldn't say we're "swimming in a sea of fake news, et seq", more
bobbing around like corks. Love the moniker, by the way! It works on so many levels.
I suspect the reason for the wording is that what was identified was an
acetylcholineesterase (ACE) inhibitor, which covers the major nerve agents and other
compounds as well.
Here is one of the really stupid things about the official british story line on the
Skripals. Sergei and Yulia are supposed to have left their home at around 1:30 and both
swiped their hands on the door lever and were then novihoaxed. They drove to town and parked
their car ten minutes later. They then walked through the park and stopped to hand feed the
ducks in the stream and handed bread to the young boys to also feed the ducks. They then went
on to act 2 scene 1 at zizzis or the pub and then act 2 scene two collapsed on the bench.
No young boy or duck was harmed making this play. The military grade novihoax is incapable
of killing a duck, let alone a child as this pair smeared military grade nerve poison on
everything! They have incinerated the zizzi table and heaven knows what has been incinerated
at the pub. They incinerated the Skripals front door, who knows what fate was delivered to
the BMW.
But they cant kill a duck! Mind you they can starve Skripal pets.
I wasn't trying to divert. I know quite a bit about the habits of ducks. You'll very
rarely see a dead duck anywhere in the natural world. Same with swans. They like to die in
private.
I can tell you that it's very unlikely that you'd have any reports of dead ducks in
Salisbury parks.
Before anyone puts this down to more high level trolling, I used to be a wildlife
photographer. And I mean a proper one, i.e one that crawled around in mud for days at a time
filming and photographing ducks.
The ducks were an obvious joke (of derision). The joke has a second level (not hidden);
the young boys didn't die because everyone knows the novichok poisoning story is not
true?
"No ducks or young boys were harmed in the making of this movie!"
All of the above just paraphrases/repeats what uncle tungsten said
You jobs sounds like it was really great, I envy you. But your contribution (here) sucks
big time!
There appears to be a distinct lack of cross contamination.
The Skripal car should be riven with this poison – on the steering wheel- gear stick
etc etc. If so, then reports of it being burned should follow like the table – as the
guinea pigs and the cat were.
It should be all over the bread and all over the assistant duck feeders and the ducks
should have been legion with their webbed feet up in the air.
The door handle application is a crock. If, as is claimed the alleged Novichok was pure
then who made it should be known because of its purity.
If it's Russian that should be provable. So far the proof that it is Russian made has not been shown.
"So far the proof that it is Russian made has not been shown."
Nonsense, the very name novichok is a giveaway, nobody would use a novichok except
Russians.
"They have incinerated the Zizzi table " The significance of the table in this saga
intrigues me. I recall when the 'details' (!!) of events were revealed by the MSM at the
outset we were informed that the table had been covered in nerve agent in the form of a fine
white powder and had to be incinerated. [ In fact it was so badly contaminated even Porton
Down didn't have the capability of storing it safely – that's my facetious 'take' on it
before anyone asks where I read that!]
On the assumption that it was indeed incinerated as a 'risk' item it begs a couple of obvious
questions which the official narrative hasn't explained. First, the time lapse between the
Skripals leaving Zizzis, being identified and their movements traced back to the restaurant
and 'lockdown' being applied to everything in the restaurant: we don't know but I would
hazard a guess an hour minimum. Are we really supposed to believe that the plates, dishes and
cutlery left by the Skripals weren't cleared away in all that time, and the table wasn't
wiped down? Irrespective of whether the nerve agent residue that we are supposed to believe
was being spread all over Salisbury was visible or not, surely whoever cleared the table and
washed up the dishes would definitely have been contaminated if we are to believe what we
have been told about the door handle theory.
Adding to my comment at 12.19, we mustn't also forget that glasses and dishes would also
have been removed from the table during the course of the Skripals' meal as well, not to
mention money or credit cards or card reading machines etc exchanging hands. And the drinking
glasses used at the pub. The more you think about it, the more ridiculous the official line
becomes.
Pink Floyd Legend Roger Waters Slams Skripal Case as 'Nonsense'
The former leader of Pink Floyd has also blasted the White Helmets, a dubious Syrian
volunteer organization which has been accused of staging videos of chemical attacks, as part
of the "propaganda war," echoing the dismissive comments he made earlier this year.
The UK's Momentary Lapse of Reason
In an interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestiya, former Pink Floyd member Roger
Waters dismissed the infamous Skripal case as "nonsense." "That the attack on the Skripals
was nonsense is clear to a person with half a brain. But some don't even have one half,
that's why they believe in this absurd," he was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
Rather like Janet Jackson's nipples,
It's been a while since we've seen the Skripals.
Not so long ago they were all over the news
As official drones droned their official views.
They said that in Salisbury wherever you look
Lurked sinister types splashing novichuk.
Door handle specialists had been imported,
Or so the BBC unquestioningly reported.
A laundry list of despicable acts
Only vaguely coincident with the salient facts.
Boris Johnson wasn't sitting on the fence,
He don't need no stinkin' evidence.
'It was them Russkies wot dunnit, no doubt about that',
Said the country's pre-eminent diplomat.
KGB thugs sent to put the boot in,
By Mr. Evil, Vladimir Stalin Putin.
Novichuk's lethality was re-emphasised again,
More deadly than others by a factor of ten.
Yet somehow miraculously the Skripals survived,
In Salisbury General they inconveniently revived.
And that was all we heard for a while
Bar a weird statement in machine-prose style.
Then a curious video right out of the blue
That looked like an advert for flyaway shampoo.
A chilled out Yulia said she was contented,
And consular access had not been prevented,
But no, she didn't want to meet up with her kin
(Not that the government would let them in).
The whole production was charmingly informal,
As though poisoning and exile were perfectly normal.
This remarkable young woman's taken it all in her stride,
Seemingly happy to go along with the ride.
Her boyfriend, her job, her dog and her flat
All peremptorily dumped at the drop of a hat.
The un-fake corporate media performed as tasked
Ensuring awkward questions remained unasked.
And all this ludicrous b-movie rigmarole
Was discreetly d-noticed down the memory hole.
The legal and diplomatic situation's now clear:
'Move along sir, nothing to see here.'
I stopped reading the Guardian full stop 4-5 years ago, back when they launched their
"Russia is evildoer!!" shrill campaign of propaganda -- also about the time the Ukraine civil
war got into gear. Never looked back, the Guardian is a steaming pile of US/NATO/Atlantic
Council bullshit.
I'll never understand why so many fixate on it, such as the Off-guardian.org bloggers
who've devoted an entire blog for years on end to criticising Guardian journos, 'comment is
free', comment mods, etc. All fine and good, but why?
With so many other better news sources is there a need? No, there isn't. Just move on. The
Guardian is not a relevant news outlet. I mean, why keep going there to read
pro-Israeli/pro-US government articles which make you angry? Doesn't make any sense.
Magnitsky story is the textbook, perfect illustration of the level
of control of CIA over media. Almost everything in official story is a lie,
still it is never challenged.
A perfectly good article, I'm sure, but why diffuse ourselves [and engender feelings of
fear and hopelessness as you express] when a strategic pressure point has presented?
Johnstone makes no mention of Bill Browder. Nor do the [100, so far] commenters.
BILL BROWDER is a key figure in the anti-Trump, anti-Russia hysteria. The notorious Trump
Tower meeting was about the Magnitsky Act, a fabrication by Browder to hide his financial
crimes. Browder "testified" in the Senate expressly to demonize Putin. Browder's contacts in
the IC, the Jewish Lobby, and the fawning media have enabled his propaganda assault this
week. He's appeared -- unchallenged, virtually unquestioned -- on countless talk shows. But
he's been running scared at the mention of interrogation by Russians. There are huge holes in
his story, made clear in his deposition in the Prevezon case. The truth will bring him down!
And perhaps his Deep State supporters, along with him.
Ask your Senators if they've heard/read Browder's 2015 deposition in the Prevezon
case. (See comment 161 under The Untouchable Mr. Browder? by Israel Shamir for
links.)
Research links to primary sources on #Browdergate -
...BTW, have you seen "THE MAGNITSKY ACT – BEHIND THE SCENES" that Phil Giraldi
posted today? Debunking anti-Russian criminal sociopaths like Bill Browder will go a long way
to improving relations. Not to mention easing pressure on the unfortunate Trump.
Full research primary links available here, including Browder's 2015 deposition in the
U.S. vs. Prevezon Holdings case. Every Senator who voted to support Browder should see this.
[Any who already have, double shame!]
"... However, as convincingly established by dissident Russian film-maker Andrei Nekrasov's (banned) investigative documentary, the unfortunate Magnitsky was neither a human rights crusader, nor a lawyer, nor beaten to death. He was an accountant jailed for his role in Browder's business dealings, who died of natural causes as a result of inadequate medical treatment. The case was hyped up as a major human rights drama by Browder in order to discredit Russian charges against himself. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act also condemns legal prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Browder, on a much smaller scale, also made a fortune ripping off Russians during the Yeltsin years, and later got into trouble with Russian tax collectors. Since Browder had given up his U.S. citizenship in order to avoid paying U.S. taxes, he had reason to fear Russian efforts to extradite him for tax evasion and other financial misdeeds. ..."
"... So, the Fixer in Chief could have said to the worried Browder, "No problem. All that we need to do is make your case a politically motivated case. Then they can't touch you." Winer's clever treaty is a perfect Catch-22. The treaty doesn't apply to a case if it is politically motivated, and if it is Russian, it must be politically motivated. ..."
"... Needless to say, Khodorkovsky's Corbiere Trust lobbied heavily to get Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, which also repeated its defense of Khodorkovsky himself. This type of "Russian interference intended to influence policy" is not even noticed, while U.S. authorities scour cyberspace for evidence of trolls. ..."
"... The United States, in contrast, is in favor of interference in other countries on principle: because it seeks a Unipolar world, with a single "democratic" system, and considers itself the final authority as to which regime a country should have and how it should run its affairs. ..."
"... U.S. policy-makers practice interference every day. And they are perfectly willing to allow Russians to interfere in American politics – so long as those Russians are "unipolar" like themselves, like Khodorkovsky, who aspire to precisely the same unipolar world sought by the State Department and George Soros. Indeed, the American empire depends on such interference from Iraqis, Libyans, Iranians, Russians, Cubans – all those who come to Washington to try to get U.S. power to settle old scores or overthrow the government in the country they came from. All those are perfectly welcome to lobby for a world ruled by America. ..."
As well as the tobacco industry and the Clinton Foundation, APCO also works for
Khodorkovsky. To be precise, according to public listings, the fourth biggest of APCO's many
clients is the Corbiere Trust, owned by Khodorkovsky and registered in Guernsey. The trust
tends and distributes some of the billions that the oligarch got out of Russia before he was
jailed. Corbiere money was spent to lobby both for Resolution 322 (supporting Khodorkovky after
his arrest in Russia) and for the Magnitsky Act (more later). Margery Kraus, APCO's president
and CEO, is a member of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's son Pavel's Institute of Modern Russia, devoted
to "promoting democratic values" – in other words, to building political opposition to
Vladimir Putin.
In 2009 Jonathan Winer went back to the State Department where he was given a distinguished
service award for having somehow rescued thousands of stranded members of the Muhahedin-e Khalq
from their bases in Iraq they were trying to overthrow the Iranian government. The MeK, once
officially recognized as a terrorist organization by the State Department, has become a pet
instrument in U.S. and Israeli regime change operations directed at Iran.
However, it was Winer's extracurricular activities at State that finally brought him into
the public spotlight early this year – or rather, the spotlight of the House Intelligence
Committee, whose chairman Devin Nunes (R-Cal) named him as
one of a network promoting the notorious "Steele Dossier" which accused Trump of illicit
financial dealing and compromising sexual activities in Russia.
By Winer's own account, he had been friends with former British intelligence agent
Christopher Steele since his days at APCO. Back at State, he regularly channeled Steele
reports, ostensibly drawn from contacts with friendly Russian intelligence agents, to Victoria
Nuland, in charge of Russian affairs, and top Russian experts. These included the infamous
"Steele dossier". In September 2016, Winer's old friend Sidney Blumenthal – a
particularly close advisor to Hillary Clinton – gave him notes written by a more
mysterious Clinton insider named Cody Shearer, repeating the salacious attacks.
All this dirt was spread through government agencies and mainstream media before being
revealed publicly just before Trump's inauguration, used to stimulate the "Russiagate"
investigation by Robert Mueller. The dossier has been discredited but the investigation goes on
and on.
So, it is all right to take seriously information allegedly obtained from "Russian agents"
and spread it around, so long as it can damage Trump. As with so much else in Washington,
double standards are the rule.
Jonathan Winer and the Magnitsky Act
Jonathan Winer played a major role in Congressional adoption of the "Sergei Magnitsky Rule
of Law Accountability Act of 2012" (the Magnitsky Act), a measure that effectively ended
post-Cold War hopes for normal relations between Washington and Moscow. This act was based on a
highly contentious version of the November 16, 2009 death in prison of accountant Sergei
Leonidovich Magnitsky, as told to Congress by hedge fund manager Bill Browder (grandson of Earl
Browder, head of the Communist Party USA 1934-1945). According to Browder, Magnitsky was a
lawyer beaten to death in prison as a result of his crusade for human rights.
However, as convincingly established by dissident Russian film-maker Andrei Nekrasov's
(banned) investigative documentary, the unfortunate Magnitsky was neither a human rights
crusader, nor a lawyer, nor beaten to death. He was an accountant jailed for his role in
Browder's business dealings, who died of natural causes as a result of inadequate medical
treatment. The case was hyped up as a major human rights drama by Browder in order to discredit
Russian charges against himself.
In any case
The Magnitsky Act also condemns legal prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Browder, on a
much smaller scale, also made a fortune ripping off Russians during the Yeltsin years, and
later got into trouble with Russian tax collectors. Since Browder had given up his U.S.
citizenship in order to avoid paying U.S. taxes, he had reason to fear Russian efforts to
extradite him for tax evasion and other financial misdeeds.
It was Jonathan Winer who found a solution to Browder's predicament.
, "When Browder consulted me, [ ] I suggested creating a new law to impose economic and
travel sanctions on human-rights violators involved in grand corruption. Browder decided this
could secure a measure of justice for Magnitsky. He initiated a campaign that led to the
enactment of the Magnitsky Act. Soon other countries enacted their own Magnitsky Acts,
including Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and most recently, the United Kingdom."
Russian authorities are still trying to pursue their case against Browder. In his press
conference following the Helsinki meeting with Trump, Vladimir Putin suggested allowing U.S.
authorities to question the Russians named in the Mueller indictment in exchange for allowing
Russian officials to question individuals involved in the Browder case, including Winer and
former U.S. ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul. Putin observed that such an exchange was
possible under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty signed between the two countries in 1999,
back in the Yeltsin days when America was posing as Russia's best friend.
But the naïve Russians did not measure the craftiness of American lawyers.
As Winer wrote, "Under that treaty, Russia's procurator general can ask the U.S. attorney
general to arrange for Americans to be ordered to testify to assist in a criminal case. But
there is a fundamental exception: The attorney general can provide no such assistance in a
politically motivated case." (My emphasis.)
"I know this", he wrote, "because I was among those who helped put it there. Back in 1999,
when we were negotiating the agreement with Russia, I was the senior State Department official
managing U.S.-Russia law-enforcement relations."
So, the Fixer in Chief could have said to the worried Browder, "No problem. All that we
need to do is make your case a politically motivated case. Then they can't touch you." Winer's
clever treaty is a perfect Catch-22. The treaty doesn't apply to a case if it is politically
motivated, and if it is Russian, it must be politically motivated.
In a July 15, 2016, complaint to the Justice Department, Browder's Heritage Capital
Management accused both American and Russian opponents of the Magnitsky Act of violating the
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA; adopted in 19938 with Nazis in mind). Among the
"lobbyists" cited was the late Ron Dellums (falsely identified in the complaint as a "former
Republican congressman").
The Heritage Capital Management brief declared that: "While lawyers representing foreign
principals are exempt from filing under FARA, this is only true if the attorney does not try to
influence policy at the behest of his client." However, by disseminating anti-Magnitsky
material to Congress, any Russian lawyer was "clearly trying to influence policy" was therefore
in violation of FARA filing requirements."
Catch-22 all over again.
Needless to say, Khodorkovsky's Corbiere Trust lobbied heavily to get Congress to pass
the Magnitsky Act, which also repeated its defense of Khodorkovsky himself. This type of
"Russian interference intended to influence policy" is not even noticed, while U.S. authorities
scour cyberspace for evidence of trolls.
Conclusion
The basic ideological conflict here is between Unipolar America and Multipolar Russia.
Russia's position, as Vladimir Putin made clear in his historic speech at the 2007 Munich
security conference, is to allow countries to enjoy national sovereignty and develop in their
own way. The current Russian government is against interference in other countries' politics on
principle. It would naturally prefer an American government willing to allow this.
The United States, in contrast, is in favor of interference in other countries on
principle: because it seeks a Unipolar world, with a single "democratic" system, and considers
itself the final authority as to which regime a country should have and how it should run its
affairs.
So, if Russians were trying to interfere in U.S. domestic politics, they would not be trying
to change the U.S. system but to prevent it from trying to change their own. Russian leaders
clearly are sufficiently cultivated to realize that historic processes do not depend on some
childish trick played on somebody's computer.
U.S. policy-makers practice interference every day. And they are perfectly willing to
allow Russians to interfere in American politics – so long as those Russians are
"unipolar" like themselves, like Khodorkovsky, who aspire to precisely the same unipolar world
sought by the State Department and George Soros. Indeed, the American empire depends on such
interference from Iraqis, Libyans, Iranians, Russians, Cubans – all those who come to
Washington to try to get U.S. power to settle old scores or overthrow the government in the
country they came from. All those are perfectly welcome to lobby for a world ruled by
America.
Russian interference in American politics is totally welcome so long as it helps turn public
opinion against "multipolar" Putin, glorifies American democracy, serves U.S. interests
including the military-industrial complex, helps break down national borders (except those of
the United States and Israel) and puts money in appropriate pockets in the halls of
Congress.
"... What started as small moments of defiance a few years ago are turning into full-throated shouts of opposition as the US pushes its leverage in financial markets to step on the necks of anyone who doesn't toe the line. ..."
"... What we are seeing is the culmination of a long-term plan by global elites to tighten the financial noose around the world through overlapping trade and tariff structures and weaponizing the dollar's position at the center of global financial interdependence. ..."
"... So, everyday another round of sanctions makes the case against continuing to do business with the US stronger. Everyday another global player speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and makes contingency plans for a world without the dollar at the center of it all. ..."
"... Maas openly accused the US of weaponizing the dollar and disrupting the very foundations of global trade, which is correct, to achieve its goals of regime change in Turkey and Iran. Maas mainly tied this to Trump's pulling out of the JCPOA but the reality is far bigger than this. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act and its progenitors around the world are a major evolution in the US's ability to bring financial pain to anyone who it disapproves of. Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws also into this framework. ..."
What started as small moments of defiance a few years ago are turning into full-throated
shouts of opposition as the US pushes its leverage in financial markets to step on the necks of
anyone who doesn't toe the line.
And Trump feeds off this by casting everyone as a leach who has been sucking off the US's
breast for decades. It doesn't matter the issue, to Trump US economic fragility is a hammer and
every trade and military partner a nail to be bashed over the head to pay their way.
What we are seeing is the culmination of a long-term plan by global elites to tighten
the financial noose around the world through overlapping trade and tariff structures and
weaponizing the dollar's position at the center of global financial interdependence.
Trump is against that in principle, but not against the US maintaining as much of the empire
as possible.
So, everyday another round of sanctions makes the case against continuing to do business
with the US stronger. Everyday another global player speaks with Russian President Vladimir
Putin and makes contingency plans for a world without the dollar at the center of it
all.
The latest major one was with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. This meeting wasn't expected
to provide anything concrete, only vague assurances that projects like the Nordstream 2
pipeline goes through.
But, no breakthroughs on Crimea or Ukraine were expected nor delivered. It was, however, an
opportunity for both Putin and Merkel to be humanized in the European media. Between Putin's
attending Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl's wedding as well as the garden party photo
op background for their talk, this meeting between them was a bit of a 'charm tour' to assist
Merkel in the polls while expanding on Putin's humanity post World Cup and Helsinki.
That said, however, the statement by Merkel's Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, about the need
for a new financial payment system which bypasses the US-dominated SWIFT system was the big
bombshell.
Maas openly accused the US of weaponizing the dollar and disrupting the very foundations
of global trade, which is correct, to achieve its goals of regime change in Turkey and Iran.
Maas mainly tied this to Trump's pulling out of the JCPOA but the reality is far bigger than
this.
The Magnitsky Act and its progenitors around the world are a major evolution in the US's
ability to bring financial pain to anyone who it disapproves of. Know Your Customer (KYC) and
Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws also into this framework.
While KYC and AML laws can at least have the appearance of validity in attempting to stop
illegal activity, targeted sanctioning is simply Orwellian.
It politicizes any and all economic activity the world over. Just look at the recent reasons
for these sanctions – unproven allegations of chemical weapons usage and electioneering.
Recent actions by the US have driven this point home to its 'allies' with stunning clarity.
Why do you think Putin brought up Bill Browder's name at the Helsinki press conference? He
knows that Browder's story is a lie and it's a lie that has been used as the foundation for the
type of political repression we're seeing today.
The US is blocking the simplest of transactions in the dollar now, claiming that any use of
the dollar is a global privilege which it can revoke at a whim. Aside from the immorality of
this, that somehow dollars you traded goods or services for on the open market are still
somehow the property of the U.S to claw back whenever it is politically convenient, this
undermines the validity of the dollar as a rational medium of exchange for trade.
This is why after the first round of sanctions over the reunification with Crimea Putin
ordered the development of a national electronic payment system. He rightly understood that
Russia needed a means by which to conduct business that was independent of US political
meddling.
So, to me, if Heiko Maas is serious about the threat posed by continued use of the dollar in
EU trade, he should look to Putin for guidance on building a system separate from SWIFT.
Moreover, Maas' statement didn't go out to the world without Merkel's approval. This tells
me that this was likely the major topic of conversation between her and Putin over the weekend.
Because a payment system that skirts the dollar is one the US can't control.
It took the Russians longer than they should have to develop MIR. Putin complained about how
slow things went because too many within the Bank of Russia and the financial community could
be thought of as fifth columnists for the West.
It's also why development of the crypto-ruble and Russia's policy on cryptocurrencies has
been so slow. It took Putin publicly ordering the work done by a certain time to get these
tasks completed. In the end, it shouldn't take the EU long to spin up a SWIFT-compliant
internal alternative. It is, after all, just code.
And that's why so many of the US's former satraps are now flexing their geopolitical muscle.
The incentives aren't there anymore to keep quiet and go along. Alternatives exist and will be
utilized.
I don't expect the EU brass to do much about this issue, the threat may be all that is
needed to call Trump's bluff. But, if in the near future you see an announcement of MIR being
accepted somewhere in the EU don't be surprised.
Because what used to be a node of political stability and investor comfort is now a tool of
chaos and abuse. And abusing your customers is never a winning business model in the long run.
Customers of the dollar will remind the US of that before this is over.
"... Anyway, what's there to argue: in its founding documents, the EU declares that its foreign and security policies will follow those of NATO. In other words, Europeans have declared *themselves* to be incapable of thinking about their place in the world, letting Uncle Sam do this for them instead. Nobody will respect them unless they first learn to respect themselves. ..."
"... By the standards our Congress is applying to Russia, this would be an "Act of War", now wouldn't it? ..."
"... Well the EU swallowed the farcical story of the Scripals so I expect anything Mrs May tells them about a leak will be believed. ..."
"... International spookery is a lucrative job, if you can get in it. ..."
"... Truth is every bit as strange as fiction, only dirtier. I have to believe that international skulduggery and its various specialties like espionage, smuggling, hacking, whacking and merking is a growth industry in today's globalist world. Millennials take note, if you want to pay off those student loans in this lifetime, because I'm sure they will still collect on them in Hades. ..."
"... GCHQ is there to support the establishment and the neocons. If Corbyn were to be elected, they will be in the thick of causing as much trouble as possible for the new government. Gladio springs to mind. ..."
"... john wilson – "the farce continues." Absolutely. The Skripnal affair in the U.K. and Russiagate here in the U.S. demonstrate the absolute and utter contempt our respective elites have for the intelligence of the populace of each nation. I ..."
As the author also acknowledges with the references to the Belgacom saga: what else is
new. It's not just spying, but outright sabotage of critical European infrastructure, which
is one of the factors showing that if you'd ever want the EU to go anywhere, step one is that
you'd *want* to throw the Brits out–the London branch of the US Govt will *never* be a
loyal European ally. Instead of getting its own act together, the article informs us that the
EU "is concerned to retain access to the UK's defense and security powers post-Brexit".
This goes to show that the problem lies a bit deeper, since ultimately the loyalty of
Merkel and Macron is also to the Dark Throne, though perhaps not to the same extent as with
Ms. May.
Anyway, what's there to argue: in its founding documents, the EU declares that its
foreign and security policies will follow those of NATO. In other words, Europeans have
declared *themselves* to be incapable of thinking about their place in the world, letting
Uncle Sam do this for them instead. Nobody will respect them unless they first learn to
respect themselves.
John McCarthy , August 18, 2018 at 8:24 pm
By the standards our Congress is applying to Russia, this would be an "Act of War",
now wouldn't it?
padre , August 18, 2018 at 12:08 pm
First thing that comes to mind is, whether there were any Russians involved?
Peter , August 19, 2018 at 3:28 pm
Of course they were. Britishers never would spy on their "friends", would they now?. I
think that Putin personally did the spying, the man has just too much time on his hands.
Brad Owen , August 18, 2018 at 9:19 am
Have British spies been hacking the EU you ask? Is it not true that spies have been at
work in the isles and on the Continent for CENTURIES? I would say it's an even more important
force than the military forces, what with their ability to embroil one enemy in a war with
another enemy, thus eliminating two enemies, with just a bagful of money and a few proxy
provocateurs. No wonder finance is King, intelligence/covert ops his governing Prime
Minister, and over rules the military industrialists and uniformed services and the citizenry
and their elected representatives.
john wilson , August 18, 2018 at 5:35 am
Well the EU swallowed the farcical story of the Scripals so I expect anything Mrs May
tells them about a leak will be believed. Whatever the EU negotiators have to say about Brexit behind closed doors seems to be irrelevant as sooner or later they will have to put
their cards on the table.
Realist , August 18, 2018 at 4:19 am
International spookery is a lucrative job, if you can get in it. Mental time slip back to
the early 60's. Ian Fleming's "James Bond" novels had just hit the states as the latest craze
and one of my best friends, a Ukrainian fellow, therefore congenitally attracted to the dark
side, discovers them and becomes a cult follower, so much so that when he's kicked out of
college for fraud a few years later he becomes involved in international gemstone smuggling
under the mentorship of an ex-Nazi uncle ensconced near the Brasil-Argentine border, makes
beaucoup lucre, marries a fellow American expat down in Latin America at the height of
Iran-Contra shenanigans and eventually returns home a very wealthy man now living out his
dotage in the closest thing to a manor house in the exurbs north of Chicago.
Truth is every
bit as strange as fiction, only dirtier. I have to believe that international skulduggery and
its various specialties like espionage, smuggling, hacking, whacking and merking is a growth
industry in today's globalist world. Millennials take note, if you want to pay off those
student loans in this lifetime, because I'm sure they will still collect on them in
Hades.
John A , August 18, 2018 at 4:05 am
GCHQ is there to support the establishment and the neocons. If Corbyn were to be elected,
they will be in the thick of causing as much trouble as possible for the new government.
Gladio springs to mind.
john wilson , August 18, 2018 at 5:49 am
Jean, the latest in the Scripal case gets ever more bizarre. A few days ago the police
went to the homes of 12 people who were in the Zizzies restaurant (don't know if is was staff
or members of the public) and took away their clothes for testing.
This is a full FIVE MONTHS
after the event.
I know we British are a scruffy lot, if not down right dirty, but for Christ
sake give it rest, even we wash our clothes after five months. The farce continues.
john wilson – "the farce continues." Absolutely. The Skripnal affair in the U.K. and
Russiagate here in the U.S. demonstrate the absolute and utter contempt our respective elites
have for the intelligence of the populace of each nation. It almost makes one long for the
good old days when our intelligence agencies had to at least try to come up with plausible
explanations for elite criminal activities: i.e. "the magic bullet (JFK assassination)" :)
and "the pancake effect (9/11)" :)
Ok, ok, maybe they've never really given us any real respect as critical thinkers, but I
quite agree with you that government propaganda has now reached absolutely farcical levels of
idiocy over the last several years and is now completely and utterly detached from any actual
"physical reality" on planet earth.
"... The Magnitsky Act also condemns legal prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Browder, on a much smaller scale, also made a fortune ripping off Russians during the Yeltsin years, and later got into trouble with Russian tax collectors. Since Browder had given up his US citizenship in order to avoid paying US taxes, he had reason to fear Russian efforts to extradite him for tax evasion and other financial misdeeds. ..."
"... Russian authorities are still trying to pursue their case against Browder. In his press conference following the Helsinki meeting with Trump, Vladimir Putin suggested allowing US authorities to question the Russians named in the Mueller indictment in exchange for allowing Russian officials to question individuals involved in the Browder case, including Winer and former US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul. Putin observed that such an exchange was possible under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty signed between the two countries in 1999, back in the Yeltsin days when America was posing as Russia's best friend. ..."
"... In a July 15, 2016, complaint to the Justice Department, Browder's Heritage Capital Management accused both American and Russian opponents of the Magnitsky Act of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA; adopted in 19938 with Nazis in mind). Among the "lobbyists" cited was the late Ron Dellums (falsely identified in the complaint as a "former Republican congressman"). ..."
"... The basic ideological conflict here is between Unipolar America and Multipolar Russia. Russia's position, as Vladimir Putin made clear in his historic speech at the 2007 Munich security conference, is to allow countries to enjoy national sovereignty and develop in their own way. The current Russian government is against interference in other countries' politics on principle. It would naturally prefer an American government willing to allow this. ..."
"... The United States, in contrast, is in favor of interference in other countries on principle: because it seeks a Unipolar world, with a single "democratic" system, and considers itself the final authority as to which regime a country should have and how it should run its affairs ..."
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was ostensibly a
conflict between two ideologies, two socio-economic systems.
All that seems to be over. The day of a new socialism may dawn unexpectedly,
but today capitalism rules the world. Now the United States and Russia are engaged
in a no-holds-barred fight between capitalists. At first glance, it may seem
to be a classic clash between rival capitalists. And yet, once again an ideological
conflict is emerging, one which divides capitalists themselves, even in Russia
and in the United States itself. It is the conflict between globalists and sovereignists,
between a unipolar and a multipolar world. The conflict will not be confined
to the two main nuclear powers.
The defeat of communism was brutally announced in a certain "capitalist manifesto"
dating from the early 1990s that proclaimed: "Our guiding light is Profit, acquired
in a strictly legal way. Our Lord is His Majesty, Money, for it is only He who
can lead us to wealth as the norm in life."
The
authors of this bold tract were Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who went on to become
the richest man in Russia, before spending ten years in a Russian jail, and
his business partner at the time, Leonid Nevzlin, who has since retired comfortably
to Israel.
Loans For Shares
Those were the good old days in the 1990s when the Clinton administration
was propping up Yeltsin as he let Russia be ripped off by the joint efforts
of such ambitious well-placed Russians and their Western sponsors, notably using
the "loans for shares" trick.
In a 2012 Vanity Fair
article on her hero, Khodorkovsky, the vehemently anti-Putin journalist
Masha Gessen frankly summed up how this worked:
The new oligarchs -- a dozen men who had begun to exercise the power that
money brought -- concocted a scheme. They would lend the government money,
which it badly needed, and in return the government would put up as collateral
blocks of stock amounting to a controlling interest in the major state-owned
companies. When the government defaulted, as both the oligarchs and the
government knew it would, the oligarchs would take them over. By this maneuver
the Yeltsin administration privatized oil, gas, minerals, and other enterprises
without parliamentary approval.
This worked so well that from his position in the Communist youth organization,
Khodorkovsky used his connections to get control of Russia's petroleum company
Yukos and become the richest oligarch in Russia, worth some $15 billion, of
which he still controls a chunk despite his years in jail (2003-2013). His arrest
made him a hero of democracy in the United States, where he had many friends,
especially those business partners who were helping him sell pieces of Yukos
to Chevron and Exxon. Khodorkovsky, a charming and generous young man, easily
convinced his American partners that he was Russia's number one champion of
democracy and the rule of law, especially of those laws which allow domestic
capital to flee to foreign banks and foreign capital to take control of Russian
resources.
Vladimir Putin didn't see it that way. Without restoring socialism, he dispossessed
Khodorkovsky of Yukos and essentially transformed the oil and gas industry from
the "open society" model tolerated by Yeltsin to a national capitalist industry.
Khodorkovsky and his partner Platon Lebedev were accused of having stolen all
the oil that Yukos had produced in the years 1998 to 2003, tried, convicted
and sentenced to 14 years of prison each. This shift ruined US plans, already
underway, to "balkanize" Russia between its many provinces, thereby allowing
Western capital to pursue its capture of the Russian economy.
The dispossession of Khodorkovsky was certainly a major milestone in the
conflict between President Putin and Washington. On November 18, 2005, the Senate
unanimously adopted
resolution 322 introduced by Joe Biden denouncing the treatment of the Khodorkovsky
and Lebedev as politically motivated.
Who Influences Whom?
Now let's take a look at the history of Russian influence in the United States.
It is obvious that a Russian who can get the Senate to adopt a resolution in
his favor has a certain influence. But when the "deep state" growls about Russian
influence, it isn't talking about Khodorkovsky. It's talking about a joking
response Trump made to a reporter's snide question during the presidential campaign.
In a variation of the classic "when did you stop beating your wife?" the reporter
asked if he would call on Russian President Vladimir Putin to "stay out" of
the election.
Since a stupid question does not deserve a serious answer, Trump said he
had "nothing to do with Putin" before adding, "Russia, if you're listening,
I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. I think you
will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."
Aha! Went the Trump haters. This proves it! Irony is almost as unwelcome
in American politics as honesty.
When President Trump
revoked his security clearance earlier this month, former CIA chef John
Brennan got his chance to spew out his hatred in the complacent pages of the
New York Times.
Someone supposed to be smart enough to head an intelligence agency actually
took Trump's joking invitation as a genuine request. "By issuing such a statement,"
Brennan wrote, "Mr. Trump was not only encouraging a foreign nation to collect
intelligence against a United States citizen, but also openly authorizing his
followers to work with our primary global adversary against his political opponent."
The Russians, Brennan declared, "troll political, business, and cultural
waters in search of gullible or unprincipled individuals who become pliant in
the hands of their Russian puppet masters."
Which Russians do that? And who are those "individuals"?
'The Fixer in Chief'
To understand the way Washington works, nothing is more instructive than
to examine the career of lawyer Jonathan M. Winer, who proudly repeats that
in early 2017, the head of the Carnegie Endowment Bill Burns introduced him
as "the Fixer in Chief". Winer has long been unknown to the general public,
but this may soon change.
Let's see what the fixer has fixed.
Under the presidency of fellow Yalie Bill Clinton, Winer served as the State
Department's first Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Law Enforcement,
from 1994-1999. One may question the selectivity of Bill Clinton's concern for
international law enforcement, which certainly did not cover violating international
law by bombing defenseless countries. In any case, in 1999, Winer was awarded
for "virtually unprecedented achievements". Later we shall examine one of those
important achievements.
At the end of the Clinton administration, from 2008 to 2013, the Fixer in
Chief worked as high up consultant at one of the world's most powerful PR and
lobbying firms, APCO Worldwide. This is how the Washington revolving door functions:
after a few years in government finding out how things work, one then goes into
highly paid "consultancy" to sell this insider information and influential contacts
to private clients.
APCO got off to a big start some thirty years ago
lobbying
for Philip Morris and the tobacco industry in general.
In 2002, APCO launched something called the "Friends of Science" to promote
skepticism concerning the harmful effects of smoking. In 1993, the campaign
described its goals and objectives "encouraging the public to question – from
the grassroots up – the validity of scientific studies."
While Winer was at APCO, one of its major activities was hyping the Clinton
Global Initiative, an international networking platform promoting the Clinton
Foundation. APCO president and CEO Margery Kraus explained that the consultancy
was there to "help other CGI members garner interest for the causes they are
addressing, demonstrate their success and highlight the wide-ranging achievements
of CGI as a whole." Considering that only five percent of Clinton Foundation
turnover went to donations, they needed all the PR they could get.
Significantly, donations to the Clinton Global Initiative have dried up since
Hillary lost the presidential election. According to the
Observer : "Foreign governments began pulling out of annual donations, signaling
the organization's clout was predicated on donor access to the Clintons, rather
than its philanthropic work."
This helps explain Hillary Clinton's panic when she lost in 2016. How in
the world can she ever reward her multi-million-dollar donors with the favors
they expected?
As well as the tobacco industry and the Clinton Foundation, APCO also works
for Khodorkovsky. To be precise, according to public listings, the fourth biggest
of APCO's many clients is the Corbiere Trust, owned by Khodorkovsky and registered
in Guernsey. The trust tends and distributes some of the billions that the oligarch
got out of Russia before he was jailed. Corbiere money was spent to lobby both
for Resolution 322 (supporting Khodorkovky after his arrest in Russia) and for
the Magnitsky Act (more later). Margery Kraus, APCO's president and CEO, is
a member of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's son Pavel's Institute of Modern Russia, devoted
to "promoting democratic values" – in other words, to building political opposition
to Vladimir Putin.
In 2009 Jonathan Winer went back to the State Department where he was given
a distinguished service award for having somehow rescued thousands of stranded
members of the Muhahedin-e Khalq from their bases in Iraq they were trying to
overthrow the Iranian government. The MeK, once officially recognized as a terrorist
organization by the State Department, has become a pet instrument in US and
Israeli regime change operations directed at Iran.
However, it was Winer's extracurricular activities at State that finally
brought him into the public spotlight early this year – or rather, the spotlight
of the House Intelligence Committee, whose chairman Devin Nunes (R-Cal) named
him as one of a network promoting the notorious "Steele Dossier" which accused
Trump of illicit financial dealing and compromising sexual activities in Russia.
By Winer's
own account , he had been friends with former British intelligence agent
Christopher Steele since his days at APCO. Back at State, he regularly channeled
Steele reports, ostensibly drawn from contacts with friendly Russian intelligence
agents, to Victoria Nuland, in charge of Russian affairs, and top Russian experts.
These included the infamous "Steele dossier". In September 2016, Winer's old
friend Sidney Blumenthal – a particularly close advisor to Hillary Clinton –
gave him notes written by a more mysterious Clinton insider named Cody Shearer,
repeating the salacious attacks.
All this dirt was spread through government agencies and mainstream media
before being revealed publicly just before Trump's inauguration, used to stimulate
the "Russiagate" investigation by Robert Mueller. The dossier has been discredited
but the investigation goes on and on.
So, it is all right to take seriously information allegedly obtained from
"Russian agents" and spread it around, so long as it can damage Trump. As with
so much else in Washington, double standards are the rule.
Jonathan Winer and the Magnitsky Act
Jonathan Winer played a major role in Congressional adoption of the "Sergei
Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012" (the Magnitsky Act), a measure
that effectively ended post-Cold War hopes for normal relations between Washington
and Moscow. This act was based on a highly contentious version of the November
16, 2009 death in prison of accountant Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky, as told
to Congress by hedge fund manager Bill Browder (grandson of Earl Browder, head
of the Communist Party USA 1934-1945). According to Browder, Magnitsky was a
lawyer beaten to death in prison as a result of his crusade for human rights.
However, as convincingly established by dissident Russian film-maker Andrei
Nekrasov's (banned) investigative documentary, the unfortunate Magnitsky was
neither a human rights crusader, nor a lawyer, nor beaten to death. He was an
accountant jailed for his role in Browder's business dealings, who died of natural
causes as a result of inadequate medical treatment. The case was hyped up as
a major human rights drama by Browder in order to discredit Russian charges
against himself.
In any case, by adopting a law punishing Magnitsky's alleged persecutors,
the US Congress acted as a supreme court judging internal Russian legal issues.
The Magnitsky Act also condemns legal prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Browder, on a much smaller scale, also made a fortune ripping off Russians during
the Yeltsin years, and later got into trouble with Russian tax collectors. Since
Browder had given up his US citizenship in order to avoid paying US taxes, he
had reason to fear Russian efforts to extradite him for tax evasion and other
financial misdeeds.
It was Jonathan Winer who found a solution to Browder's predicament.
When Browder consulted me, [ ] I suggested creating a new law to impose
economic and travel sanctions on human-rights violators involved in grand
corruption. Browder decided this could secure a measure of justice for Magnitsky.
He initiated a campaign that led to the enactment of the Magnitsky Act.
Soon other countries enacted their own Magnitsky Acts, including Canada,
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and most recently, the United Kingdom.
Russian authorities are still trying to pursue their case against Browder. In
his press conference following the Helsinki meeting with Trump, Vladimir Putin
suggested allowing US authorities to question the Russians named in the Mueller
indictment in exchange for allowing Russian officials to question individuals
involved in the Browder case, including Winer and former US ambassador to Moscow
Michael McFaul. Putin observed that such an exchange was possible under the
Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty signed between the two countries in 1999, back
in the Yeltsin days when America was posing as Russia's best friend.
But the naďve Russians did not measure the craftiness of American lawyers.
As Winer wrote:
"Under that treaty, Russia's procurator general can ask the US attorney
general to arrange for Americans to be ordered to testify to assist in a
criminal case. But there is a fundamental exception: The attorney general
can provide no such assistance in a politically motivated case ." (My emphasis.)
"I know this", he wrote, "because I was among those who helped put it there.
Back in 1999, when we were negotiating the agreement with Russia, I was the
senior State Department official managing US-Russia law-enforcement relations."
So, the Fixer in Chief could have said to the worried Browder, "No problem.
All that we need to do is make your case a politically motivated case. Then
they can't touch you."
Winer's clever treaty is a perfect Catch-22. The treaty doesn't apply to
a case if it is politically motivated, and if it is Russian, it must be politically
motivated.
In a July 15, 2016, complaint to the Justice Department, Browder's Heritage
Capital Management accused both American and Russian opponents of the Magnitsky
Act of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA; adopted in 19938
with Nazis in mind). Among the "lobbyists" cited was the late Ron Dellums (falsely
identified in the complaint as a "former Republican congressman").
The Heritage Capital Management brief declared that: "While lawyers representing
foreign principals are exempt from filing under FARA, this is only true if the
attorney does not try to influence policy at the behest of his client." However,
by disseminating anti-Magnitsky material to Congress, any Russian lawyer was
"clearly trying to influence policy" was therefore in violation of FARA filing
requirements."
Catch-22 all over again.
Needless to say, Khodorkovsky's Corbiere Trust lobbied heavily to get Congress
to pass the Magnitsky Act, which also repeated its defense of Khodorkovsky himself.
This type of "Russian interference intended to influence policy" is not even
noticed, while US authorities scour cyberspace for evidence of trolls.
Conclusion
The basic ideological conflict here is between Unipolar America and Multipolar
Russia. Russia's position, as Vladimir Putin made clear in his historic speech
at the 2007 Munich security conference, is to allow countries to enjoy national
sovereignty and develop in their own way. The current Russian government is
against interference in other countries' politics on principle. It would naturally
prefer an American government willing to allow this.
The United States, in contrast, is in favor of interference in other
countries on principle: because it seeks a Unipolar world, with a single "democratic"
system, and considers itself the final authority as to which regime a country
should have and how it should run its affairs .
So, if Russians were trying to interfere in US domestic politics, they would
not be trying to change the US system but to prevent it from trying to change
their own. Russian leaders clearly are sufficiently cultivated to realize that
historic processes do not depend on some childish trick played on somebody's
computer.
US policy-makers practice interference every day. And they are perfectly
willing to allow Russians to interfere in American politics – so long as those
Russians are "unipolar" like themselves, like Khodorkovsky, who aspire to precisely
the same unipolar world sought by the State Department and George Soros. Indeed,
the American empire depends on such interference from Iraqis, Libyans, Iranians,
Russians, Cubans – all those who come to Washington to try to get US power to
settle old scores or overthrow the government in the country they came from.
All those are perfectly welcome to lobby for a world ruled by America.
Russian interference in American politics is totally welcome so long as it
helps turn public opinion against "multipolar" Putin, glorifies American democracy,
serves US interests including the military-industrial complex, helps break down
national borders (except those of the United States and Israel) and puts money
in appropriate pockets in the halls of Congress.
"... With respect to the Browder-Magnitsky Act legislation scandal, people might consider that ongoing, colossal, bombshell story in light of the mentioned 18 U.S. Code § 2384 – Seditious conspiracy: ..."
"... The fact that Magnitsky Act legislation is founded on a massive concoction of lies is unacceptable and, far more importantly, increasingly dangerous and destructive to international relations with each passing day of the coverup. It is of paramount importance that humanity learns the full truth about the Browder-Magnitsky laws scandal – and NOW. ..."
"... Yes, the Magnitsky Act legislation is a crock, isn't it? And the sad thing is that these congressmen know it, but, as Peter Phillips said, they go along because it's all part of controlling the world in favor of these transnational corporations. We just think our votes count! How stupid are we? ..."
With respect to the Browder-Magnitsky Act legislation scandal, people might consider
that ongoing, colossal, bombshell story in light of the mentioned 18 U.S. Code § 2384
– Seditious conspiracy:
".. or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United
States,"
If moral force is deemed a correct legal interpretation, the growing number of men and women
becoming aware of the scandal, in the United States particularly and around the Earth
generally, could face 20 years of imprisonment. Of course, "by force" in the clause is meant as
kinetic or physical force, so people demanding the profoundly consequential truth about
Browder-Magnitsky have nothing in to worry about.
Political reality in America reveals that the two-party system is mythical, but actually
that Americans are experiencing a one-party structure serving members of the transnational
capitalist class – named and described in the recently published book "Giants: The Global
Power Elites" by Sonoma State (CA) Professor Peter Phillips (co-founder of Project Censored
with Mickey Huff).
Confirmation is found in the unanimous -- total silence over the historic magnitude
Browder-Magnitsky scandal of John Brennan(D), Gina Haspell(R), Loretta Lynch(D), Jeff
Sessions(R), Ben Cardin(D), John McCain(R), all 535 U.S. elected representatives(D, R and I),
Hillary Clinton(D), Mike Pompeo(R), Joseph Biden(D), Mike Pence(R), Barack Obama(D), Donald
Trump(R)
The fact that Magnitsky Act legislation is founded on a massive concoction of lies is
unacceptable and, far more importantly, increasingly dangerous and destructive to international
relations with each passing day of the coverup. It is of paramount importance that humanity
learns the full truth about the Browder-Magnitsky laws scandal – and NOW.
Replybackwardsevolution , August 17, 2018 at 3:36 am
Jerry – I saw a Youtube video by Professor Peter Phillips a few months back where he
outlined the concentration of wealth by these transnational corporations. It was a very good
video, and he's right – something definitely needs to be done about these people. They
are going to either kill us with war or kill us by ruining the planet. It's like they're
addicted to greed and cannot help themselves, almost like a drug addict. We'll have to stop
them.
Yes, the Magnitsky Act legislation is a crock, isn't it? And the sad thing is that
these congressmen know it, but, as Peter Phillips said, they go along because it's all part
of controlling the world in favor of these transnational corporations. We just think our
votes count! How stupid are we?
I don't know where it's all going to end, but we'd better start fighting back before these
addicts take us all out.
Look at the Skripal affair. The British government's account of what
happened is hilariously unconvincing, and the Foreign Minister himself was
caught red-handed in
a lie of such monstrous proportions
that he was hopelessly compromised
and his remaining audience of five true believers could no longer take anything
he said as factual.
Far from the only example
of his instinctive lying, I might add. But
the British government demands you take them at their word: they can't show
anyone any evidence – 'coz it's National Security, innit? – but any alternate
narrative other than the official account of what happened is fake news.
Horrific misinformation. Any western authority granted the mandate to rule
on what is misinformation is going to abuse that power to ensure only its
side of a story (which always has at least two) is the one that is heard.
Period. You would like to believe they're above that, but they're not.
Well, that was a longer diversion than I planned; let's get back to Caitlin
Johnstone. Here's what she said, in one of those dozy tweets I dislike so
much.
"Friendly public service reminder that John McCain has devoted
his entire political career to slaughtering as many human beings as possible
at every opportunity, and the world will be improved when he finally dies".
I'm sure it was that last bit that sent the 'fake news' crowd over the
precipice, because we are conditioned as western citizens to never speak
ill of the dead, and the prohibition plainly extends to the almost-dead.
The Undead, if you prefer. That's not the first time Ms. Johnstone, who
is nothing if not plain-spoken, has expressed the conviction that the expiration
of John McCain is an event which is long overdue. It may well be regarded
as insensitive, although I honestly cannot disagree with it, as his continued
persistence on this mortal coil means a continued manifestation of his malign
influence, and he continues to exercise his privilege to speak on behalf
of his constituents to vote for the most destructive course every time it
is offered as an option.
If I may be allowed one more tiny diversion, one I have certainly advanced
before on the unaccountable American fascination with free speech, I believe
it bears directly on Ms. Johnstone's legal right to say insensitive things,
according to established legal precedent. On October 18th, 1998, the Westboro
Baptist Church – aka Lunatic Space-Cadets Anonymous –
picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard
, a gay man who was beaten unconscious,
tied to a fence and left for dead by a couple of homophobic assailants,
and who died of his injuries. The congregation carried signs which bore
such inflammatory slogans as "No Tears for Queers", "Fag Matt Burns in Hell",
and the more perennial but generalized "God Hates Fags". No action was taken
against the church. The family of a decorated US Marine who died in Iraq
later took Westboro Baptist Church to court for their provocative baiting
at solemn occasions like their son's funeral, and lost. The Supreme Court
of the United States ruled Westboro's right to free speech did not infringe
on the family's right to conduct a funeral without interference.
So any prohibition on publicly wishing John McCain would cease his irritating
evasion of the Grim Reaper is imaginary, faith-based and entirely without
legal merit.
Getting back to the issue, Ms. Johnstone's initial antagonist – Patrick
– tweeted in response;
"What a miserable, despicable person. You are
the definition of deplorable. I may frequently disagree with Senator John
McCain and Meghan McCain with all due criticism, but they should sue you
for libel. This is disgusting."
What is
libel
? Libel is
"to
publish
in
print
(including
pictures),
writing
or
broadcast
through
radio,television
or
film,
an
untruth
about
another
which
will
do
harm
to
that
person
or
his/her
reputation,
by
tending
to
bring
the
target
into
ridicule,
hatred,
scorn
or
contempt
of
others.
Libel
is
the
written
or
broadcast
form
of
defamation,
distinguished
from
slander
which
is
oral
defamation.
It is
a
tort
(civilwrong)
making
the
person
or
entity
(like
a
newspaper,
magazine
or
political
organization)
open
to
a
lawsuit
for
damages
by
the
person
who
can
prove
the
statement
about
him/her
was
a
lie.
"
Hey, I know – let's play lawyer, wanna? No costly law degree required;
I already said we were playing. But since we've already demonstrated that
Ms. Johnstone can't be (successfully) sued for libel for expressing the
opinion that the world will be a better place once John McCain has popped
his pricey tasseled clogs, then the point of libelous contention must be
the allegation that John McCain has availed himself of every opportunity
to vote for policies or undertakings which contributed to the slaughter
of human beings. A customary and absolute defense against the charge of
libel is establishment that the allegedly libelous statement is, in fact,
true. Can we do that? I'll bet we can.
Although he was very much a part of the Vietnam War, John McCain was
not a politician at that time, and Ms. Johnstone specified that he had used
his
political
career to press for military action which resulted
in many casualties. I don't think the modification of 'as many as possible'
would be enforceable under libel laws, as it would be too difficult to prove.
Could there have been even more casualties, on both sides, in any military
action in which Senator McCain had a vote? Probably, but there is no realistic
way to determine if they were either limited or aggravated by his direct
participation in the vote. By the same token, the contribution of his vote
to any casualties which
did
take place is, I think, inarguable.
So let's start with America's next big war – the Gulf War against Iraq,
Take One. John McCain
voted for war
. Were there casualties? You could say that; 294 Americans
died in the Gulf War. The UK lost 47. It's worth noting, as an aside, that
Syria was a US ally in the Gulf War, and had 2 of its soldiers killed. How
about Iraqis? Well, nobody seems to have kept a very accurate count – they
were, after all, the enemy, and killing them was encouraged – and the
official American count
is established from Iraqi prisoner-of-war records,
and was featured in a report commissioned by the US Air Force. It estimates
20,000-22,000 combat deaths overall, in both the air and ground campaigns.
Was that a slaughter? You tell me. And before we move on from the Gulf War,
John McCain
voted
(after the war was over) against providing automatic annual cost-of-living
adjustments for certain veterans' benefits. Four years later, McCain supported
an appropriations bill that underfunded the Departments of Veterans Affairs
and other federal agencies by $8.9 billion. The following year, McCain voted
against an amendment to increase spending on veterans programs by $13 billion.
As of the year 2000, 183,000 U.S. veterans of the Gulf War, more than a
quarter of the U.S. troops who participated, had been declared permanently
disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs. You may only be 'slaughtered'
if you are dead, but the irrevocable changes for the worse in the quality
of life for thousands of Americans who were only doing what their country
ordered them to do should count for something, what do you say?
Gee; I'm starting to get a little mad at McCain. Well, let's move on.
In 2003, the US government of the day decided that Saddam Hussein had
not learned his lesson the first time, and so this time he had to go. Accordingly,
the USA polled its allies for military forces who were not otherwise occupied,
and had another go at it. John McCain said hell yes, let's get it on.
American military casualties
, 4,287 killed, 30,187 wounded. A bit more
of a slaughter than the first attempt. The advent of ceramic-plate body
armor protected the soldier's body core, so that many more survived injuries
that would have been so horrific they would surely have killed them. The
downside is that many lived who lost limbs too badly damaged to save, and
were crippled for whatever life remained to them. The
Iraqi casualty figures
were again an estimate, although better documented; by the most reliable
count, somewhere between 182,000 and 204,000 Iraqis were killed. Needlessly
and pointlessly slaughtered, many of them; American troops grew so fearful
as a result of the steady drip of casualties among their own that they frequently
opened fire on families in cars with children simply because they did not
obey instructions in a language they did not speak or understand. At Mahmudiya,
in March 2006, Private Steven Green and his co-conspirators
raped and killed
14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza, killed her family and
set her body afire to blur the details of the crime. When Iraqi soldiers
arrived on the scene, Green and his fellow murderers blamed it on Sunni
insurgents.
The following year, President Bush approved a 'surge' of 20,000 additional
troops, which John McCain so energetically agitated for that it became known
informally as 'the McCain doctrine'. That's after he claimed in 2004 that
if an elected government in Iraq asked that US forces leave, they would
have to go even if they were not happy with the security situation. He also
recognized, the following year, that Iraqis resented the American military
presence, and the sooner and more dramatically it could be reduced, the
better it would be for everyone. I guess if you lay claim to both sides
of the argument, you're bound to convince someone that you know what you're
doing.
That same year, 2007, John McCain
voted against a requirement for specifying minimum time periods between
deployments
for soldiers deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation
Enduring Freedom. When they need you back in the meat-grinder, you go, never
mind how many times you've already been there. Let's just keep in mind,
before we leave Iraq, that the entire case for war the second time around
was fabricated with wild tales of awful weapons Saddam supposedly had which
could kill Americans
while they were still in America
, and so he
had to be dealt with. When it was suggested to the Defense Secretary, Donald
Rumsfeld, that America should concentrate on Afghanistan, since that is
where the backers of the 9-11 strike against America had fled, he
mused that there were 'no good targets in Afghanistan'
, although there
were 'lots of good targets in Iraq'. Some researchers suggest he was after
a 'teachable moment' for America's enemies which would convince them of
America's irresistible power. While John McCain assessed that Donald Rumsfeld
was the worst Secretary of Defense ever, his complaint was not that Rumsfeld
was not killing enough people, but that he showed insufficient commitment
to winning the war.
Libya. Hoo, boy. In 2009, John McCain – together with fellow die-faster-please
senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham –
visited Tripoli
, to discuss Libya's acquisition of American military
equipment. John McCain assured Gadaffi (his son, actually) that America
was eager to provide Libya with the equipment it needed. Hardly more than
a year later, he espoused the position that Gadaffi must be removed from
power because he had American blood on his hands from the Lockerbie bombing.
In 2011, he visited the Libyan 'rebels', and
publicly urged Washington to consider a ground attack
to forcibly remove
Gaddafi from power. Just a friendly public service reminder; the Lockerbie
bombing was most likely carried out by Syria, was – according to pretty
reliable testimony –
rigged by the American intelligence services to finger Libya
, and probably
the stupidest thing Gaddafi ever did was to admit to it anyway and pay compensation,
in an effort to move on.
Anyway, more war. What the fuck is it with this guy?
Well, even something so grim as war has its comic moments. What else
would you call it when NATO claims, with a straight face, that the enemy
is
hiding his tanks and artillery from its watchful eye
inside the water
pipes of the Great Man-Made River? What they actually wanted was an excuse
to bomb it – which they did,
as well as the pumping stations
which brought abundant fresh water to
the coastal region, in the certain knowledge that it would create a crisis
for the civilian population. Which, by the bye, is against just about every
convention on the subject ever written.
Here are some of the pipe sections, when they were being trucked to the
assembly point. As the article suggests, these sections are 4 meters across;
but remember, that's at their widest point. They are only 4 meters for about
a foot, because a water pipe is a circle.
Libya mostly used the T-72 Main Battle Tank, and those would be the ones
NATO wanted to eliminate, since the others were considerably older. A T-72,
width-wise, would just fit in a 4-meter water pipe, as it is
3.6
meters wide
. However, it's also over 45 tons in weight. The concrete
rings were designed to carry free-flowing water, not a 45-ton tank. Would
they take that kind of weight, distributed only over a 7-meter length? Where
is there an entry point to the water-pipe that is the same width as the
widest diameter of the pipe? As discussed, the water pipe is 4 meters wide
at its widest point. But the T-72 is 2.3 meters high. The tank would only
fit if it was as high as a lunchbox, because the 4-meter width narrows dramatically
from the widest point; it's a circle. Even where it did fit, it would be
supported only on the outer edges of its tracks, and you have to cut the
4-meter measurement approximately in half, because the upper portion of
the tank would have to be above the point where the tracks touched on each
side. The idea was preposterous from the outset, and it speaks to what fucking
simpletons western government believes make up its populations that they
would dare to put such nutjobbery in print. A T-72 could not fit in a 4-meter
water pipe. The notion was demonstrably foolish. But NATO wanted to destroy
the water system, so it made up a reason that would allow it to be a well-meaning
potential victim of deadly violence.
According to
The Guardian
– the same source that told you Gadaffi
was hiding his tanks in the plumbing – the death toll in the Libyan civil
war prior to the NATO intervention was about 1000-2000. According to the
National Transitional Council, the outfit the west engineered to rule post-Gaddafi
Libya,
the final butcher's bill was about 30,000 dead
. The very day after NATO
folded its tents – figuratively speaking, as the western role was entirely
air support for the flip-flop-wearing rebels – and went home, al Qaeda
raised its black flag over the Benghazi courthouse
.
Caitlin Johnstone claimed John McCain used his political career to advocate
for military interventions which resulted in the slaughter of large numbers
of human beings. Is that accurate? What say you, members of the jury? In
each of the cases above, John McCain used his political influence, over
and above his vote, to argue, advocate, hector and plead for military intervention
by the armed forces of the United States of America and such coalition partners
as could be rounded up. In each of the cases above, the necessity
of toppling the evildoing dictator was exaggerated out of all proportion,
portrayed as an instant and refreshing liberation for his people, and as
only the first phase of a progressive plan which would turn the subject
country into a prosperous, western-oriented market democracy. In each of
the cases above the country is now a divided and ruined failed state whose
pre-war situation was significantly better than its miserable present. And
in each of the cases above, a lot of people were killed who could otherwise
have reasonably expected to be alive today.
Also, each of the cases above is chronologically separated from the others
by a sufficient span for it to be quite evident what a cluster-fuck the
previous operation was, so that anyone disposed to learn from his mistakes
might have approached the situation differently as it gained momentum, argued
for caution based on previously-recorded clusterfuckery, pleaded for reason
to prevail and for improved dialogue to be a priority. Not John McCain.
He learned precisely the square root of nothing from previous catastrophes,
and plunged into the next catastrophe with the enthusiasm most remarked
among those who are not all there, as the vernacular describes it. He not
only voted for war every time, he expended considerable effort in cajoling
and persuading the reluctant to go along.
Perhaps the introduction here of the
definition for 'warmonger'
would be helpful to the jury. To wit; "O
ne
who
advocates
or
attempts
to
stir
up
war. A person who fosters warlike ideas or advocates war."
Synonyms: hawk, aggressor, belligerent, militarist, jingoist, sabre-rattler.
There, John; I just saved you the trouble of writing an epitaph.
Will the world be a better place once John McCain is gone? Difficult
to say, really, and the present state of affairs in the world argues strongly
that it will not. But it will certainly be no poorer for his passing, and
if he were to be replaced politically by an individual who took the trouble
to do a little research, muse on previous experience, and review all the
available options before voting to send in the Marines why, that would be
a victory for everyone in a world where victory is increasingly not even
a possibility.
Was Caitlin Johnstone right? Broadly speaking, and going on the information
available at the time her statement was made, yes; she was.
151 THOUGHTS ON "
IN THE MATTER OF THE PEOPLE
VS. CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, THE DEFENSE RESTS.
"
Reply
Good article. The same 2000 dead hysteria (a number that included
800 dead Serbs) was used in 1999 to justify the bombing of Serbia.
After the UCK terrorists took over Kosovo together with NATzO, many
more Serbs were butchered than the mostly 1200 terrorists that NATzO
was so worried about. I suspect that McShitStain was a big time
proponent of the gang rape of Serbia as well.
McShitStain is merely a dumb US attack dog. He does his masters'
bidding well and thankfully there is some justice in this world
that he gets cancer. I really do hope he pops off this mortal coil.
I have seen very good people die from brain cancer and it would
be very unfair if this sick nutjob recovered.
We are living through a rather nasty time. The so-called PC left
in the US is totally unhinged and engaged in witch hunts togther
with the lie factory US MSM. I refuse to believe that "antifa" and
all these so-called social justice warriors are real leftists. They
are engaged in fascism and their backers are the corporate oligarchy
of the USA. At this stage it looks like Germany during the 1930s
(no, Trump is not the Hitler equivalent) in that a state of hysteria
has taken over the US political scene. All the Hillary worshippers
(the Democrats are fake "leftists") actually believe the Russia
conspiracy theory crap and want revenge. They also believe CNN and
the rest of the MSM that they can roll over Russia with little effort.
CNN has been a critical booster for all of the US wars since its
formation. It incites Americans to support whatever war criminal
enterprise that the US elites want to engage in. McShitStain is
a cog in this war machine.
The world definitely will be a better place after Jurassic John
goes the way of the dinosaurs if only because whoever replaces him
as Senator for Arizona won't have anything like the grubby contacts
he has all over the world (let alone the scale of such a network)
and will have to build up his/her own set.
Thanks Mark for another fiery post. Be careful you don't combust.
Her sequential-talking-points delivery certainly suggests
she is being groomed, or at a minimum has been prepared for
the question as it is sure to come up. But for someone who claims
that nobody has any idea what the future might bring, she certainly
got a lot of mileage out of her answer.
Amazing how she looks more and more like her mother with
each passing day. By the time she decides that, yes, she
will run for the Presidency, not only will she be a virtual
physical clone but her brain will also have remodelled itself
into Klintonator Killer Kranium Version 2.0.
It would be most ironic if Bubba-hotep had been cuckolded
himself, given his skirt-chasing habit.
Hearsay suggests that she is already so broadly disliked
among those who have had to work for or with her that
it seems probable she would have a really hard time
building a base. Before she could get seriously into
running for public office she would have to convince
the kingmakers that she has real star potential, and
I just don't see it.
Incredible: one Clinton Foundation employee nearly
committed suicide due to the stress caused by Bubba-Hotep
and his li'l princess through their constant meddling
and raising issues that staff were expected to chase.
The Kennedy clan had formerly attempted the
same gambit by pushing Caroline into running
for office; but she failed miserably and retreated
back into private life.
"
Despite furious Western attempts to isolate the Kremlin,
countries still want to collaborate with Russia. By arms sales and
cooperation, Russia is using its military strength to increase its
geopolitical presence in the world".
You don't say!
Interestingly, the commenters to the article (so far) seem just
to say "So what?":
Silly article WE have exercises all the time, including "Live"
firing in the North of Scotland
not to mention the live exercises in which my nephew regularly
participates with his and other British army armoured regiments
on the Canadian prairie.
Of course, there are not a few head-banger readers of the Independent:
I would even doubt
[Europe's]
capacity to remove
Russia from Poland never mind the Baltics if Russia decided to take
them and the only reason they have not decided to do so is the big
stick that is the US military which is especially potent under Trump.
Same with China and Taiwan, Iran and Saudi etc etc.
Only Uncle Sam can hold the Red Beast at bay!
Pentagonbot?
Why not?
If anyone dare argue the "Kremlin" case in the British press,
he is promptly accused of being a "Kremlinbot" and asked such inane
questions as "What's the weather like in St. Petersburg today, Vladimir?"
Galeotti uses the expression "collaborate with Russia" and
not "do business with Russia".
Collaborate?
With the "Evil Empire" against the "Exceptional Nation",
whose "manifest destiny" is to bring freedom and democracy to
the rest of the world -- and billions of dollars to the USA?
Even "collaborate" is a spineless term when referring
to Russia.
The proper word is "appease". As in "appeasing" Hitler,
while also tossing in a Munich reference!
More dirt on McCain, whose source I now forget, but, if I rightly
recall, it was a comment made by a US citizen on some blog way back.
I have posted it before:
Allow me to disparage Mr. McCain (again), with facts. By several
accounts ("Why Does the Nightingale Sing", for example), he only
got into the Naval Academy for a free college degree because Dad
and GrandDad were Admirals, and he should have been kicked out several
times if not for that too. He was a lousy pilot who got into trouble
often and crashed two aircraft because of neglect. He was shot down
on his third mission over Vietnam, and getting captured is not heroic.
What happened over there is difficult to pin down, but upon returning
from POW status, he passed a physical and regained flight status
as a pilot. Yet after he finished 20 years of service that allowed
generous retirement pay, he obtained a 100% VA disability rating
allowing him to collect some $40,000 a year tax free too! The LA
Times mentioned this when McCain was insisting he was fit to serve
as commander in Chief. He now hauls in over $240,000 a year from
the Feds for military retirement, 100% VA disability, social security
retirement, while all the while working full-time in the US Senate.
So is he retired, or disabled, or gainfully employed? He is all
three! This is textbook case of abuse and why or system needs reform
to protect workers against rich welfare kings like McCain.
McCain's loyal wife was disabled in a serious auto accident while
he was a POW. Soon after he returned, McCain dumped her for a wealthy
woman 20 years younger. The Reagans were so angry they never spoke
to him again. He then married his new babe before he officially
got divorced, so there's that bigamy thing.
I don't know why any Arizonian votes for this crazed man, especially
since he's a big advocate for open borders. At a union meeting,
he told workers illegals are needed because Americans are too lazy
to work farm fields, even for $50 an hour.
McCain has never labored his entire life, always on the government
dole now earning ten times minimum wage worker pay, whose increase
he opposes.
McCain grew up wealthy and enjoyed free government health
care his entire life, yet thinks it's nothing commoners deserve.
While running for president and attacking the poor a rare good reporter
asked how many houses he owned. He was unsure, but thought maybe
seven.
Thanks, Mark, for another analysis of the opinion-management
being rolled out across the media.
The stand-out memory I have of the great Ken Kesey novel "One
Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" is the description of a "pecking party"
inside a battery hen building in which one bird is injured, a speck
of blood appears and the crazed neighbours peck it to death. Unfortunately
they get spattered and their neighbours take up the pecking a bloodbath
ensues. That seems like a decent analogy to the current attempts
to close down any alternative to official narrative promotion.
Thanks, Cortes, and to all my well-wishers. I loved 'One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', it was at least as memorable as
'Flowers for Algernon' for me, and I read them both at around
the same point in my life, when I was in my early 20's.
If it's really true that the centre cannot hold, The Empire
is going to have an increasingly hard time cloaking its lies.
Of course, the west could simply return to the values of brotherhood
and the common struggle it continues to espouse but never really
seriously practiced. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for
that to happen.
"Flowers For Algernon" is such a stunning work it's a
real shame that it's not better known (at least in the UK).
On the news management front, I get the sense that the narrative
is slipping away from control. Over a couple of months I've
noticed that the free "Metro" papers have been left unread
in largish amounts on some buses (busy routes) – when they
were being snaffled up until recently. People can sense
that they are being herded, I think, and resent it.
This was stated by President Petro Poroshenko, speaking at an
international volunteer and the veterans' forum: "Where we are --
there is the Ukraine."
"Almost 160 thousand combatants remain as operational first reservists",
said Poroshenko.
According to him, all who are in the reserve are ready to take
up arms again and "to do this professionally and with a high degree
of training".
He added that the day after tomorrow, the Ukraine will celebrate
27 years of Independence, but added that the clockr could have stopped
at year 23 if defenders of the Ukraine had not acted against the
aggressor and not defended the Ukrainian land: "The guarantor of
the independence of the Ukraine are the armed forces of the Ukraine!
The guarantor of our freedom, of our statehood, our independence
are 344 thousand combatants in the east of our state."
In Mistecka Arsenal in Kiev has started an international volunteer
and the veteran's forum "Where we are -- there is the Ukraine". The
event will run for two days, on August 22 and 23. The purpose of
the forum is to highlight the need for the formation of a correct
and effective state policy as regards the reintegrating veterans
into society in general and to bring the authorities into this process.
Among the participants are representatives of more than 120 veterans
and volunteer organizations from different regions of the Ukraine
and from abroad.
Got to help all those volunteer batallion fighters to get back
to leading a normal, civilian life after killing civilians at the
front!
"Just a friendly public service reminder; the Lockerbie bombing
was most likely carried out by Syria, was – according to pretty
reliable testimony – rigged by the American intelligence services
to finger Libya, and probably the stupidest thing Gaddafi ever did
was to admit to it anyway and pay compensation, in an effort to
move on."
Most likely carried out by Syria?
Why is it most likely that Syria was behind the bombing?
I don't know that it was; that was the judgment arrived upon
in the article, and that it was retaliation for something or
other which I also forget. So they probably just put two and
two together and assessed that it was a Syrian payback (or perhaps
had other evidence of which I am unaware), but it suited the
events of the day for it to be Libya. So Libya got framed up
for it.
"We and the Americans bombed Pan Am Flight 103 to persuade
South African foreign minister Pik Botha to sign the Tripartite
Accord; thus with the Americans protecting our vested interests
both political and financial. The destruction of Pan Am
Flight 103 with the Americans demonstrated our intent and
was also a threat, and removing Bernt Carlsson was a convenient
and powerful signal, i.e. nobody is untouchable"
Five passengers on the Pan Am 103 flight were a Defense
Intelligence Agency team carrying a suitcase that contained
a large amount of heroin, documents, cash and travellers'
cheques. The DIA team had been in Lebanon searching for
US hostages held by Hezbollah and had stumbled across a
heroin-trafficking ring led by a Syrian drug baron, Monzer
al Khassar, who was linked to Colonel Oliver North's activities
in ferrying weapons to the Contras in Nicaragua. Al Khassar
himself was close to Rifat al Assad, a brother of the then
Syrian President Hafez al Assad and apparently a CIA asset.
At the same time there were people in the Iranian government
looking for revenge against the US for the USS Vincennes'
shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus passenger jet. A bomb expert
(Ahmed Jibril) from a Syrian-based Palestinian rebel group
was hired. Jibril knew of al Khassar's dope scheme and persuaded
him to fit a bomb inside the heroin suitcase that the DIA
took onto the plane. Another possibility is that al Khassar
and his CIA connections knew that the Iranians were planning
revenge and saw an opportunity to kill two birds (appeasing
the Iranians, wiping out the DIA whistle-blowers who would
have revealed the CIA connection with dope-smuggling) with
one stone.
So if Lockerbie was payback, then it was CIA payback
against the DIA and if it was retaliation, then it was Iranian
retaliation against the USS Vincennes' attack on the Iranian
Airbus.
A question for all the impeach Trump for colluding with Russia
weenies:
How would Cohen know anything about Trump's collusion with Russia?
Why would Trump need a lawyer for this illegal activity? If you
are going to claim that Trump just happened to share this information
with Cohen, then why not anyone else? Is Cohen some sort of consigliere
or confession booth priest for Trump?
This whole farce with Cohen is pathetic BS. Cohen will be told
to say this and that my Mueller and this will be deemed "evidence".
Americans are really a few cards short of a full deck to swallow
this drivel.
BTW, the new consensus emerging amongst the "deplorables" who
do not share the official CNN fake news narrative, is that the dirty
dossier produced by Steele was a Russian machination. This is truly
overwhelming in its retardation. Why the f*ck would Russia undermine
Trump by colluding with Hillary when Hillary was basically foaming
at the mouth to start a war over Russia's intervention in Syria.
Hillary's Democratic Party has ignited the current anti-Russian
hysteria in America, so there is no way that Russia was colluding
with her or her party. Americans are apparently too brainwashed
or dumb to distinguish between the involvement of Russian nationals
and the Russian state. You can find dozens of nationals from any
country to do anything with the right motivation.
"Perhaps the greatest political damage came not from the
felony charges, all of them related to various forms of financial
chicanery, including five counts each for Cohen and Manafort
of income tax evasion, but from Cohen's public statement in
the courtroom of Judge Kimba Wood. In confessing his guilt to
the eight counts, Cohen declared that in two instances, violating
federal laws by using personal funds to suppress politically
inconvenient statements by Playboy model Karen McDougal and
adult film actress Stormy Daniels, he was acting "in coordination
and at the direction of a candidate for federal office."
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/08/22/trum-a22.html
My point is that Cohen's admissions implicating Trump in
carrying out either himself or in concert with others willful
ongoing acts violative of Federal Campaign Finance laws are
CLEARLY sufficient-if substantiated-to oust him from office.
Don't think so??
If the following transgressions were sufficient to 'nail'
their intended targets -which is what happened-
then Trump's acts in attempting to hush up Stormy (supra) COULD
achieve the same result.
Whether or not some faction of TPTB has the WILL to impeach
him is another matter.
"Mueller's strategy of focusing on Cohen and Manafort's
white-collar crimes is perfectly reasonable, even in a probe
directed at Russian interference in the 2016 election. "It's
not unusual for prosecutors to use charges -- Al Capone is
the primary example -- to bring down a criminal conspiracy
in any way they can," Waxman pointed out."
Yup!!!
"Cohen's guilty plea effectively makes Trump an unindicted
co-conspirator. Current Justice Department guidelines say
a sitting president cannot be indicted -- but building a
legitimate criminal case against Trump would make it harder
for Republicans to stand united in opposition to impeaching
the president.
When President Richard Nixon was named an unindicted
co-conspirator by a grand jury, he opted to resign instead
of face impeachment proceedings. Trump seems unlikely to
step down, however. Any further efforts on his part to block
the investigation into his campaign would put the Justice
Department in uncharted territory"
Cohen would be a prosecutor's "dream cooperator: one
who had special insider access to the leader of a powerful,
closed, corrupt organization," former prosecutors Mimi Rocah
and Elie Honig wrote last month. "We used to prosecute mafia
cases. We both know that in the mob -- and perhaps in this
White House -- the right cooperator can bring down the entire
hierarchy."
From links I've already posted , getting a USC Title
18 conviction of Trump is not necessarily
that required to charge him with "High Crimes and Misdemeanors".
Although there is some dispute in legal circles as to what
exactly constitutes a sufficent basis of facts upon which
impeachment can be
based.
There is simply no evidence of Russia collusion.
Anything that Cohen says is pure fabrication. It is
tiresome for this "witness" BS to be "sufficient". Last
year CNN et al. were all hot and bothered by the supposed
bank trail proving Trump's financial links to Putin.
That would have been a story. Cohen can sing anything
that Mueller wants him to as his testicles are twisted
harder.
But it will establish an unsavory precedent – that
any sitting president can be taken out merely by selecting
one of his/her aides and then threatening them with
crushing penalties for some silly transgression or other or
they can turn state's evidence. Anyone who ever dreamed
of ascending to the nation's highest office would have
to know that, by facilitating this process, they were
handing the lawmakers the means to remove any future
president.
But, as I said, I don't care. Hillary can't win it
now, Pence is a dink, The Donald would dig in his heels
and fight all the way out, probably causing great damage,
but if he went, so what? He's a dreadful president.
And the USA would be in political chaos.
Trump should have fired Sessions for recusing
himself from this Congress instituted witch-hunt.
The job of Sessions is to be over-seer of the Special
Counsel investigation. Mueller cannot have special
rights, he must follow the rules. Shaking down people
around Trump for tax evasion or assorted other unrelated
crimes is not following the rules. It is pure Inquisition
tactics.
I would not be so quick to write Trump off as
dreadful. He basically sabotaged the two hyped up
cruise missile attacks on Syria. Even though his
hands are tied and his mouth is gagged by US corporate-run
"freedom", he managed to make both those attacks
totally ineffective. If he was a loyal servant of
the US elites, he would have kept sending more and
more missiles and actually ordered NATzO or "coalition"
jets to bomb Syrian targets seriously. The sporadic
Israeli and coalition attacks have been basically
irrelevant.
He is rocking the boat as much as he can. This
creates are sorts of noise. This noise is not a
metric of his efforts and success.
"But it will establish an unsavory precedent
– that any sitting president can be taken out merely
by selecting one of his/her aides and then threatening
them with crushing penalties for some silly transgression
or other or they can turn state's evidence."
Precedent set by Bill Clinton's personal Jauvert
Ken Starr, in his multiple indictments of Webster
Hubble.
"Indict my dog. Indict my cat."
A lot of it is Dems paying rethuglicans back
in their own coin.
Clinton's "personal Jauvert" – did you mean
Inspector Javert of Les Misérables?
Much as I appreciate any literary reference,
especially involving Victor Hugo, this allusion
would only hold if Bubba had managed to turn
his life around, become a virtual saint like
Valjean, and devoted his remaining years to
the cause of the oppressed masses.
hahahahahha
We'll see. If the Democrats are successful at having
him impeached, they will probably create a special holiday
recognizing Stormy Daniels, or give her the Presidential
Medal of Freedom or something. I frankly don't care – he
beat Hillary, and that's something she can never erase or
cover up.
I imagine they sweated him with the possibility of spending
the rest of his life in prison; all the newspaper accounts of
his testimony spoke of his shaky voice, and it's typically pretty
hard to scare a lawyer. They likely told him that he could just
disappear into the prison system and that there would be nothing
at all he could do about it.
ZURICH (Reuters) – One of Switzerland's largest banks, Credit
Suisse, has frozen roughly 5 billion Swiss francs ($5 billion) of
money linked to Russia to avoid falling foul of U.S. sanctions,
according to its accounts, further increasing pressure on Moscow .
Credit Suisse is being cautious in part because of earlier bad
experiences. In 2009, it reached a $500 million settlement with
U.S. authorities over dealings with sanctions-hit Iran.
There have been other instances where European banks have been
punished. In 2014, France's BNP Paribas (
BNPP.PA
)
agreed to pay a record $8.9 billion for violating U.S. sanctions
against Sudan, Cuba and Iran.
Switzerland's banking watchdog FINMA does not require Swiss
banks to enforce foreign sanctions, but has said they have a responsibility
to minimize legal and reputational risks.
I hope the present Russian administration and those yet to come
remember this.
Sounds like the rich Russians who refused to believe their
wealth wouldn't be confiscated in the West just learned a hard
lesson. The "rule of law" is for suckers.
I doubt very many ordinary Russians lost anything, but
they got a pretty useful lesson for free. The west wants
Putin gone so badly that there is no law they will not break,
no amount of hard-earned soft power they will not throw
away, no western business they will not throw under the
bus if they think they will realize that goal.
I wonder whose money this was. Russian offshoring is rather
sneaky and uses all sorts of places like Cyprus and the Cayman
Islands through various instruments. As of 2014, simply keeping
money in a western bank was no longer an option.
So this is either illegal money or Credit Suisse is simply
lying.
That's a good point; some time ago (you're probably correct
that it was 2014, or around there) the Russian government
did somewhat formalize its advice to not keep money in western
banks. As I best remember, it was only mandatory for members
of government. But it seems unlikely the government would
order all its ministers and senators to move all monies
held in western banks out of those banks, and then leave
government funds there itself. So perhaps some oligarch/s
got burned.
Possibly, but I doubt it. Saint Mikhail's money,
what there is left of it, is transparent to western
investigations, and if they could think of a good
reason they would give him a lot more, especially
if he were even remotely popular in Russia and they
thought he might be a candidate for insertion into
Putin's role.
Now Credite Suisse says that Russian accounts have not been
frozen, that the Bank had reclassified certain assets placed
under sanctions. By these actions no Russian customers have
been affected, reports
TASS
.
Meanwhile, in the world's greatest dirty money laundry, it
has been revealed that the London branch of Deutsche Bank has
issued threats to the Russian government.
Deutsche Bank AG threatened to end business with Russia's
government earlier this year in a letter sent to the state demanding
that it provide more information related to know-your-customer
records.
The lender's London branch sent the correspondence in
June saying the business relationship could be terminated if
Russia failed to submit the documents within 30 days. While
that deadline has long since elapsed, Russia never answered
the letter and the German bank hasn't followed up on the initial
request, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
Arschlöcher!
I was working only yesterday and last week as well in the
main office of Deutsche Bank here in Moscow.
Never saw no Fritzes there, only Ivans. Seemed to be business
as usual to me..
Hmmm ..When the limited hangout truth expose' is found to be
MSM vetted lies:
"Wikileaks formulated its mandate on its website as follows:
"[Wikileaks will be] an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for
untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests
are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan
Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance
to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their
own governments and corporations," CBC News – Website wants to take
whistleblowing online, January 11, 2007, emphasis added).
This mandate was confirmed by Julian Assange in a June 2010 interview
in The New Yorker:
******"Our primary targets are those highly oppressive regimes
in China, Russia and Central Eurasia, but we also expect to be of
assistance to those in the West who wish to reveal illegal or immoral
behavior in their own governments and corporations. (quoted in WikiLeaks
and Julian Paul Assange : The New Yorker, June 7, 2010, emphasis
added)*****
Assange also intimated that "exposing secrets" "could potentially
bring down many administrations that rely on concealing reality -- including
the US administration." (Ibid)
From the outset, Wikileaks' geopolitical focus on "oppressive
regimes" in Eurasia and the Middle East was "appealing" to America's
elites, i.e. it seemingly matched stated US foreign policy objectives.
Moreover, the composition of the Wikileaks team (which included
Chinese dissidents), not to mention the methodology of "exposing
secrets" of foreign governments, were in tune with the practices
of US covert operations geared towards triggering "regime change"
and fostering "color revolutions" in different parts of the World."
"The Role of the Corporate Media: The Central Role of the New
York Times
Wikileaks is not a typical alternative media initiative. The
New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel are directly involved
in the editing and selection of leaked documents. The London Economist
has also played an important role.
While the project and its editor Julian Assange reveal a commitment
and concern for truth in media, the recent Wikileaks releases of
embassy cables have been carefully "redacted" by the mainstream
media in liaison with the US government. (See Interview with David
E. Sanger, Fresh Air, PBS, December 8, 2010)
This collaboration between Wikileaks and selected mainstream
media is not fortuitous; it was part of an agreement between several
major US and European newspapers and Wikileaks' editor Julian Assange"
"In the coming month, following Eid al-Adha (August 21st), Iraq
will be on the horns of a dilemma. The Federal Court has confirmed
the results of the manual recount of the May parliamentary elections
with insignificant changes to the previously announced results.
After the holiday the Iraqi coalition that can assemble more than
165 parliamentary seats will have to choose the new ruler of the
country. Whoever is selected as Prime Minister, whether he is pro-US,
pro-Iran or even a neutral personality, will not save Iraq from
serious consequences and difficult years ahead. If the new government
implements the sanctions on Iran announced by interim PM Abadi,
internal unrest and insecurity can be expected in the country. Many
Iraqis, including some armed groups, will refuse what is perceived
as US interference, and US forces themselves will likely come under
fire. If the sanctions are not implemented, Iraq will face serious
US sanctions in turn, international companies will pull out, and
the return of the terrorist group ISIS (ISIL, Daesh) cannot be excluded.
Any decision will certainly have a major effect on the economy of
Mesopotamia, and perhaps even on its security."
"In Iraq, there is no political consensus over strategic decisions:
the unilateral decision on Iran sanctions taken by interim Prime
Minister Haidar Abadi needs parliamentary approval so that the representative
of the Iraqi people can assume responsibility for taking the country
into an unknown future. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry has rejected
Abadi's unilateral decision, and so did most Iraqi political groups
with Ministers in the government. The Iraqi Vice President Nouri
al-Maliki, Abadi's Da'wa party, and many others, rejected the Prime
Minister's action against Iran and in favour of the US. Many said
overtly that "Iraq will certainly not be part of the US plan to
hit Iran."
Before the infallible, exceptional chauvinists get too smug,
they should consider that this missile has essentially no chance
against a maneuvering (i.e. non ballistic) missile with a speed
of Mach 20 such as the "Kinzhal".
The amazing new capability owes much to an active seeker
in the missile rather than the traditional semi-active homing.
What's the drawback to an active seeker? That's right; it is
vulnerable to jamming and decoys.
Active seeking a randomly varying trajectory target is
not a guarantee of success. In addition, Russia is not some
rinky dink banana republic which cannot give the Kinzhal
active trajectory modification capability. It would be a
rather tractable upgrade. The key here is response lag.
A Mach 4+ missile engaging a Mach 10 missile does not have
the time to overcome its response lag.
Also, think of the ESSM as standing still as the Kinzhal
moves at Mach 5+. So there is a narrow cone of interception
that limits the ESSM; it has to attack the Mach 10 missile
from the front. So it must detect it early enough. The standard
design feature of Soviet and Russian anti-ship missiles
is near surface flight below radar detection altitude. The
Kinzhal could be undetected until 14 km from the target.
At Mach 10 this gives it 14000/3320 = 4.2 seconds to impact.
During this small window the ESSM has to launch and reach
top speed. That would take at least 2 seconds. In the remaining
2.2 seconds the Kinzhal can deflect its trajectory much
more easily than the ESSM can respond and thus can effectively
delay it from interception. This requires a trajectory animation
to make vivid. But the US Navy is clearly compensating for
the shock of the Kinzhal characteristics.
That's true, and it's true of all SAMs that their
weakest intercept profile is that against a crossing
target; the textbook approach is head-on. Which presupposes
the unit firing the ESSM is itself the target. If it's
anyone else, the chances of a successful intercept are
reduced, and the higher the crossing rate, the less
the probability, although frankly it would be zero from
the get-go against something so fast. So ESSM cannot
protect another unit unless it is right alongside the
firing unit, and bunching up like that would be inadvisable
for any number of reasons.
However, soft-kill measures enjoy a considerable
advantage over hard-kill, although most of the money
goes to hard-kill because it's so much more glamorous.
In most navies. Not in Russia, though, where ESM, ECM
and decoys are among the most effective and best-tested
in the world. Such systems are made specifically for
active homers, although jammers are effective against
surveillance and acquisition radars as well.
Indeed, a wall of shrapnel from some sort of
"curtain" defense system would go a long way to
shredding the incoming missile. The speed on the
incoming missile makes the shredding easier.
In that the US likely does not have a missile that
is in the same league as the Kinzhal, I wonder what
they used as a target for their testing? Or, its just
a sop to make us Americans feel exceptional?
The US does not have any hypersonic missiles.
It would not have any dummy target that would have
the characteristics of the Kinzhal. Much like all
of its vaunted ABM system tests were against purely
ballistic targets.
They probably ran the numbers in a simulator,
and said sure, we could stop it. They fly missiles
as targets all the time, missiles they have either
captured or bought through third parties. They just
fasten it to the rails on the bottom of a fighter,
turn on the seeker head, and use the plane to simulate
a missile. The plane doesn't fly as fast, of course,
but that is an artificiality that is built into
the test. They simply assume it was flying at the
correct speed, and assess whether you got your chaff
into the air in time to stop the real thing, or
whether your jammer successfully decoyed the seeker.
They can play that one out regardless how fast the
'missile' is going – if the head loses lock, it
probably would miss. In that scenario, the 'missile'
flying slower than real time actually works to its
advantage; the real thing would have less time to
reacquire you, if it has that capability, because
its run to the target is a lot shorter.
"A total of 830 gang leaders, more than 86,000 militants, including
4,500 immigrants from the Russian Federation and the CIS countries,
were eliminated,"
Excellent job! Especially in the case of the vermin from the
ex-USSR.
That seems a little arbitrary, considering that British rug-dealer
or whatever he is from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
keeps saying a little over 10,000 civilians were killed. Is
it possible Russian strikes were so accurate that more than
8 times as many militants were killed as civilians, even with
Uncle Sam helping?
Mind you, I don't think anyone really knows with very much
certainty, because some outfit calling itself the Syrian Center
for Policy Research claims there were over 470,000 killed in
Syria.
I think that there was sufficient sampling by the SAA
and Russian special forces of the various attack locations
to make these numbers credible. Russia was using precision
guided bombing so it had to identify viable targets. Satellites
are not enough. Drones can get a good sense of the militant
count if they are given enough time.
I guess the could put error bars on these numbers. But
the average citizen wouldn't know what to make of them.
Expect more White Helmet jihadi theater. Idlib is basically the
last terrorist enclave of note left in Syria. Assad apparently is
a masochist since he will stage some small and totally pointless
chemical weapons attack to give the US and its minions all sorts
of pretexts to do more harm than this chemical weapons "win" could
ever produce. The SAA now does not have to be spread thin to deal
with a thousands of kilometers long frontline so the Idlib operation
should be a mop up and not some epic battle.
It appears that HRW and other western war enabling organizations
have been running around claiming that Syria uses cluster bombs.
Yeah, if that was the case there would be vast amounts of evidence.
Like there was in Serbia in 1999 after NATzO used cluster munitions.
"The al-Majalah camp attack also referred to as the
al-Majalah massacre[1] occurred on December 17, 2009
when the United States military launched Tomahawk cruise
missiles from a ship off the Yemeni coast on a Bedouin
camp in the southern village of al-Majalah in Yemen,
killing 14 alleged Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
fighters and 41 civilians,[2][3][4][5][6] including
14 women and 21 children."
Who cares about 41 faceless innocent civilians
when crooks like Litvinenko and Skripal are made
into some sort of heavenly martyrs. Apparently,
it is OK for Mossad to off opponents of Israel,
but if Russia HYPOTHETICALLY does it, then it is
the crime of the millennium. The west is a sick
joke.
I think that train has sailed. No more embarrassingly feeble
cruise missile attacks and no-fly zones are a distant memory.
The main efforts may be focused on sabotaging reconstruction
and unleashing saturation propaganda attacks as cover during
the retreat from Syria.
Maybe, but the American hawks have not just gone to sleep,
and are always trying out a new 'red line' to see if it
will win public support. You're right that they're mostly
just going through the motions, but I get the feeling that
if they ever came up with the right message – another Iraqis-ripping-babies-out-of-incubators
story – that would resonate with the public, they'd be pretty
glad to get back in there, and it wouldn't take them long
because they haven't actually left yet. They're just marking
time and hoping for a break.
They can and will likely try an over-the-top propaganda
hit piece but a majority of Americans have drama-fatigue.
We are saturated with BS news and no longer care.
The first batch of 100 Armata T-14 tanks have been ordered. Extensive
testing of these tanks will be initiated in 2019. Given all the
testing that has been done already, this is nothing like the case
with ships. This is some sort of formality likely focusing on the
unit failure rate out in the field.
That is a significant number. So much for the theory that
the tank was to be put on ice. I suppose that perhaps 1,000
would be needed to have a strategic impact but 100 is a pretty
good start. The other related systems (the self-propelled artillery,
armored personnel carrier, etc.) may be of equal significance.
I wonder how many of those will be ordered. The self-propelled
artillery sytem in particular seemed to be a breakthrough in
capability.
The Ukrainian army will be the strongest in Europe, said the
President of the Ukraine Petro Poroshenko at a veterans' forum in
Kiev.
According to him, nobody can prevent the Ukraine from joining
NATO, and the army will be so strong, because the Ukrainians are
"fighting for peace".
"We have been completely re-engineering the entire security sector,
including the armed forces, fully to NATO standards. And the main
message that I have brought back from the NATO summit : the doors
of NATO are open for the Ukraine, no matter what Russia says. And
the key message for Russia is: you cannot stop the Euro-Atlantic
integration of our country", Poroshenko is quoted as having said
on the August 22 edition of "NewsOne".
The Ukrainian President noted that the country has to do a
lot of work to do in order to achieve such objectives .
Porky, you fat twat! Russia need say nothing whenever you open
your filthy snout!
When will these retarded fucks ever shut up. Even his vaunted
160,000 strong "reservist" army is certain to be a joke. It
will be a generation before Ukraine can get its army shit together.
That is assuming its economy does not implode. The chances of
economic failure are increasing by the hour.
You beat me to the punch, P.O.! Most of the troops look
like the same, and the Porky figure is clearly a photoshopped
cut-out. The real Porky would not be so stupid as to stand
in front of all those guns.
In that picture you can see about 160 people. How do we know
that's not all of them, just pulled in tight for the shot?
Porky has to keep broadcasting that we're-gonna-be-in-NATO
signal to reassure the Ukrainian public that he's not getting
paid for doing nothing. I am pretty sure the encouragement he
hears for Ukraine to be in NATO is all in his imagination, or
he's just making it up. Ukraine would be an enormous liability,
and I am sure Europe is only too conscious that the United States
would be the most likely to provoke an Article-5 situation using
Ukraine, but it would be Europe who would have to fight the
war.
McCain is walking talking proof that sociopaths are fast-tracked
for success. There never was a man, in my opinion, in US politics
that was more exploitative, coldly calculating and utterly ruthless
than that bag of shit.
But, Mark said it much better with style, slashing wit and evidence.
The Russian Ministry of Defence has published previously classified
documents about the Battle of Kursk on the eve of the 75th anniversary
of that huge Soviet victory over the invading Nazi forces in August
1943.
Of course, the Germans suffered a defeat at Kursk because of
the horrendous cold that is common in Western Russia during the
summer months, not to mention the imported from the USA cans of
Spam that the Red Army infantry chucked between the German armour
track idler wheels so that the tracks would jam.
Maybe the Welsh are visiting Crimea to show their support
for Ukraine! And to blow their symphonic brass instruments of
hope to encourage the prisoners there to pluck up their courage,
against the day they will at last be free.
I would just tell them that, anyway. What could be the answer
to that? Should I show my support for Kiev by staying away from
it?
Verkhovna Rada Deputy Oleg Barna of the "Blok Petro Poroshenko"
has said live on air on the Ukrainian TV channel NewsOne that the
Ukraine armed forces parade in honour of Independence Day "could
give rise to an earthquake in the Kremlin".
We have something to boast about. The parade is a measure
of the patriotism of all citizens who want to see the fighting efficiency
of our army I think that our military march and the rumble of
our armoured vehicles should cause an earthquake in the Kremlin.
Украинские спецслужбы, украинцы должны уделить внимание, возможно
через наших союзников на Кавказе, уничтожению Крымского моста.
-- Игорь Мосийчук
Perhaps with the help of our allies in the Caucusus, the
Ukraine intelligence services and Ukrainians should focus their
attention on the destruction of the Crimea Bridge
-- Ihor Mosiychuk [Ukrainian Supreme Rada Deputy]
I thought they wanted Russia to present it to them as a gift?
As an expression of good will?
If Ukraine wants a massive war so badly, then perhaps that
is what is in the cards. But if there is a third World War,
Ukraine will be utterly destroyed, razed to its foundations.
Its self-satisfied fat-cat leaders do not appear to grasp this,
because life is actually pretty good for them the way it is.
If there is no war, and things go on as they are, eventually
there will be another revolution in Ukraine and the fat oligarch
who runs it will flee for his life. If past performance is any
standard of measure, then the Ukrainians will elect another
rich oligarch, and settle down to hope that things will get
better.
The Yukies decided instead to follow Tom Rogan's recommendation
to destroy the bridge. After all, if the opinion comes from
an American, then it must be the right opinion and the best
option.
The best that Banderastan can do is engage in terrorism.
They can send car bombs or plant IEDs on the road and create
havoc. If they try a military solution, their military will
be heavily degraded.
If 'heavily degraded' means 'run through a meat grinder
and then rolled flat', then yes. The Ukrainian Army
is no match for the Russian Army, and could not even
slow it down, never mind stop it.
Jesus would not stay very long on Twitter. People would
take his tweets all too literally and he would get tired
of having to explain for the umpteenth time that he didn't
believe that a camel really could walk through the eye of
a needle.
Diaspora
, an open alternative to Facebook, has already
been around for quite a few years but as you can imagine is not
so slick. How long until other alternatives start vying for attention
(advertizing)?
FireEye is the same outfit that claimed to have busted a
ring of Russian hackers trying to gain access to American military
secrets. They could tell because the 'cyberweapon' was built
on Russian-language machines, and during working hours in Moscow.
As if Russians smart enough to build an electronic weapon that
evades detection and spreads itself to firewalled machines kept
off the internet would be stupid enough to code in Russian and
leave clues like that which pointed back straight at them. These
days nothing says 'CIA' like use of the Russian language in
contested online communication.
It's curious that we have two emerging narratives, one factual
and one offered as fact. The factual one; the USA has been involved
for decades in dominating the internet, and for generations
in spreading American influence around the world by all available
means, frequently disguised and often under the control if its
intelligence agencies. No country in the world places as high
a priority as the United States on maintaining American control
over the internet and everything that happens on it; the biggest
browsers and the giants of social media are all American. Now
the second narrative – suddenly every country which is declared
an enemy of 'American values' is attacking America with sophisticated
social-media and hacking attacks online. Every time an American
security firm 'busts' a new effort, the evidence is always stupidly
obvious, like "Americans should not vote for the Jezebel Hillary
Clinton; if you know what is good for you, you will vote for
Trump, insh' Allah".
Suddenly Iran is launching sophisticated cyber-attacks against
the USA, although they have never done it before and Iran has
only a tiny presence on the internet. Just at the moment when
Washington is looking for a reason to impose crippling sanctions
upon them and institute regime change. A little convenient,
isn't it?
Someone once said or wrote: "The past is a foreign country;
they do things differently there".
I remember how where the Chuckle Brothers came from was
just like my old neck of the woods, but now, in both these
places, heavy industry has come and gone.
It was L.P. Hartley whom I quoted above: just looked
it up.
Scores of asylum seekers who entered Russia with World Cup
fan identity documents are seeking legal help in Moscow, in an attempt
to escape war, political repression and homophobia, a refugee assistance
group has said.
Russia introduced visa-free travel for holders of Fan IDs
during the football tournament this summer, later extending the
measure until the end of 2018 on President Vladimir Putin's orders.
During the tournament, dozens of Fan ID holders reportedly tried
to enter Europe illegally using Fan IDs.
It's always tempting to think that pieces which resonate mean
that one's suspicions have some merit, but, hey, give it up for
Gilbert Doctorow's conclusions
"The family of David Dungay Jr, a 26-year-old Aboriginal killed
at Sydney's Long Bay jail in 2015, have stepped-up their campaign
for justice after footage was played at the New South Wales Coroner's
Court last month revealing the violent assault that led to his tragic
death.
The video was played in the course of an ongoing coronial inquest
into Dungay's killing. It showed that in the moments before he died
five immediate action team (IAT) prison officers stormed Dungay's
cell, restraining him and smothering him face-down on a bed. Dungay
could be heard crying out 12 times that he "couldn't breathe." (SOUND
FAMILIAR??)
The guards attacked Dungay because he allegedly refused to stop
eating biscuits. After being smothered Dungay was hauled into another
cell. Multiple officers once again forced him face-down on the bed
to prevent him from struggling.
Dungay was administered an injection of midazolam, a powerful
sedative that also produces anterograde amnesia. A few minutes later
he had stopped breathing. The officers were still holding him down."
Human6 • 11 hours ago
Much as I despise him, Orwell did make a valuable observation about
euphemisms and the English language:
****"In our time, political speech and writing are largely the
defence of the indefensible. ***
Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian
purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan,
can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal
for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed
aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist
largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness."
Spot on!!!!
Oh .and Stooges
"You better watch out, you better not cry
Better not pout, I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is comin' to town
He's making a list and checking it twice
Gonna find out who's naughty and nice
Santa Claus is comin' to town
He sees you when you're sleepin'
He knows when you're a wake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake"
"Le principal résultat de la présente vague d'accusations de
harcčlement sexuel est l'érosion des droits démocratiques élémentaires
aux États-Unis, incluant la présomption d'innocence et l'équité
procédurale, l'obligation légale de la poursuite de faire la preuve
de la culpabilité de l'accusé hors de tout doute raisonnable. Ces
"gauchistes" qui célčbrent cet assaut jouent un jeu trčs dangereux
et réactionnaire. Comme Léon Trotsky l'a déjŕ dit: "La théorie,
aussi bien que l'expérience historique, témoigne du fait que toute
restriction démocratique dans la société bourgeoise est éventuellement
dirigée contre le prolétariat, de la męme maničre que les taxes
tombent éventuellement sur les épaules du prolétariat." "
Yup!!!
However when contemplating the growth of the ME Too movement,
it's interesting to note the commensurate near deification of vapid
sluts and whores by the MSM whereby manufactured 'celebrity' women-aka
Divas-market the wholesale debasement and sexualization of women
as cnts for sale ..
Here is my take on the priorities of the deep state and its public
face – the MSM:
– stopping the deplorable rebellion
– cutting off the head of the rebellion – perceived as Trump
– reinstating the Cold War in an effort to derail Rusisa's recovery
and international leadership role
– bitch slapping China
The rest involves turning unsustainable debt into establishment
of a feudal world comprised of elites living on Mount Olympus, legions
of vassals and a vast sea of cerebrally castrated peasants to serve
as a reservoir for any imaginable exploitation.
My impression is that around the year 2000 there was supposed
to a new world order. Communism was sabotaged and brought down.
That left the imperialist capitalists in charge, like they were
before 1917. Globalism is a dirty word, since it means global
domination by the USA and its NATzO minions and the countries
that depend on the US empire. This would include, or should
include China and the vanquished Russia (ex-USSR). We saw NATzO
supplant the UN as the world police.
Instead we have Russia in a truly phoenix resurgence into
superpower status. Don't let the clowns try to argue that Russia's
economy is small. It is bigger than Germany's regardless of
the PPP correction, which fails to properly weight the whole
economy since it is fixated on consumer goods and makes a load
of implicit assumptions about which sectors are the biggest.
Militarily, Russia is a match for the USA. Difference in the
number of aircraft carriers mean bupkis. The Syria campaign
shows that the US cannot do anything to stop Russia from severely
undermining its agenda. We saw this 2013 when Russia stopped
the US planned Libya and Serbia style attack on Syria. This
was achieved through deployment of a serious number of Russian
missile cruisers and other navy assets to the Mediterranean.
The US went foaming mad and pulled its Ukraine card. (I am not
sure about the planned timeline for the coup, but I suspect
that a more "democratic" approach to regime change was probably
more desired, this would have frustrated the return of Crimea).
Since 2013, the US and its minions have lost the initiative.
All their big regime change plans are unraveling and they keep
losing the ball. Crimea was a serious loss for these clowns.
The Khuyiv regime is no prize and its day are numbered since
it is watching over an economic collapse. Now they have lost
Syria and Russia will establish a moderate Islamic belt from
Lebanon to Iran to keep the Wahabbi nutjobs at bay. There were
big plans in Washington for Central Asia to be taken over by
Saudi managed jihadis. Russia would be stuck in a religious
war quagmire on its doorstep. But that evil Putin is f*cking
up those plans on a epic scale.
The US deep excrement state is feeling the loss of its promised
dominion of the planet. There was never supposed to be any opposition
after 1991. The 21st century was supposed to be the American
century. But instead we have an economic pole shift to Asia.
The shrinkage of NATzO in the global GDP is not stopping but
accelerating. By 2050, the precious west will be less than 20%
of the world economy. It will cease being an economic Mecca
and all the developing country elites will orient themselves
to the new economic power locus. This is a nightmare for western
capitalist imperialists.
Yes, that seems the case. The strategy to promote moderate
Islam is a brilliant and humane countermove to the Western
games of manipulation of the unfortunate deranged.
For me, I would say that the '
few days of bombing
Serbia
' in 1999 ripped any last vestiges of belief
that the West was
here to help
mega violently
(deliberate bombing of the Chinese embassy) away from
everyone. Of course plenty happened in the years running
up to that event The other is when China joined the
WTO on 11/12/2001 and hit the ground running – they
were expected to behave meekly and ask the great white
men for their advice and follow it.
Upon further reflection, Trump is being promoted by the MSM
as the leader of the deplorables – an orange straw man. I support
him to the degree that he is confounding the deep state elites
and social engineering.
Anyone find any reference to "Russian trolls" in it, apart from
this: "
It found many tweets that were posted by the same bots
thought to have been used to influence the 2016 election, as well
as marketing and malware bots
"?
I see: "thought to have been used", writes the "journalist".
And on that supposition the Independent "journalist" rests his
case.
It turns out that many anti-vaccine tweets come from accounts
whose provenance is unclear
," said David Broniatowski,
an assistant professor in GW's School of Engineering and Applied
Science.
"These
might be
bots, human users or
'cyborgs' – hacked accounts that are
sometimes
taken over by bots. Although it's
impossible to know
exactly
how many tweets were generated by bots and
trolls, our findings
suggest
that
a
significant portion
of the online discourse about vaccines
may be
generated by malicious actors with a
range of hidden agendas."
Equivocation central – it's amazing what can pass as a 'study'
these days. What is even more incredible is that we have arrived
at a point in our history when the appearance of debate on a
point is suspicious, and inspires 'researchers' to 'study' the
problem to see who is behind it rather than focusing on why
the point generated debate in the first place. We have arrived
at a point where it is actually unpatriotic to disagree with
the official narrative.
Many more Americans believe vaccines are safe than the astroturfed
'debate' suggests, found the study. Google says bullshit. A
recent Zogby poll of a claimed representative sample group found
only 32% of respondents said they were 'very confident' vaccines
were safe. The same or a similar question was posed 10 years
ago, and the proportion who said they were 'not too confident
has risen 3% since then, while those who said they were 'not
at all confident' in the safety of vaccines went up by 2%. People
are not getting more confident, they're getting less confident.
There; that's my study – where's my research grant?
Once again, as soon as the mainstream media finds an argument,
it is quick to blame it on unidentified 'Russian trolls', rather
than addressing the problem. The state narrative is the law.
And the pace is quickening.
No. Just no. The time for this thing to take off, reach altitude
and then fire off its small missile variants is much longer
than any ground based LEO interceptor. The only value of this
system is that it uses cheaper rockets. But cruising at well
under 22 km (U-2 and M-55 top altitude) this flying launch point
is still within the deep of the Earth's geopotential well. Its
speed is also nothing of interest so that the initial velocity
of the rockets it carries are not big enough to matter. May
as well just launch from the ground.
This thing can only loft small sized satellites into orbit.
An example of such a satellite is Scisat-I which is still in
orbit gathering science data.
I smell ulterior motives for this platform. Aside from the
pork barrel aspect, it is a dual use weapons system. It is probably
designed to fly near the border of the "enemy" and carry long
range supersonic missiles and cruise missiles.
As a launcher of satellite interceptor, it might have
some value given its ability to launch closer to the satellite's
ground track (if that is a factor). On the other hand it
or its facilities can be taken out with a single cruise
missile. Russia's mobile anti-satellite interceptors would
seem to be much more survivable.
I suppose the idea is that a number of rockets can be
prepped and then launched at perhaps at a rate of 3-4 per
day – perhaps to replenish destroyed satellites as suggested
by the article. But such activities would suggest a general
war and we are back to its vulnerability to a modest attack.
The idea of the plane serving as a cruise missile platform
is interesting but the plane has a fairly short range and
probably is a maintenance nightmare. Wait, that makes it
perfect fit for most defense programs.
The people yelling loudest about myths can be the biggest myth
spreaders out there.
In order to make vaccines useful, they are mixed with adjuvants
which are primarily aluminum based. This creates inflammation at
the location the vaccine is administered with a needle. The macrophages
then consume the pieces of no-active virus or bacteria and the immune
system learns to make antibodies that for that strain. During future
infections the response time is vastly shorter and any mutation
is more likely to not take too long to respond to before effective
antibodies are produced.
The problem with the above is that inducing inflammation involving
aluminum and other molecules in the vaccine concoction can trigger
an auto-immune syndrome in some fraction of a percentage of the
population. Their immune systems are too hyperactive and not particularly
precise in identifying actual foreign molecules instead of similar
ones in the body. A variation on this theme is that Type I diabetics
lose their beta cells due to an auto-immune response triggered by
milk product intake.
The kooks would have everyone not use vaccines. That is not the
solution. But it is a fact that no procedure exists to tag people
with a predisposition to auto-immune reactions and have them dealt
with in a safer way. The real myth is that vaccines are universally
safe. And I have not even gotten into the whole issue of the use
of ethyl-mercury as a vaccine preservative. Both ethyl- and methyl-mercury
are potent neurotoxins.
Released in early 2018, the study's findings found methamphetamine
usage highest in Cyprus, eastern Germany, Finland and Norway. Cocaine,
on the other hand, was both on the rise and most concentrated in
cities in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.
Surprising almost no one, wastewater epidemiologists confirmed
"cocaine and psychedelic MDMA (ecstasy) levels rose sharply at weekends
in most cities, while amphetamine use appeared to be more evenly
distributed throughout the week."
The above data is lacking quantification so not as interesting
as it could have been.
Gazprom leads the world in capital expenditure (capex) on global
energy projects, by a wide, wide margin – $160 Billion to be spent
on 84 projects worldwide, including Nord Stream II and Turkish Stream.
That's nearly double the spending of its next-closest competitor,
Sinopec, at $87 Billion. Royal Dutch Shell is third, and Exxon a
distant fourth.
If you add Rosneft, that's another $50 Billion in capex for Russia.
Odd behaviour for an isolated country whose economy is in tatters.
One whose government debt is 12.6 % of GDP and declining.
Speaking of government debt, how's that parameter looking for
The Exceptional Nation? Whoa: that's exceptional. Not even much
point in expressing it as a percentage of GDP, I guess.
Just to drive the point home for any who might not have gotten
it, Russia – friendless, alone against the world, and reeling from
the bite of American sanctions – is outspending the USA nearly three
to one on global energy investments, although its debt is a tiny
fraction of America's out-of-control spending on other important
things, like its bloated defense budget.
Oh, that's right – Vladimir Putin is a tyrant and a dictator,
squeezing the country dry in neverending pursuit of self-enrichment.
I almost forgot.
Very well written Mark! It would seem I enjoy your writing most
when you are on a sass and sarcasm roll, of which this particular
piece is a great example. Bravo!
Incidentally this particular issue is something that I had completely
missed. Though it does seem to be part of the recent purge of opposition
voices in social media. A development that I fear may be just starting.
Thanks, Murdock! And I sort of missed it as well, although
I think we cannot be blamed as it seems to have gone into overnight
overdrive based on a silent admission to itself by the west
that it is not winning the propaganda war by simply shouting
"Russians!!!" every time something goes wrong for it. Like many
a fool before, it has gone to the well too many times, and the
audience for that sort of guff is dwindling. So the new game
is restrict what the people read and hear.
According to Richard Sambrook, who was the BBC's director of news from 2001, trouble
between the BBC and New Labour brewed when Britain intervened in Kosovo in 1999: Alastair
Campbell, then Blair's press secretary, accused the media of being too much in thrall to
Slobodan Milosevic's "lie machine". After 9/11, the stakes became much, much higher .
The crux came at 6.07am on 29 May 2003, when Andrew Gilligan reported on the Today
programme that, according to a source, the joint intelligence committee report on Saddam
Hussein's chemical and biological weapons capability had been "sexed up" by the government
with a claim that such weapons could be activated within 45 minutes of an order. That there
had been any deception was fiercely denied by the government and it was amid the ensuing
maelstrom that the story's source, Dr David Kelly, took his own life. Lord Hutton's
controversial and contested report into the death of the Ministry of Defence weapons expert
was deeply critical of the BBC and precipitated the resignation of both the director general,
Dyke, and the chairman, Gavyn Davies. That simultaneous toppling of the twin titans of the
BBC was an unprecedentedly traumatic event in the history of the corporation. It was made all
the more bitter by the fact that the struggle was fratricidal: Dyke's appointment as DG had
been controversial because he had been a donor to New Labour .
Sambrook continued: "I suppose in a sense what I'm saying is that Kelly was a kind of
mini-Edward Snowden story. He was saying that actually this intelligence has been completely
misused, and many people inside the tent knew it and were uncomfortable about it
"If Edward Snowden had contacted Panorama or Newsnight could they have done what the
Guardian did? No. No, they couldn't," he said.
"They might have been able to do a piece at a meta level, a headline level, but they could
not have done what the Guardian did with Snowden. I find it uncomfortable to say that, but
it's the truth. So what does that tell you about the BBC? It tells you that in the end there
is a limit to its independence – some would call that public accountability. It is a
wonderful news organisation. It does fantastic journalism every day. But there is a limit to
it. And I think in the end that was part of a miscalculation in the Kelly story. We thought
we were genuinely independent. And we weren't."
But how far is the BBC willing to take its journalism up against the establishment –
and the government, which in the end seals the BBC's fate? Other journalists I spoke to
within the BBC were much less sanguine. "The BBC is at its highest levels concerned with not
offending the establishment, not making enemies in important places. Its core purpose –
independent and impartial journalism – clashes with its survival instincts, and that
goes back to the beginning," said one senior journalist.
'Senior people at the BBC see themselves part of the establishment'
Another took an even bleaker view. "Newsgathering – covering the stuff that is
happening in the world – we do that brilliantly. The BBC newsgathering operation is
genuinely a wonder to perceive. But digging out original stories? No, sorry. Nor has it ever
done. When push comes to shove, senior people at the BBC consider themselves part of the
establishment."..
The employee called such managers, as well the departments in charge of editorial policy
and compliance, "journalism deterrent squads" who were strangling the efforts of colleagues
"like Japanese knotweed". Journalists are afraid of not being backed up by the BBC, added the
employee, when the pressure is on – and compared the corporation's approach with the
much more bullish, confident and "cheeky, risk-taking" stance of Channel 4 News. "The BBC
always buckles, always folds. You feel that as a journalist, they will abandon you; if you
take a risky story to them it's as if you are actively trying to get them into trouble. There
is an institutionalised anxiety and mistrust."
Peston said: "There is a risk-averse culture that means when the BBC wants people who can
break stories it has to look to recruit from outside. When the BBC is training young
journalists, it starts by telling them about the regulatory restraints: it starts with the
rules and says: 'Don't you dare break them'."
####
Plenty more at the link.
The simple fact is that s/he who holds the purse strings, holds the power –
regardless of how often or how rarely it is used. It casts a long shadow. And that's even
before you look at the size and scale of such organizations. Self-censorship? Certainly.
Admitting it publicly? Never.
There was no danger that I would mistake the BBC for an impartial and unbiased
investigative news source. However, Channel 4 with its 'cheeky, risk-taking stance' is no
better, as 'cheeky risk-taking' in British journalism still means backing establishment
positions when it comes to foreign policy. They might contribute to the odd cabinet
minister's sacking, but I could give a toss about Britain's internal politics, and it is only
its foreign-policy machinations I care about . And those are pretty much unvarying –
Uncle Sam, boffo. Putin, evil.
Great insight: "Browder who helped facilitate the looting before he was kicked out of Russia and the
Magnitsky Act are all part of the efforts to seize or at least contain as much of the loot as
possible and keep it from Russia"
Notable quotes:
"... Russians hold as much as one trillion in USD assets outside Russia that were stolen from Russia in the 90's and number far greater if including all of the FSU. The stimulus to the global and US economy was enormous and created asset bubbles until the great collapse in 2008. The current bubble was due to quantitative easing of central banks as the flows from Russia and FSU dried up. ..."
"... Much of this was held in tax havens and then moved to the US after cleaning via shelf companies. Trumps empire was rebuilt with Russian oligarchs/mafia money as real estate was a favorite investment for money launderers ..."
"... Browder who helped facilitate the looting before he was kicked out of Russia and the Magnitsky Act are all part of the efforts to seize or at least contain as much of the loot as possible and keep it from Russia ..."
Russians hold as much as one trillion in USD assets outside Russia that were stolen from Russia
in the 90's and number far greater if including all of the FSU. The stimulus to the global and
US economy was enormous and created asset bubbles until the great collapse in 2008. The current
bubble was due to quantitative easing of central banks as the flows from Russia and FSU dried
up.
Much of this was held in tax havens and then moved to the US after cleaning via shelf
companies. Trumps empire was rebuilt with Russian oligarchs/mafia money as real estate was a
favorite investment for money launderers
During the Ukrainian conflict Putin began an amnesty program asking oligarchs to repatriate
these assets by waiving penalties and taxes. He restarted it at the end of last year, hence the
need to expand the list of assets to be seized before they fly the coop.
Trump may know where a lot of these assets are parked. Perhaps he had been a good informant
of the FBI/CIA like his partner Felix Sater
Browder who helped facilitate the looting before he was kicked out of Russia and the
Magnitsky Act are all part of the efforts to seize or at least contain as much of the loot as
possible and keep it from Russia
For anyone still interested in the Skripal poisoning incident, Rob Slane at The Blogmire has
a new article where he draws attention to this paragraph lifted from The Daily Telegraph:
"Dr Stephen Jukes, intensive care consultant at Salisbury District Hospital, where the
Skripals were treated (and where Rowley and Sturgess were taken), has described trying 'all
our therapies' to keep Sergei and Yulia alive. Due to an astonishing coincidence, two doctors
on duty had just returned from a course at Porton Down, Britain's world-leading equivalent to
Shikhany, when the pair were brought in. Recognising what looked like symptoms of nerve-agent
poisoning, they made sure to include diazepam and atropine in their battery of treatments --
the drugs compensate for some of the effects of acetylcholinesterase blockage -- and plunged
the Skripals into an artificial coma to prevent brain damage."
https://www.theblogmire.com/are-any-mps-prepared-to-ask-the-prime-minister-why-she-appears-to-have-made-a-deeply-misleading-statement-on-26th-march/
Astonishing coincidence, that the two doctors were fresh from a training course at Porton
Down? Maybe not.
Elsewhere Slane states that the Skripals, and Julia especially, made rapid recoveries
after coming out of their induced comas, and that by the time Theresa May made her statement
in Parliament, she may have been aware (or was deliberately left uninformed) that Julia at
least was improving and nowhere remotely near pushing up daisies.
This story is BS like the rest of this hoax. Neurotoxins are not 100% treatable. There is
nerve damage and any military grade toxin such as VX would leave vast amounts of it,
regardless of intervention. So the recovery of the Julia proves she was never exposed to a
neurotoxin.
The average media consumer has never done any research on the subject of various subjects
that are relevant. They think of treatments in cartoon fashion. Take this magic pill and you
are fully cured. No long lasting effects, no lack of cures, etc. A common trope in TV and
movies is the magical antibody. You have a horde of zombies (yet more deep insight into
disease) and some vaccine is going to cure their disorder. Complete and utter rubbish.
An example to show what a failure the common perceptions are about disease is Necrotizing
Fasciitis. It is not the bacteria (strep B type) that consume the "flesh". It is a runaway
cytokine inflammation induced necrosis of cells on a massive scale. Basically it is a genetic
disorder even if bacteria trigger the disease. So how the metabolism responds to a neurotoxin
should be considered. In the case of military nerve agents, the design of the toxin is to
result in rapid death. This prevents various secondary, metabolism-associated pathologies
from manifesting themselves. But in the case of the Skripals, which are pure fiction, we
would have all of these secondary pathologies manifesting themselves.
"Moreover, the effects of nerve agents are very long lasting and cumulative (increased by
successive exposures), and survivors of nerve agent poisoning usually suffer chronic
neurological damage that can lead to continuing psychiatric effects [109]."
"... At that point, Lovinger wouldn't have known was a spy working with the FBI/DOJ on operation " Crossfire Hurricane " - the code name for the Obama administration's counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign. ..."
"... Halper - an Oxford University professor, former US government official and longtime FBI / CIA asset (who was married to the CIA deputy director's daughter at one point), received over $400,000 for a 2016 contract which Lovinger complained about. ..."
"... According to USASpending.gov, Mr. Halper was paid $411,000 by Washington Headquarters Services on Sept. 26, 2016 , for a contract that ran until this March. - Washington Times ..."
"... In total, the American citizen teaching abroad received over $1 million from contracts dated between 2012 and 2016. ..."
"... "As it turns out, one of the two contractors Mr. Lovinger explicitly warned his ONA superiors about misusing in 2016 was none other than Mr. Halper ," wrote Bigley in the ethics complaint, which referred to the contracts as " cronyism and corruption ." ..."
"... " Nobody in the office seemed to know what Halper was doing for his money ," said Bigley. "Adam said Jim Baker, the director, kept Halper's contracts very close to the vest. And nobody seemed to have any idea what he was doing at the time. He subcontracted out a good chunk of it to other academics. He would compile them all and then collect the balance as his fee as a middleman . That was very unusual." ..."
"... A longtime CIA and FBI asset who once reportedly ran a spy-operation on the Jimmy Carter administration, Halper was enlisted by the FBI to spy on several Trump campaign aides during the 2016 U.S. election, including Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. ..."
"... The unassuming university professor approached Page during an election-themed conference at Cambridge on July 11, 2016, six weeks after the September 26 DoD award start date. The two would stay in contact for the next 14 months, frequently meeting and exchanging emails . ..."
"... And as the Daily Caller reported, Halper used a decades-old association with Paul Manafort to break the ice with Page. ..."
"... In the email to Page, Halper asks what his plans are post-election, possibly probing for more information. " It seems attention has shifted a bit from the 'collusion' investigation to the ' contretempts' [sic] within the White House and, how--or if--Mr. Scaramucci will be accommodated there," Halper wrote. ..."
A Pentagon whistleblower was stripped of his security clearance and demoted after complaining about questionable government contracts
with both FBI informant spy Stefan Halper and a company headed by Chelsea Clinton's "best friend" for whom then-Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton arranged meetings, reports the
Washington
Times .
Adam Lovinger, a Trump supporter and 12-year veteran of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA), filed a whistleblower reprisal
complaint with the Defense Department's inspector general in May against ONA boss James Baker - who hired Halper, 73, to "conduct
foreign relations" and kept the details of the spy's contracts "close to the vest." Baker was appointed chief of the ONA in 2015
by Obama Defense Secretary, Ashton Carter.
At that point, Lovinger wouldn't have known was a spy working with the FBI/DOJ on operation "
Crossfire Hurricane " - the code name for the Obama administration's counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign.
In an internal October 2016 email to higher-ups, Mr. Lovinger wrote of " the moral hazard associated with the Washington Headquarters
Services contracting with Stefan Halper ," the complaint said. It said Mr. Baker hired Mr. Halper to "conduct foreign relations,"
a job that should be confined to government officials.
...
In the fall of 2016, as the election loomed, Mr. Lovinger sent emails to Mr. Baker and other officials at the Office of Net
Assessment complaining about the entire outside contracting process. He also said the office failed to write papers on long-term
threats presented by radical Islam, China and Iran .
And in September 2016, Lovinger sent an email directly to
Baker summing up the perceived problems, which
reads in part:
"Some of our contractors distribute to others their ONA work for personal and professional self-promotion," wrote Lovinger.
"Another part is the growing narrative that ONA's most high-profile contractors are known for getting paid a lot to do rather
peripheral work ."
"On the issue of pay, our contractors boast about how much they get paid from ONA . Such boasting, of course, generates jealously
among those outside the club, and particularly from those who have tried to secure ONA contracts unsuccessfully."
"On the issue of quality, more than once I have heard our contractor studies labeled 'derivative,' 'college-level' and based
heavily on secondary sources . One of our contractor studies was literally cut and pasted from a World Bank report that I just
happened to have read the week before reading the contractor study itself. Even the font was the same."
Halper - an Oxford University professor, former US government official and longtime FBI / CIA asset (who was married to the CIA
deputy director's daughter at one point),
received over $400,000 for a 2016 contract which Lovinger complained about.
According to USASpending.gov, Mr. Halper was paid $411,000 by Washington Headquarters Services on Sept. 26, 2016 , for a contract
that ran until this March. -
Washington Times
In total, the American citizen teaching abroad received over
$1 million from contracts dated between 2012 and 2016.
Lovinger's attorney, Sean M. Bigley, filed the second of four complaints on July 18 with the Pentagon's senior ethics official,
claiming that Lovinger's bosses punished him on May 1, 2017 by abusing the security clearance process to yank his credentials and
relegate him to clerical chores. Lovinger's complaint also names the Washington Headquarters Services, a support agency within the
Pentagon that awarded the Halper contracts.
"As it turns out, one of the two contractors Mr. Lovinger explicitly warned his ONA superiors about misusing in 2016 was none
other than Mr. Halper ," wrote Bigley in the ethics complaint, which referred to the contracts as " cronyism and corruption ."
" Nobody in the office seemed to know what Halper was doing for his money ," said Bigley. "Adam said Jim Baker, the director,
kept Halper's contracts very close to the vest. And nobody seemed to have any idea what he was doing at the time. He subcontracted
out a good chunk of it to other academics. He would compile them all and then collect the balance as his fee as a middleman . That
was very unusual."
A longtime CIA and FBI asset who once reportedly
ran a spy-operation on the Jimmy Carter administration, Halper was enlisted by the FBI to spy on several Trump campaign aides
during the 2016 U.S. election, including Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.
Halper's $411,575 award came three days after a September 23
Yahoo! News article by Michael Isikoff about Trump aide Carter Page, which used information fed to Isikoff by "Steele dossier"
creator Christopher Steele . The FBI would use the Yahoo! article along with the largely unverified dossier as
supporting evidence in an FISA warrant application for Page.
The unassuming university professor approached Page during an election-themed conference at Cambridge on July 11, 2016, six weeks
after the September 26 DoD award start date. The two would stay in contact for the next 14 months,
frequently meeting and exchanging
emails .
He said that he first encountered the informant during a conference in mid-July of 2016 and that they stayed in touch. The
two later met several times in the Washington area. Mr. Page said their interactions were benign. -
New York
Times
And as the Daily Caller reported, Halper used a decades-old association with Paul Manafort to break the ice with Page.
Page noted that in their first conversation at Cambridge, Halper said he was longtime friends with then-campaign chairman Paul
Manafort . A person close to Manafort told TheDCNF that Manafort has not seen Halper since the Gerald Ford administration . Manafort
and Page are accused in the Steele dossier of having worked together on the campaign's collusion conspiracy, but both men say
they have never met. -
Daily Caller
Halper would continue to spy on Page after the election. Two days after the second installment of Halper's 2016 DoD contract,
On July 28, he emailed Page with what the Trump campaign aide describes as a "cordial" communication, which did not seem suspicious
to him at the time.
In the email to Page, Halper asks what his plans are post-election, possibly probing for more information. " It seems attention
has shifted a bit from the 'collusion' investigation to the ' contretempts' [sic] within the White House and, how--or if--Mr. Scaramucci
will be accommodated there," Halper wrote.
Clinton connection
The other complaint lodged by Lovinger concerns a string of contracts totaling $11 million to Long Term Strategy Group - a D.C.
consulting firm headed by self-described "best friend" of Chelseal Clinton, Jacqueline Newmyer Deal.
In October, the
Washington Free Beacon reported that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arranged meetings in 2009 between Deal and Pentagon
officials to discuss contracts - to which Deal says no award "resulted directly or indirectly from the actions or influence of Secretary
Clinton ."
According to one 2009 email, Clinton said she recommended Deal to Michele Flournoy, the newly installed undersecretary of defense
for policy, who was seeking young women to mentor.
Deal, a specialist in China affairs who worked at the White House as a press aide for First Lady Clinton in the 1990s, wrote
back to Clinton saying she would meet Flournoy on May 5, 2009, and stated "thank you very much for making this happen."
Later that month, Deal thanked Clinton for "all your encouragement and help with DoD, " shorthand for the Defense Department.
-
Free Beacon
In a statement, Deal said: "Jacqueline Deal and the Long Term Strategy Group (LTSG) are justifiably proud of their collaboration
with the US Department of Defense across multiple administrations over the last two decades, beginning under the administration of
President George W. Bush. LTSG's work has consistently earned the highest respect and confidence of its clientele in government and
has won LTSG a reputation for producing research and analysis of exceptional quality."
MAGNITSKIY MOVIE. An authorised
version is available on Vimeo here. I urge you to watch it: not only
does it complete destroy Browder's case, it is an interesting detective process as the
film-maker gradually perceives the inconsistencies and manipulations. Browder's story has been
extremely important at setting up the anti-Russia dancing mania : if it's a lie, then what?
'Bill Browder Should Be in Jail' Says Philip Giraldi, Widely Respected Pundit and Retired
CIA Officer The Browder story keeps getting more and more airplay, and it is not
complimentary to him. Patrick Fleming 10 min ago | 29
13 Giraldi, one of
the most popular writers on the conservative Unz.com , is one of the superstars of the alt-media landscape. He has
been outspoken about the pernicious effects of Israel and wealthy pro-Israeli American Jews on
American politics. You can see many of his articles on RI here .
This was from a radio interview with Lee Stranahan, formerly of Breitbart, now with Sputnik,
the Russian state-owned news agency.
You can listen to the whole thing here. Key quotes below:
"He's basically been the one who appears on the networks, appears before Congress," "
"He is someone that they've [US officials] decided has to be the spokesperson in terms of
what's going on in Russia, and yet he has a hidden agenda as a potential criminal."
"I think the story is growing; I'm seeing more and more references to Browder in a
negative way."
"The problem is that we have to get this at a level where Browder is doing his damage, and
that's in the mainstream media, places like The New York Times, and also to have some people
in Congress begin to speak up and say, 'Hey, what about the Magnitsky Act and everything that
we did to provoke a crisis with Russia based on what Browder was telling us?'".
"Once you understand that, you realize that Browder, if anything, should be in jail."
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Apologies if the above was posted before. But that is nice smackdown to the morons running the UK and their inane propaganda
about how the World Cup was like the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
No high ranking UK officials attended the World Cup as you know. But they had quite the entourage to the 1936 Olympics. Sick,
hypocrite f*cks.
USA say that Russia did poison the Skripals in Salisbury.
"The US blamed the attack on Vladimir Putin and said they would be issuing fresh sanctions
in response to the deadly attack.
The state department says Wednesday the sanctions will be imposed on Russia because it
used a chemical weapon in violation of international law.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said: "The United States determined under the
Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act) that
the government of the Russian Federation has used chemical or biological weapons in violation
of international law, or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own
nationals."
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by Novichok, a
military-grade nerve agent, in the British town of Salisbury in March."
What can I say – perhaps now Russia will batten down the hatches and stop all
this pandering to western partners.
No need to batten down the hatches. Just ignore the yapping NATzO chihuahuas. We have not
even had a proper trial to determine guilt. The US leadership is not some ultimate judicial
body. They can make as many political judgements as they want, but that will do Jack to
Russia.
At this point all the hysterical US-driven sanctions against Russia are totally self
defeating. The monkeys in Washington clearly think that Russia is a banana republic and that
it needs to have access to foreign money and technology to function. They are cleared fucked
in the head.
It would reportedly include more drastic measures, such as downgrading diplomatic
relations, banning the Russian airline Aeroflot from flying to the US and cutting off nearly
all exports and imports.
So, are we talking about RD-180 rocket engines and Americans traveling to the ISS on
Russian rockets? Are we talking about titanium fabrications that Boeing needs for its
aircraft manufacturing?
This Russian hysteria is masking something, something big. My one-track mind suggests
fixated on the idea of an approaching economic collapse and subsequent imposition of martial
law and/or massive levels of censorship; all to be blamed on Russia. The increasingly
frenetic pace of Russian hysteria suggests a near-term sh!t-storm is on the way.
The Russian hysteria is scary as so many citizens over there believe in the Russiagate
nonsense and have been manipulated to feel they have been attacked.
It means therefore that conditions have been created whereby the USA has the support to
attack back.
Putin should never have gone to Helsinki as that escalated the madness.
Trump is emasculated just as obama was and has no power to do anything to block this
pathway to outright confrontation
The Europeans will sit by and watch – Russia has no allies there.,
Europe will stay on the porch and let the big boys duke it out. In the red corner, we have
Vlad – the Terminator. In the other corner, we have Donald – the Orange Haystack.
In another corner we have Bruce – the Red Dragon.
Haystack lumbers out of his corner before the bell rings, makes some nasty gestures and
starts his victory dance. The Terminator stands in his corner, muscular arms folded across
his chest with a wry smile across his face. The Red Dragon is closely studying Haystack with
an inscrutable stare. Haystack exhausts himself and collapses mid-ring. The Terminator and
Red Dragon leave the arena as the Haystack fans seek their autographs. Something like
that.
Perhaps a boxed piano will fall from a ninth-floor balcony and crush Nauert to a rectangular
pizza. I'd pay to see that.
Define 'pandering'. Can you name some concessions the United States has wrung from Russia
in the last two years? I seem to recall the British investigators said there was no proof
that anyone in the Russian government was involved – they simply speculated that
because Novichok could only be made in a state facility, there must be state involvement.
Does the USA have some evidence that the British have not seen yet? Perhaps they found it in
the same place they filed their satellite photography of the Buk missile taking out MH17.
You mean the same Russia that is one of only 7 nation states to have verifiably dismantled
and destroyed their chemical weapon stockpiles as ratified by the OPCW and in compliance to
the CWC? That Russia?
I can't wait for this determination to be made public along with the coinciding evidence
as released by an official judiciary body wielding the requisite jurisdiction and authority
under official auspices of the UN. That's what is meant by determined right? Pretty
unambiguous terminology there.
This entire charade has gone so far beyond farce it's not even comical anymore, just
depressing.
That's an interesting point, because a likely consequence of the continued hysterical
hostility from the west will be opacity where there once was transparency; ie: if the United
States wants to know something about Russian unconventional weapons programs, it will have to
go to extensive and complicated labour to insert a deep-cover spy or persuade an asset that
it can trust to find out the information, never knowing if it is being fed disinformation
deliberately by a double agent, where once it could simply have asked and been invited to
verify the truth itself. International organizations controlled by Washington will be less
and less likely to have a free pass to come in and poke about as they see fit.
In a rare interview, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh talks about his
illustrious career and how he believes the official versions of some the biggest news stories
of our time just don't add up
Here's quite a good collection of references and commentary on the Skripal 'poisoning'. Every
time I read over one of these summaries – and I by no means read this one over in
detail, just skimmed it – some new incongruity jumps out that sailed right past me on
the initial run-through. In this instance, Nick Bailey. The Skripals were supposedly poisoned
by Novichok daubed on the doorknob of their front door, and Bailey was supposedly affected by
the same vector. Yet the Skripals lived it up for about four hours before they showed any
symptoms, while Bailey was affected almost immediately.
Curious thing also is that police officers were initially posted outside the front door
– there were quite a few photos of the two women police officers (one chubby, the other
not so chubby) standing near the driveway – for some time without being affected by any
fumes, until the doorknob story became prominent.
One of the more sinister aspects of the "poisoning" is that all major evidence – the
Zizzi restaurant table, the park bench, the pet animals that starved – has been or is
being destroyed by the British authorities. Even Dawn Sturgess was cremated without anything
in the press about whether her body had been autopsied. If someone blames somebody else for a
murder or some other serious crime, and then covers up or gets rid of important evidence,
what does such behaviour suggest?
Too true, blue. Although the police officers might have stood there until the clap of doom
and not been affected if the agent was present as a gel, and slathered on the doorknob. But
that story always sounded like a crock, because both of them likely would not have touched
the doorknob on the way out, probably only one of them, and the supposed Russian assassins
would not have known if it might have been Yulia. Good assassination plots, as we have been
told the Russians have practiced for decades, ensure that the target is taken out. They're
not particularly squeamish about collateral damage, but in this instance only Yulia might
have succumbed. But assuming it was a gel and it was on the doorknob, much of it might be
assumed to have been removed by the target on the way out, and still Bailey was overcome in
less than half the time of the Skripals, both of whom appear to have been simultaneously
afflicted around four hours after leaving the house.
It's kind of comical, the stubborn and progressive destruction of evidence by the British
authorities, the buying of Skripal's and Bailey's houses at taxpayers' expense, and so on
– it's as if after a brief blink of bewilderment that the official narrative is not
being accepted at face value, the British government is trying to get a do-over.
My God, what has Salisbury done to the Dark Lord? When will his fearful shadow be lifted from
this unhappy city? There has been an explosion in a 'military factory' (not sure what that
means) in Salisbury which has killed at least one person. The MSM has not yet announced the
Russian connection but Luke Harding/The Guardian/The Independent/the Foreign Office/the
entire US State Department/ are, no doubt, manufacturing one as we speak.
Maybe the Russian agents who poisoned the Skripals by smearing a non-lethal fatal nerve
agent on a door handle after pumping it through a car ventilation system after sneaking it
into Yulia's luggage and who then high-tailed it back to Moscow but not before decanting some
of it into a gift-wrapped bottle which they left in a local park where it could be recovered
in a pristine state after four months and used to poison a couple of dumpster-foragers, made
a hitherto unknown deviation from the Kremlin's master plan and hid the remaining nerve agent
in a factory along with a time-controlled detonator so all evidence of their evil doing was
destroyed.
Now the authorities will be telling people that Novichok is highly inflammable and children
should not be allowed to play with Novichok and matches or cigarette lighters.
The Russians engineered it to be that way – a fatal nerve agent that seldom kills,
persistent for months if wrapped in cellophane, explosive and flammable, eats dreams and
makes you lose your job.
In 2015, Bill Browder published Red Notice – purportedly a true story about his
experience in Russia between 1996 and 2005. Upon closer scrutiny however, his story doesn't
add up and demonstrably fails to stand up in a court of law. Nonetheless, on the dubious
strength of that story, Browder has been able to lobby the U.S. Congress to pass the
Magnitsky Act in 2012 which needlessly damaged the relations between the U.S. and Russia.
Where he failed in courts of law, however, his campaign of relentless demonization of Russia
and of Vladimir Putin has been successful in the court of public opinion in the West. As
humanity finds itself on the precipice of yet another great war, what we need are bridges of
mutual understanding and constructive engagement, not demonization.
" and so Putin immediately issued orders for him to be sadistically murdered "
What an amazing consistency in supporting the Browder/Steele line "Putin did it." Which is
understandable, considering the efforts and investment made into the MSM memes. You made a
very strong impression that the presstituting MSM is your main source of information.
Here are some excerpts from the honest sources.
"Poisoned Russian spy was close to Christopher Steele consultant:"
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/poisoned-russian-spy-close-steele-consultant-report-article-1.3862516
"Jonathan Winer was not only a point man for the Steele "dossier" at the State Department in
2016 (and Steele dossiers of yore), he was also a father of the Magnitsky Act in 2012. Yes,
longtime Senate staffer Winer is the "old friend" Browder credits with envisioning the
legislative strategy that culminated in passage of the law. (More recently, Winer is serving
as Browder's bulldog-lawyer -- story here.)
"Cardin knew there were problems with Browder's story about Magnitsky's death and yet brought
him into Congress to testify to secure the vote. That's suborning perjury:" https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-04/magnitsky-trio-pushes-war-russia-new-sanctions
"Litvinenko's circle also included Boris Berezovsky, Alexander Goldfarb, Vyacheslav
Zharko, and Akhmed Zakayev, most of whom have received asylum in the U.K. In the 1990s, Boris
Berezovsky worked with Mikhail Khodorkovsky and George Soros' International Science
Foundation which was headed by Alexander Goldfarb for almost ten years. He was also involved
in money laundering millions of dollars through the Bank of New York and the Republic
Bank of New York which was owned by Bill Browder's now deceased partner, Edmond
Safra:" https://jimmysllama.com/2018/05/07/11191/
– Is not interesting, how so many Browder's connections met an untimely death yet
Browder the Scoundrel is well supported and protected by the "deciders." -- See the fate of a
DOCUMENTARY about Browder, Magnitsky, and a bloody trail of the dead former employees of
Browder whom he used for his very profitable if criminal enterprise.
Alexander Perepelichny" was the key witness who could potentially destroy the scam with
highest political stakes on Magnitsky dossier. As Browder responds with "I do not recall" and
"I do not know" on any substantial inquiry in the court, the US judiciary could be very
interested in hearing Perepelichny. This menace to Magnitsky Act was eliminated one week
before the bill passed the US House: on Nov 10, 2012 Alexander Perepelichny was found dead
outside his mansion in London."
Moss also told the Guardian that Manigault Newman's use of a recording device presented
counterintelligence risks. "All it takes is one foreign agency hacking [the recording device],
and setting it to passive record mode," said Moss. The result would mean all conversations, not
just those Manigault Newman chose to record, would be "accessible to foreign entities".
This concern was shared by Kayyem. "There might be the perception, particularly by our
enemies, that the entire White House might be compromised, and that's kind of scary," she said,
adding: "The audience isn't just us and Omarosa and Trump. It's the Chinese and the
Russians."
Is recording in the Situation Room a crime?
Moss said, however, that just because the conversation occurred in the Situation Room, which
is actually a secured series of connected rooms, there is "no real obvious criminal liability".
All staffers entering the area must lock away their cell phones and other insecure electronic
devices. But he noted the violation would likely be enough to deny Manigault Newman a security
clearance if she ever wishes to work for the federal government in the future.
What has
the White House said?
"The very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device into the White House Situation
Room shows a blatant disregard for our national security," said White House press secretary
Sarah Sanders. She added: "Then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack
of character and integrity of this disgruntled former White House employee."
Has anybody in comments noted how far we have swung from absence of actual PROOF Russia did
the Skripal "poisonings" (or even Litvenenko for that matter?!) to what seems like complete
acceptance of "guilt," even as major international bodies (OPCW, etc., even Porton Down) have
not been able to tie Russia/Putin to these alleged acts of terror or isolate the "novichoks"
genre of nerve agent ? The Red Queen triumphs.
Does mere accusation now stand for "truth" in this inmates-running-the-asylum charade USA
is putting on? If the "big lie" (Lenin, BTW not Goebbels, originally) works this easily, we
are indeed down the chute & over the brink. Orwell is spinning in his grave (gnashing his
teeth).
"... Therefore, we have to deal with facts in the matter. Among the facts, I'd like to point out to the behavior of the investigating party, i.e. the British authorities. "We have proof but won't show them to you, because they are secret" attitude; bypassing normal investigative and judicial channels; unreasonable demands towards Russia they knew full well won't be met and total refusal to cooperate on realistic terms – we saw it for the first time in the Litvinenko affaire. ..."
All I was pointing out was that there were many reasons why Litvinenko was a target
for unfriendly Russian actions
I am pretty sure Litvinenko wasn't particularly loved in Russia: he was a traitor, after
all, and, judging by his actions, a pretty miserable human being. However, building a case on
motive alone is not possible, if for no other reason than because a motive is by definition
subjective. You could analyze until your face turns blue how Putin felt about Litvinenko's
accusations but you'd never come to any firm conclusion, for only Putin can possibly know
that.
Therefore, we have to deal with facts in the matter. Among the facts, I'd like to
point out to the behavior of the investigating party, i.e. the British authorities. "We have
proof but won't show them to you, because they are secret" attitude; bypassing normal
investigative and judicial channels; unreasonable demands towards Russia they knew full well
won't be met and total refusal to cooperate on realistic terms – we saw it for the
first time in the Litvinenko affaire.
The same patters was repeated exactly in the Skripal case. This tells you who is the
"highly likely" culprit, doesn't it? These two scenarios are so much alike, the have the same
author – not necessarily the same person, but definitely the same office.
Viktoria Skripal spoke to her cousin Julia by phone twice in July: the first time on the
4th, when the two argued and Julia blamed Viktoria for the publicity over the poisoning; the
second time towards the end of the month, when Julia apologised to Viktoria after getting
Internet access and reading what had been reported in the media. In one of these phone calls,
Julia revealed her father was still using a breathing tube.
"... The area of contest is now the rest of the world. America will try to convince the rest of the world to join its sanctions against Russia. Russia will try to convince them not to. ..."
Hello,
All of this revolves around the imminent fact that the "honest" British spooks are about to
get exposed when Trump declassifies the hoax documents about Russian interference (lol) in
elections.
I don't understand why Russian economists believe they have to belong to the corrupt,
bankrupt us monopoly dollar system? stop all exports of gas, oil to the europe cowards, and
any other country that continues to steal the wealth of the Russian resources from its
people. A very sick bunch in DC and London.
Turn all of these resources inward to allow the Russian people to prosper, with energy
infrastructure, farming techniques with heated greenhouses, etc... hey you have a lot of real
farmers in Africa that could spawn new agricultural developments in the east Russian
territory, about 15,000 farmers, unbelievable opportunity and resources for Russia to help
people from a racially, evil to the core, government in Africa. Boycott all of Africa. There
are real people getting killed there, no fake news .
This is exactly how the West operates ,especially the US and UK. There you have it , right
out in open for everyone to see.They have been doing this for a long time , especially since
the CIA , part of the shadow government , took control of the Western world. Now it is no
longer covert ,it is right in our face. And why they had JFK assassinated ,because he saw
what he was up against . Kennedy wanted to smash these covert and corrupted organizations
into pieces.
Colluding with West for so many years to put down smaller countries is certainly not a
quality of an angelic government and the country as Russia has been sometimes painted. Why do
we forget tens of millions of Russians abused just across Russian borders, never mentioned by
the government that seems only to care about wellbeing of the criminal oligarchs? Why do we
forget the collusion against Serbian people that lasted for approximately 20 years and led to
the destruction of that small nation? Why do we forget Russian support to numerous UN (
Western) sanctions against many nations around the world? Why do we forget betrayal of Cuba
in such devious way by Mr. Putin? Why such contempt towards own nation and its heroes by
honouring a Nazi-like figure like Netanyahu on the Victory Parade? Why strangulation of N.
Korea? Why ,why.. I actually tend to believe that God is finally acting upon many curses cast
on Russian government and is using the US as his chosen tool. Quite a justice.
I was excoriated and accused of being a liar on RI over the weekend because I quoted this
article, originally published in Pravda. The point was made by the one who did this that no
Russian or Russian sympathizer (such as the author of this article would want additional
sanctions on Russia.
The comparison was that a small amounts of certain types of medicine can be beneficial,
but in large doses can be fatal. The gist of the comment was that a small amount of sanctions
can be good to bring more independence to the Russian economy, but additional sanctions would
be harmful.
Well, now RI itself publishes the article from the idiot Hinchey in asking for more and
more sanctions because of how wonderful they will be for Russia.
The area of contest is now the rest of the world. America will try to convince the
rest of the world to join its sanctions against Russia. Russia will try to convince them not
to.
This is an interesting analysis shedding some light on how the US intelligence services have gone rogue...
Notable quotes:
"... Most recently, British "special services," which are a sort of Mini-Me to the to the Dr. Evil that is the US intelligence apparatus, saw it fit to interfere with one of their own spies, Sergei Skripal, a double agent whom they sprung from a Russian jail in a spy swap. They poisoned him using an exotic chemical and then tried to pin the blame on Russia based on no evidence. ..."
"... the Americans are doing their best to break the unwritten rule against dragging spies through the courts, but their best is nowhere near good enough. ..."
"... That said, there is no reason to believe that the Russian spies couldn't have hacked into the DNC mail server. It was probably running Microsoft Windows, and that operating system has more holes in it than a building in downtown Raqqa, Syria after the Americans got done bombing that city to rubble, lots of civilians included. When questioned about this alleged hacking by Fox News, Putin (who had worked as a spy in his previous career) had trouble keeping a straight face and clearly enjoyed the moment. ..."
"... He pointed out that the hacked/leaked emails showed a clear pattern of wrongdoing: DNC officials conspired to steal the electoral victory in the Democratic Primary from Bernie Sanders, and after this information had been leaked they were forced to resign. If the Russian hack did happen, then it was the Russians working to save American democracy from itself. So, where's the gratitude? Where's the love? Oh, and why are the DNC perps not in jail? ..."
"... The logic of US officials may be hard to follow, but only if we adhere to the traditional definitions of espionage and counterespionage -- "intelligence" in US parlance -- which is to provide validated information for the purpose of making informed decisions on best ways of defending the country. But it all makes perfect sense if we disabuse ourselves of such quaint notions and accept the reality of what we can actually observe: the purpose of US "intelligence" is not to come up with or to work with facts but to simply "make shit up." ..."
"... The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its allies and pocket as much of it as possible while pretending to defend it from phantom aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on ineffective and overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they are specially organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and so on. ..."
"... "What sort of idiot are you to ask me such a stupid question? Of course they are lying! They were caught lying more than once, and therefore they can never be trusted again. In order to claim that they are not currently lying, you have to determine when it was that they stopped lying, and that they haven't lied since. And that, based on the information that is available, is an impossible task." ..."
"... "The US intelligence agencies made an outrageous claim: that I colluded with Russia to rig the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The burden of proof is on them. They are yet to prove their case in a court of law, which is the only place where the matter can legitimately be settled, if it can be settled at all. Until that happens, we must treat their claim as conspiracy theory, not as fact." ..."
"... But no such reality-based, down-to-earth dialogue seems possible. All that we hear are fake answers to fake questions, and the outcome is a series of faulty decisions. Based on fake intelligence, the US has spent almost all of this century embroiled in very expensive and ultimately futile conflicts. ..."
"... Thanks to their efforts, Iran, Iraq and Syria have now formed a continuous crescent of religiously and geopolitically aligned states friendly toward Russia while in Afghanistan the Taliban is resurgent and battling ISIS -- an organization that came together thanks to American efforts in Iraq and Syria. ..."
"... Another hypothesis, and a far more plausible one, is that the US intelligence community has been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile conflicts -- the largest single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your own country, for any conceivable definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you are at it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better than "a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be perpetual liars. ..."
In today's United States, the term "espionage" doesn't get too much
use outside of some specific contexts. There is still sporadic talk of industrial espionage,
but with regard to Americans' own efforts to understand the world beyond their borders, they
prefer the term "intelligence." This may be an intelligent choice, or not, depending on how you
look at things.
First of all, US "intelligence" is only vaguely related to the game of espionage as it has
been traditionally played, and as it is still being played by countries such as Russia and
China. Espionage involves collecting and validating strategically vital information and
conveying it to just the pertinent decision-makers on your side while keeping the fact that you
are collecting and validating it hidden from everyone else.
In eras past, a spy, if discovered, would try to bite down on a cyanide capsule; these days
torture is considered ungentlemanly, and spies that get caught patiently wait to be exchanged
in a spy swap. An unwritten, commonsense rule about spy swaps is that they are done quietly and
that those released are never interfered with again because doing so would complicate
negotiating future spy swaps.
In recent years, the US intelligence agencies have decided that torturing prisoners is a
good idea, but they have mostly been torturing innocent bystanders, not professional spies,
sometimes forcing them to invent things, such as "Al Qaeda." There was no such thing before US
intelligence popularized it as a brand among Islamic terrorists.
Most recently, British "special services," which are a sort of Mini-Me to the to the Dr.
Evil that is the US intelligence apparatus, saw it fit to interfere with one of their own
spies, Sergei Skripal, a double agent whom they sprung from a Russian jail in a spy swap. They
poisoned him using an exotic chemical and then tried to pin the blame on Russia based on no
evidence.
There are unlikely to be any more British spy swaps with Russia, and British spies working
in Russia should probably be issued good old-fashioned cyanide capsules (since that supposedly
super-powerful Novichok stuff the British keep at their "secret" lab in Porton Down doesn't
work right and is only fatal 20% of the time).
There is another unwritten, commonsense rule about spying in general: whatever happens, it
needs to be kept out of the courts, because the discovery process of any trial would force the
prosecution to divulge sources and methods, making them part of the public record. An
alternative is to hold secret tribunals, but since these cannot be independently verified to be
following due process and rules of evidence, they don't add much value.
A different standard applies to traitors; here, sending them through the courts is
acceptable and serves a high moral purpose, since here the source is the person on trial and
the method -- treason -- can be divulged without harm. But this logic does not apply to proper,
professional spies who are simply doing their jobs, even if they turn out to be double agents.
In fact, when counterintelligence discovers a spy, the professional thing to do is to try to
recruit him as a double agent or, failing that, to try to use the spy as a channel for
injecting disinformation.
Americans have been doing their best to break this rule. Recently, special counsel Robert
Mueller indicted a dozen Russian operatives working in Russia for hacking into the DNC mail
server and sending the emails to Wikileaks. Meanwhile, said server is nowhere to be found (it's
been misplaced) while the time stamps on the files that were published on Wikileaks show that
they were obtained by copying to a thumb drive rather than sending them over the internet.
Thus, this was a leak, not a hack, and couldn't have been done by anyone working remotely from
Russia.
Furthermore, it is an exercise in futility for a US official to indict Russian citizens in
Russia. They will never stand trial in a US court because of the following clause in the
Russian Constitution: "61.1 A citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported out of
Russia or extradited to another state."
Mueller may summon a panel of constitutional scholars to interpret this sentence, or he can
just read it and weep. Yes, the Americans are doing their best to break the unwritten rule
against dragging spies through the courts, but their best is nowhere near good enough.
That said, there is no reason to believe that the Russian spies couldn't have hacked
into the DNC mail server. It was probably running Microsoft Windows, and that operating system
has more holes in it than a building in downtown Raqqa, Syria after the Americans got done
bombing that city to rubble, lots of civilians included. When questioned about this alleged
hacking by Fox News, Putin (who had worked as a spy in his previous career) had trouble keeping
a straight face and clearly enjoyed the moment.
He pointed out that the hacked/leaked emails showed a clear pattern of wrongdoing: DNC
officials conspired to steal the electoral victory in the Democratic Primary from Bernie
Sanders, and after this information had been leaked they were forced to resign. If the Russian
hack did happen, then it was the Russians working to save American democracy from itself. So,
where's the gratitude? Where's the love? Oh, and why are the DNC perps not in jail?
Since there exists an agreement between the US and Russia to cooperate on criminal
investigations, Putin offered to question the spies indicted by Mueller. He even offered to
have Mueller sit in on the proceedings. But in return he wanted to question US officials who
may have aided and abetted a convicted felon by the name of William Browder, who is due to
begin serving a nine-year sentence in Russia any time now and who, by the way, donated copious
amounts of his ill-gotten money to the Hillary Clinton election campaign.
In response, the US Senate passed a resolution to forbid Russians from questioning US
officials. And instead of issuing a valid request to have the twelve Russian spies interviewed,
at least one US official made the startlingly inane request to have them come to the US
instead. Again, which part of 61.1 don't they understand?
The logic of US officials may be hard to follow, but only if we adhere to the
traditional definitions of espionage and counterespionage -- "intelligence" in US parlance --
which is to provide validated information for the purpose of making informed decisions on best
ways of defending the country. But it all makes perfect sense if we disabuse ourselves of such
quaint notions and accept the reality of what we can actually observe: the purpose of US
"intelligence" is not to come up with or to work with facts but to simply "make shit
up."
The "intelligence" the US intelligence agencies provide can be anything but; in fact, the
stupider it is the better, because its purpose is allow unintelligent people to make
unintelligent decisions. In fact, they consider facts harmful -- be they about Syrian chemical
weapons, or conspiring to steal the primary from Bernie Sanders, or Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction, or the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden -- because facts require accuracy and rigor
while they prefer to dwell in the realm of pure fantasy and whimsy. In this, their actual
objective is easily discernible.
The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its
allies and pocket as much of it as possible while pretending to defend it from phantom
aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on ineffective and
overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they
are specially organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and
so on.
One major advancement in their state of the art has been in moving from real false flag
operations, à la 9/11, to fake false flag operations, à la fake East Gouta
chemical attack in Syria (since fully discredited). The Russian election meddling story is
perhaps the final step in this evolution: no New York skyscrapers or Syrian children were
harmed in the process of concocting this fake narrative, and it can be kept alive seemingly
forever purely through the furious effort of numerous flapping lips. It is now a pure
confidence scam. If you are less then impressed with their invented narratives, then you are a
conspiracy theorist or, in the latest revision, a traitor.
Trump was recently questioned as to whether he trusted US intelligence. He waffled. A
light-hearted answer would have been:
"What sort of idiot are you to ask me such a stupid question? Of course they are lying! They
were caught lying more than once, and therefore they can never be trusted again. In order to
claim that they are not currently lying, you have to determine when it was that they stopped
lying, and that they haven't lied since. And that, based on the information that is available,
is an impossible task."
A more serious, matter-of-fact answer would have been:
"The US intelligence agencies made an outrageous claim: that I colluded with Russia to rig
the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The burden of proof is on them. They are yet to
prove their case in a court of law, which is the only place where the matter can legitimately
be settled, if it can be settled at all. Until that happens, we must treat their claim as
conspiracy theory, not as fact."
And a hardcore, deadpan answer would have been:
"The US intelligence services swore an oath to uphold the US Constitution, according to
which I am their Commander in Chief. They report to me, not I to them. They must be loyal to
me, not I to them. If they are disloyal to me, then that is sufficient reason for their
dismissal."
But no such reality-based, down-to-earth dialogue seems possible. All that we hear are fake
answers to fake questions, and the outcome is a series of faulty decisions. Based on fake
intelligence, the US has spent almost all of this century embroiled in very expensive and
ultimately futile conflicts.
Thanks to their efforts, Iran, Iraq and Syria have now formed a continuous crescent of
religiously and geopolitically aligned states friendly toward Russia while in Afghanistan the
Taliban is resurgent and battling ISIS -- an organization that came together thanks to American
efforts in Iraq and Syria.
The total cost of wars so far this century for the US is reported to be $4,575,610,429,593.
Divided by the 138,313,155 Americans who file tax returns (whether they actually pay any tax is
too subtle a question), it works out to just over $33,000 per taxpayer. If you pay taxes in the
US, that's your bill so far for the various US intelligence "oopsies."
The 16 US intelligence agencies have a combined budget of $66.8 billion, and that seems like
a lot until you realize how supremely efficient they are: their "mistakes" have cost the
country close to 70 times their budget. At a staffing level of over 200,000 employees, each of
them has cost the US taxpayer close to $23 million, on average. That number is totally out of
the ballpark! The energy sector has the highest earnings per employee, at around $1.8 million
per. Valero Energy stands out at $7.6 million per. At $23 million per, the US intelligence
community has been doing three times better than Valero. Hats off! This makes the US
intelligence community by far the best, most efficient collapse driver imaginable.
There are two possible hypotheses for why this is so.
First, we might venture to guess that these 200,000 people are grossly incompetent and that
the fiascos they precipitate are accidental. But it is hard to imagine a situation where
grossly incompetent people nevertheless manage to funnel $23 million apiece, on average, toward
an assortment of futile undertakings of their choosing. It is even harder to imagine that such
incompetents would be allowed to blunder along decade after decade without being called out for
their mistakes.
Another hypothesis, and a far more plausible one, is that the US intelligence community has
been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic
and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile
conflicts -- the largest single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How
that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your own country, for any conceivable
definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you are at
it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better
than "a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be
perpetual liars."
It could be the Trump was already deposed as a President by Pompeo.
I never understood appointment of Haley and appointment of Bolton if we assume that Trump is not a neocon and does not want to
continue previous administration policies. Haley is kind of Sikh variant of
Samantha
Power. Bolton is probably as bad as Wolfowitz. Pompeo also can be viewed as Hillary 2.0.
Notable quotes:
"... In addition, the US has delivered an ultimatum, saying that if Russia does not give assurances within 90 days that it will no longer use chemical weapons and allow international inspectors to inspect its production facilities, further sanctions will be implemented. But Russia denies it used chemical weapons. Unlike the US, it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile in accordance with international treaties. ..."
"... The legislation gave a 60-day window to begin implementation of sanctions after the Trump administration determined that the now-British citizen Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by a strain of the Novichok nerve-agent. The US came to that conclusion following an initial determination by the British government. ..."
"... However, the US administration missed the deadline by more than a month. That prompted Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, to write a letter to Trump some two weeks ago slamming the president for ignoring the deadline. ..."
"... Strangely, a government research facility at Porton Down in Amesbury, not far from Salisbury where the alleged March poisoning took place, examined the strain of Novichok. Porton Down lab does work for British Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, run by the Ministry of Defense, and the Public Health England. ..."
"... All of this makes makes the issue as to why Britain, and even the US, never wanted to share samples taken from the poisoning of the Skripals with Moscow more concerning. Yet, they all went ahead in lock-step to condemn Moscow for the poisoning, without any evidence, suggesting a more sinister reason for lobbying increased sanctions against Russia with the goal of further isolating the country. ..."
"... It reflects the need especially by the US to have a demon in an effort to justify its defense spending to bolster NATO up to the border of the Russian Federation in the form of a new containment policy that launched the Cold War in the first place. ..."
"... With even further sanctions against Russia in the recently passed Defense Department Authorization Bill about to go into effect, it is becoming apparent that the allegations against Russia are politically-motivated, false flag allegations to be used as an excuse for a greater geostrategic reason -- to contain Russia just as the Trump administration is increasingly finding its US-led unilateral world order being challenged more than ever. ..."
"... Trump talks about better relations with Russia, but the actions of his own administration in demonizing Moscow dictate otherwise. ..."
Forget about running the Empire or the American state. Trump isn't even in control of his team US President Donald Trump is not in
control of his own administration, as evidenced by the latest round of sanctions imposed against Russia for the alleged involvement
in the poisoning of the Skripals in the UK in March.
The sanctions came the same day that US Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.,
announced
on a trip to Moscow that he had handed over a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin from Trump calling for better relations
between the two countries. For that reason, the timing appears to be suspect, suggesting strongly that Trump has his own foreign
policy while the Trump administration, comprised mainly of bureaucrats referred to as the Deep State, have their own. Right now,
they appear to be in control, not President Trump, over his own administration, and it is having the adverse effect of further alienating
Washington and Moscow.
The neocons, led by National Security Advisor John Bolton, along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his United Nations ambassador
Nikki Haley, comprise the Trump " war cabinet " ostensibly aimed at directing a harder line toward Syria, North Korea, Iran
but also Russia. Bolton, in particular, has been outspoken in calling for regime change in some of these countries. Trump not so
much so. In fact, he has said just the opposite. Nevertheless, their anti-Russian flair in Washington has breathed new life into
the neocons who, along with the Democrats, Deep State and much of the mainstream media, have pushed the false narrative of collusion
between Russia and Trump.
This persistent anti-Russian rant and repeated sanctions which have been imposed have had the effect of leading to further threats
of sanctions for questionable reasons, raising the potential prospect of suspension of diplomatic ties.
Even at the height of the Cold War, relations between the US and Russia never reached such low depths as they have now. The latest
sanctions affect primarily dual-use technologies which are civilian products with potential military applications. They include gas
turbine engines, electronics and integrated circuits which will now be denied. Previous sanctions going back to the Obama administration,
however, already imposed bans on many of these dual-use technologies.
In addition, the US has delivered an ultimatum, saying that if Russia does not give assurances within 90 days that it will
no longer use chemical weapons and allow international inspectors to inspect its production facilities, further sanctions will be
implemented. But Russia denies it used chemical weapons. Unlike the US, it
destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile in accordance with international treaties.
Implementation of the sanctions stem from provisions of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination
Act of 1991.
The legislation gave a 60-day window to begin implementation of sanctions after the Trump administration determined that the
now-British citizen Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by a strain of the Novichok nerve-agent. The US came to that
conclusion following an initial determination by the British government.
However, the US administration missed the deadline by more than a month. That prompted Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of
the House Foreign Relations Committee, to write a
letter to Trump some two weeks ago slamming the president for ignoring the deadline.
Curiously, the British government hasn't implemented similar sanctions, although the US has. It may reflect the continued uncertainty
among some British politicians and experts over the origin of the Novichok and concern with Britain's trade dependency on Russia.
But since the Americans opted to implement sanctions due to existing legislation, there was apparently no objection from London even
though it initially implemented sanctions by kicking out Russian diplomats from the country.
Moscow, however, vehemently denied that it was involved in the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter. Novichok was created by
Russian scientists during the Cold War but never used on the battlefield. Russian officials asked Britain for evidence of Russian
involvement and called for a joint investigation to be conducted by the Kremlin and British governments.
The British government repeatedly turned down the offer, as did other Western members of the United Nations Security Council,
the US and France, when Moscow sought such a joint investigation.
The US claimed that the information linking the poison to Russia was " classified ."
Strangely, a government research
facility at Porton Down in Amesbury, not far from Salisbury where the alleged March poisoning took place, examined the strain
of Novichok. Porton Down lab does work for British Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, run by the Ministry of Defense, and
the Public Health England.
Results from the examination confirmed the poison was a form of Novichok but – importantly – could not determine where the poison
had been created or who had used it. This development created further confusion and prompted disputes among politicians.
It is known that samples of Novichok have been in the hands of many
NATO countries for years after
the German foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, had reportedly obtained a sample from a Russian defector
in the 1990s.
The formula was later shared with Britain, the US, France, Canada and the Netherlands, where small quantities of Novichok reportedly
were produced in an effort to develop countermeasures. Porton Down labs similarly had received samples to study. Czech President
Milos Zeman recently admitted that his country synthesized and tested a form of Novichok. Sweden and Slovakia also have the technical
capability to produce the nerve agent, according to Russian officials.
All of this makes makes the issue as to why Britain, and even the US, never wanted to share samples taken from the poisoning
of the Skripals with Moscow more concerning. Yet, they all went ahead in lock-step to condemn Moscow for the poisoning, without any
evidence, suggesting a more sinister reason for lobbying increased sanctions against Russia with the goal of further isolating the
country.
It reflects the need especially by the US to have a demon in an effort to justify its defense spending to bolster NATO up
to the border of the Russian Federation in the form of a new containment policy that launched the Cold War in the first place.
With even further sanctions against Russia in the recently passed Defense Department Authorization Bill about to go into effect,
it is becoming apparent that the allegations against Russia are politically-motivated, false flag allegations to be used as an excuse
for a greater geostrategic reason -- to contain Russia just as the Trump administration is increasingly finding its US-led unilateral
world order being challenged more than ever.
The reason, however, isn't due to anything that Moscow initiated but by Trump himself who isn't in control of his own administration,
and maybe never has been. Many of his campaign promises such as dropping out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or Iranian
nuclear agreement, the threat of sanctions against any company that trades with Iran, his tariff war with US allies are in conflict
with each other, leading to increased world instability. At the same time, Trump talks about better relations with Russia, but
the actions of his own administration in demonizing Moscow dictate otherwise.
F. Michael Maloof is a former Pentagon security analyst.
The announcement of sanctions on Wednesday came despite the fact that the US is entirely
aware that Russia was not responsible for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, UK in
March, he said.
"This is a political demand... this is designed to undercut the overtures from the Trump
administration for President Trump directly and also Senator Rand Paul - now in Moscow - to
warm relations with Russia." Former Pentagon official Michael Maloof echoed that sentiment,
telling RT that "you have Donald Trump's foreign policy and you now have the Trump
administration's foreign policy."
He added that the sanctions are being orchestrated by the deep state to "make the president
look bad and basically to corner him."
[ Exactly. Poisoning was likely executed by MI6 or CIA, to sabotage the US relationship with
Russia at the behest of the Deep State .]
"... "While much of neoliberalism's rhetorical power comes from the assertion that "there is no alternative," the simple fact is that the world is full of alternatives. Indeed, even the so-called free marketers in Australia can see alternatives." ..."
"... It's dogma is nothing but empty lies held up as flawed truth's and full of scoundrels who profit from its concomitant pain. ..."
"neoliberal language allows powerful groups to package their personal preferences as national
interests"
Its almost impossible to talk about a mining economy and a "free market" in the same
sentence, Richard. a mining economy is is synonymous with corruption, Dutch disease and
political grabs for cash etc. In the height of the 2009 GFC announced by kev07, unskilled
labourers in the pilbara were still earning $100/hr. Real estate prices for 3 bed shacks in
karratha were starting at $1million plus. The blue collar dominated pilbara area was
overwhelmed with greed fed by left politicians hiding behind socialist ideals. The reality
was that left wing economists recognized the "dutch disease" problem and their solution was
to flood the area with greedy blue collar workers who were blowing their enormous salaries on
prostitutes, alcohol and gambling in the hope that profits from the mining boom would be
flushed into other parts of the economy.
The solution? partially transition Australia's economy to an innovation driven economy
because innovation is linked to learning which is linked to stronger self esteem and self
efficacy in the community. an innovation driven econmy is the better way of promting social
development in the community and an innovation driven economy is the most effective way for
politicians to transition to the benefits of a "free market" driven economy.... the reality
is that transitioning to an innovation would require smacking the socialists over the back of
the head in the hope that aspiring socialists will respect the ideas and intellectual
property of others as opposed to continue to assimilate intellectual property in the name of
employment generation and the common good
I dont fear the potential rise of neoliberalism, although i understand that spruiking a
free market whilst talking about mining is ridiculous.
I fear the individuals who are have been talking about mining, and targeting/victimising the
non politically active conservatives for more than 2 decades in the name of socialism
"While much of neoliberalism's rhetorical power comes from the assertion that "there is no
alternative," the simple fact is that the world is full of alternatives. Indeed, even the
so-called free marketers in Australia can see alternatives."
Excellent article Richard, you have captured the ideology and its dogma quite
specularly.
It's dogma is nothing but empty lies held up as flawed truth's and full of scoundrels who
profit from its concomitant pain.
Examples from today's headlines and a few from last week:
Russian officials reacted with outrage and markets slumped on Thursday morning following
the announcement of tough new US sanctions over Russia's alleged use of a nerve agent in
the Salisbury attack.
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the sanctions were "absolutely
unlawful and don't conform to international law", as politicians vowed to respond with
countermeasures, which could include bans on the exports of rockets or resources for
manufacturing.
"The theatre of the absurd continues," tweeted Dmitry Polyanskiy, first
deputy permanent representative of Russia to the UN. "No proofs, no clues, no logic, no
presumption of innocence, just highly-likelies. Only one rule: blame everything on Russia, no
matter how absurd and fake it is. Let us welcome the United Sanctions of America!"
One senior Russian MP called the US a "police state".
A member of the Duma's foreign affairs committee, Leonid Slutsky, said Russia could block exports of RD-180 rocket
engines to the US as a potential countermeasure, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
The State Department said the new sanctions would come into effect on 22 August and would be
followed by much more sweeping measures, such as suspending diplomatic relations and revoking
Aeroflot landing rights, if Russia did not take "remedial" action within 90 days.
Moscow is not expected to agree to the response required by US legislation, which includes
opening up Russian scientific and security facilities to international inspections to assess
whether it is producing chemical and biological weapons in violation of international law.
"Certainly it is really up to Russia to make that decision, whether they meet this
criteria," a senior administration official said. "The second round of sanctions are in general
more draconian than the first round."
Another senior state department official said the US received in March "persuasive
information" from the UK that Russia was behind the attack. It made its own determination last
weekend and was now acting on the basis of "objective facts" and "legal requirements".
Russian markets took the news poorly. Stocks in Aeroflot, the country's national carrier,
fell by 12% in trading before lunchtime on Thursday over concerns that its direct flights
between Russia and the US could be halted entirely.
Russia's currency, the rouble, fell to below 66 to the US dollar, a 4% slide from Wednesday
morning that began with the leak of a separate draft sanctions bill that could see Russia named
a state sponsor of terror.
The US has already expelled 60 suspected Russian spies as part of a global response to the
March attack in Salisbury against
Sergei Skripal , a former colonel in Russian military intelligence, and his daughter,
Yulia , in which a rare and potent Russian-made nerve agent, novichok, was found to have
been used.
This is attack on ruble. Kind of Magnitsky II set of moves. Strange if view of Trump supposed
attempt to split Russia and China in Helsinki. You should chose a single target in such
cases.
Sanctions weaken the effect of Iranian sanctions. While the goal is to undermine the Russian
economy -- the effect of negative expectations is always stronger than a onetime action -- 90
days allow to avoid big financial losses for major banks. The requirement of inspection of Russia
objects is from Iraq war textbook.
Notable quotes:
"... Russian Ruble has fallen to a new 2018 low against the American dollar. Trading went over 66 rubles to the dollar. ..."
"... This marks almost a 20% devaluation in the currency since April of this year, and the worst valuation since mid-November, 2016. ..."
"... For our part, we reiterated our principle [sic] stands on the events in the UK, which the Embassy had been outlining in corresponding letters to the State Department. We confirmed that we continue to strongly stand for an open and transparent investigation of the crime committed in Salisbury and for bringing the culprits to justice , ..."
"... This pattern of throwing out destructive slander while refusing to provide opportunity for a real answer has permeated American policy towards the Russian Federation with increasing intensity since 2013. ..."
sanctions was
apparently enough to create jitters on the Russian stock exchanges, and the Russian
Ruble has fallen to a new 2018 low against the American dollar. Trading went over 66 rubles to
the dollar.
This marks almost a 20% devaluation in the currency since April of this year, and the
worst valuation since mid-November, 2016.
This incident has not gone unanswered in Moscow. The Russian Embassy in the United States
called for documentation about the source and reasoning behind these new sanctions, as reported by TASS:
The Russian embassy in the United States has called on the US Department of State to
publish correspondence on the introduction of new sanctions on Moscow over the Skripal
incident, the embassy said in a statement.
" For our part, we reiterated our principle [sic] stands on the events in the UK,
which the Embassy had been outlining in corresponding letters to the State Department. We
confirmed that we continue to strongly stand for an open and transparent investigation of
the crime committed in Salisbury and for bringing the culprits to justice , " the
statement reads.
"We suggested publishing our correspondence on this issue. No answer has followed so
far," the Russian embassy added.
This pattern of throwing out destructive slander while refusing to provide opportunity
for a real answer has permeated American policy towards the Russian Federation with increasing
intensity since 2013. It reveals the machinations of a very divided American government,
with the "deep State" or establishment politicians and foreign policy makers completely
unwilling to even give Russia a fair shake at representing itself. This policy is shared by the
United Kingdom, as this
piece by The Duran's Editor in Chief, Alexander Mercouris shows, with this summary of
violations of due process the British authorities are committing with regard to Russia:
(1) The British government is interfering in the conduct of a criminal investigation, with
Prime Minister Theresa May and especially Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson pointing fingers at
who they say is guilty (Russia) whilst the criminal investigation is still underway;
(2) The British government has said that unless Russia proves itself innocent within a
specific time the British government will conclude that it is guilty. As I have explained
previously this
reverses the burden of proof : in a criminal case it is the prosecution which is supposed
to prove the defendant's guilt, not the defendant who must prove his innocence;
(3) The British government refuses to share with Russia -- the party it says is guilty --
the 'evidence' upon which it says it has concluded that Russia is guilty, the evidence in
this case being a sample of the chemical with which it says Sergey and Yulia Skripal was
poisoned.
This violates the fundamental principle that the defendant must be provided with all the
evidence against him so that he can properly prepare his defence;
(4) The British government is not following the procedure set out in Article IX (2) of the
Chemical Weapons
Convention to which both Britain and Russia are parties. This reads as follows
States Parties should, whenever possible, first make every effort to clarify and
resolve, through exchange of information and consultations among themselves, any matter
which may cause doubt about compliance with this Convention, or which gives rise to
concerns about a related matter which may be considered ambiguous. A State Party which
receives a request from another State Party for clarification of any matter which the
requesting State Party believes causes such a doubt or concern shall provide the requesting
State Party as soon as possible, but in any case not later than ten days after the request,
with information sufficient to answer the doubt or concern raised along with an explanation
of how the information provided resolves the matter.
(5) The British authorities are denying the Russians consular access to Yulia Skripal,
though she is a Russian citizen who the British authorities say was subjected to a criminal
assault on their territory.
This is a potentially serious matter since by preventing consular access to Yulia Skripal
the British authorities are not only violating the interstate consular arrangements which
exist between Britain and Russia, but they are preventing the Russian authorities from
learning more about the condition of one of their citizens who has been hospitalised
following a violent criminal assault, and are preventing the Russian authorities from
carrying out their own investigation into the assault on one of their citizens which the
British authorities say has taken place.
I would add that this obstruction of Russian consular access to Yulia Skripal has gone
almost entirely unreported in the British and Western media.
The Americans are playing the same game here, and, regrettably, President Trump's overtures
towards repairing this relationship are almost sure to be torn out from under him by the
actions of this virulent group of people. It is quite possible that this is the very reason for
these new sanctions.
The perspective of the American government as one divided, with a rabid force in favor of
continuing to isolate and vilify a great power in the world for no good reason, is sure to have
repercussions. However, given the gradual realignment of Russia and China to be in closer and
closer partnership, and Russia's increasing prominence in Asian and Eastern Hemisphere affairs,
the end result of this behavior is likely to damage the United States and its standing in the
world over the long run.
6. Focused on violence through brownshirt stormtroopers who beat up any who disagreed
7. Had an intelligence service which focused on crushing dissent and spying on its own
people
8. Placed more power in the central government and state then any Nation before it.
All of the above are things proposed or carried out by leftists. It is almost as if the true
parties espoused by people are those who support individualism and those who support
collectivism. Spoiler alert for the Leftist retards: Power corrupts and Absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Your Statist Sanders Utopia will never come to fruition. The "Kind Socialist
Politicians" will sell you out to the elite in a heartbeat.
All you are doing is focusing the
power of your society into one single glass for the Elite to sip as they assfuck you into
oblivion, Death toll of all of these Statist Nations, IE Imperial Japan, Soviet Union,
Communist China, the People's "Republic" of Korea, etc is over 200,000,000 and counting.
How is it that the acronym NAZI Literally has the word SOCIALIST in it and people still
think they were right wing??? Why is this such a hard concept to grasp for the average
individual?
"Door handle" theory is dead on arrival. the main theory now is that UK government gave Skripals different agent BX
(similar to LSD and which caused hallucinations) and they voluntarily took it in order to start preplanned Skripal false flag
provocation. That's why military nurse accidentally appeared near Skripals soon after poisoning.
Notable quotes:
"... Following the attack on the Skripals, European and US allies took Britain's side on the attack, ordering the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War, reports Reuters . In response, Russia retaliated by expelling Western diplomats, while the Kremlin has repeatedly denied involvement in the attacks - while accusing the UK intelligence agencies of staging the attack in order to inflame anti-Russia tensions. ..."
"... Prior to the investigation's focus on the door handle, for a period of almost three weeks there were at least nine other theories proposed by the authorities as to where the Skripals came into contact with the poison. These included the restaurant, the pub, the bench, the cemetery, the car, the flowers, the luggage, the porridge and even a drone. During that time, police officers and investigators were entering and leaving the house, by the door, since it was not known to be the place where the poison was located. ..."
"... Once the door handle theory was established, those who had been in and out of the property during the previous three weeks would naturally have been concerned about the possibility that they had been contaminated. ..."
"... Every officer who entered the house after 4th March, and before the door handle became an object of interest, should have been given a medical examination to check for signs of poisoning. ..."
"... Initial reports about Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey stated that he was poisoned at the bench, after coming to the aid of Mr Skripal and Yulia. However, on 9th March, Lord Ian Blair stated that D.S. Bailey had actually become poisoned after visiting Mr Skripal's house. Since he was thought to have been poisoned with a military grade nerve agent, and since it was thought that this had occurred at Mr Skripal's house, the immediate next step should have been to seal off the house and set up a mobile decontamination unit outside. However, numerous photographs show officers in normal uniforms standing close to the door long after Lord Blair's claim ..."
"... Can the authorities explain how these decisions did not put the health and even the lives of those officers in jeopardy? ..."
"... Before the door handle theory was settled on, the majority of competing theories put out by the authorities tended to assume that Mr Skripal was poisoned long before he went to Zizzis. For example, the flowers, the cemetery, the luggage, the porridge and the car explanations all assume this to be the case. What this means is that according to the assumptions of police at that time, when Mr Skripal fed the ducks near the Avon Playground with a few local boys, at around 1:45pm, he was already contaminated. Yet although this event was caught on CCTV camera, it was more than two weeks before the police contacted the parents of these boys. ..."
"... Can the authorities comment on why they did not air the CCTV footage on national television, in an effort to appeal to the boys or their parents to come forward, and whether the delay in tracking them down might have put them in danger? ..."
"... If the door handle was the place of poisoning, it is extremely likely that the bread handed by Mr Skripal to the boys would have been contaminated. Certainly, areas that he visited after this incident were deemed to be so much at risk that they were either closed down (for example, The Mill and Zizzis, which are both still closed), or destroyed (for instance, the restaurant table, the bench and – almost certainly – the red bag near the bench have all been destroyed). ..."
"... It has been said that one of the reasons the Government is/was so sure that the ultimate culprit behind the poisoning was the Russian state, is the apparent existence of an "FSB handbook" which, amongst other things, allegedly features descriptions of how to apply nerve agent to a door handle. Given that the Prime Minister first made a formal accusation of culpability on 12th March in her speech to the House of Commons, the Government must therefore have been in possession of this manual prior to that day. However, claims about the door handle being the location of the poison did not appear until late March (the first media reports of it were on 28th March). What this means is there was a delay of several weeks between the Government making its accusation, based partly on the apparent existence of the "door handle manual", and the door handle of Mr Skripal's house being a subject of interest to investigators. ..."
"... "We are learning more about Sergei and Yulia's movements but we need to be clearer around their exact movements on the morning of the incident. We believe that at around 9.15am on Sunday, 4 March, Sergei's car may have been in the areas of London Road, Churchill Way North and Wilton Road. Then at around 1.30pm it was seen being driven down Devizes Road, towards the town centre. We need to establish Sergei and Yulia's movements during the morning, before they headed to the town centre. Did you see this car, or what you believe was this car, on the day of the incident? We are particularly keen to hear from you if you saw the car before 1.30pm. If you have information, please call the police on 101." ..."
"... Now that Sergei and Yulia Skripal have been awake and able to communicate for around four months, these details are presumably now all known to investigators. In the normal course of such a high profile investigation, details such as these would be relayed to the public in the hope of jogging memories to prompt more information. And in fact, many such details have been released to the public in this case. Yet, confirmation of Mr Skripal's and Yulia's movements that day remain conspicuous by their absence. ..."
"... These questions have nothing to do with any conspiracy theory. On the contrary, they are all based on the assumption that the two central claims made by the authorities regarding the mode and the method used in this incident are correct. They are, however, very serious and perfectly legitimate questions about the way the authorities have dealt with this incident, on their own terms and on the basis of their own claims . ..."
"... "Reports that the United Kingdom is planning to ask Russia to extradite suspects in a Salisbury poisoning incident are nothing more than a "speculation," a spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office told Sputnik on Monday. ..."
The British government has prepared an extradition request to Moscow for two
Russians they claim carried out the Salisbury nerve agent attack, according to The Guardian ,
citing Whitehall and security sources.
Former Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on
a public bench in Salisbury in early March - which UK authorities believe was due to a nerve
agent called Novichok.
Months later on June 30, nearby residents Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess, a 44-year-old
mother of three, were subsequently treated for exposure to the nerve agent. Rowley recovered
while Sturgess died.
Authorities are operating on the assumption that the Skripals were poisoned using a
novichok-laced perfume bottle or a door handle smeared with the nerve agent, while Rowley may
have picked up said bottle and given to Sturgess, who applied it to her wrists.
Sturgess received a much higher dose than the other three after apparently smearing the
substance on her wrists, having sprayed it from the bottle. Rowley's recovery was helped,
according to a source, by one of the first responders being familiar with the nerve agent,
having been involved in helping the Skripals.
The Porton Down military defence laboratory near Salisbury has examined the novichok found
on the Skripals' doorknob and the perfume bottle, but police have not yet said whether they
are from the same batch. -
The Guardian
UK authorities believe they have pieced together the movements of the two Russians, from
their entry into the UK to their departure after the alleged assassination attempt.
Following the attack on the Skripals, European and US allies took Britain's side on the
attack, ordering the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War,
reports
Reuters . In response, Russia retaliated by expelling Western diplomats, while the Kremlin
has repeatedly denied involvement in the attacks - while accusing the UK intelligence agencies
of staging the attack in order to inflame anti-Russia tensions.
Oddly, Sergei Skripal was linked by
The Telegraph to a consultant with former UK spy Christopher Steele's Orbis Business
Intelligence, who he reportedly had repeated contacts with.
The motive for trying to assassinate the 66-year-old skripal is unknown. Skripal moved to
the UK in a Kremlin-approved "spy swap" in 2010, causing many to question why they would
suddenly try to take him out a decade later.
In July, journalist Rob Slane compiled
10 questions for the UK authorities on the ever-confusing Skripal case:
***
The two most basic claims made by the Government and investigators regarding the method and
the mode in the Salisbury poisoning are these:
That military grade nerve agent was used to poison Mr Skripal
That it was applied to the door handle of his house
These claims raise a number of very obvious questions. For example, how did the assassin(s)
apply such a powerful chemical without wearing protective clothing? How did the people who are
said to have come into contact with the substance not die immediately, or at the very least
suffer irreparable damage to their Central Nervous Systems? How did this military grade nerve
agent manage not only to have a delayed onset, but also managed to affect a large 66-year-old
man and his slim 33-year-old daughter, both of whom would have vastly different metabolic
rates, at exactly the same time?
These are perfectly reasonable questions that deserve reasonable answers. I am aware,
however, that no matter how obvious and rational such questions might be, doing so places one
– at least in the eyes of the authorities – in the camp of the conspiracy theorist.
This is disingenuous. One of the marks of a true conspiracy theorist is that he is someone who
refuses to accept an explanation for an event, even after being presented with facts which fit
and explain it coherently . But when the "facts" presented in a case do not fit the event they
are supposed to explain, and are neither rational nor coherent -- as in the Salisbury case --
then calling the person who raises legitimate questions a "conspiracy theorist" is a bit rich,
is it not?
Nevertheless, for the purposes of this piece, what I'd like to do is work on the assumption
that the "Military Grade Nerve Agent on the Door Handle" claim is correct. And working from
this assumption, I want to ask some questions about how the authorities have handled the case.
The point is this: These questions are not really intended to challenge the official claims;
rather the intention is to ask whether the authorities have handled the case correctly on their
own terms .
1. Prior to the investigation's focus on the door handle, for a period of almost three weeks
there were at least nine other theories proposed by the authorities as to where the Skripals
came into contact with the poison. These included the restaurant, the pub, the bench, the
cemetery, the car, the flowers, the luggage, the porridge and even a drone. During that time,
police officers and investigators were entering and leaving the house, by the door, since it
was not known to be the place where the poison was located.
Can the authorities explain how these officers and investigators were not poisoned?
2. Once the door handle theory was established, those who had been in and out of the
property during the previous three weeks would naturally have been concerned about the
possibility that they had been contaminated.
Can the authorities tell us what steps were taken to reassure these officers?
3. Every officer who entered the house after 4th March, and before the door handle became an
object of interest, should have been given a medical examination to check for signs of
poisoning.
Can the authorities confirm that this took place for every officer?
4. Initial reports about Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey stated that he was poisoned at the
bench, after coming to the aid of Mr Skripal and Yulia. However, on 9th March, Lord Ian Blair
stated that D.S. Bailey had actually become poisoned after visiting Mr Skripal's house. Since
he was thought to have been poisoned with a military grade nerve agent, and since it was
thought that this had occurred at Mr Skripal's house, the immediate next step should have been
to seal off the house and set up a mobile decontamination unit outside. However, numerous
photographs show officers in normal uniforms standing close to the door long after Lord Blair's
claim.
Can the authorities confirm why the house was not sealed off and a decontamination unit set
up immediately after it became known that D.S. Bailey had been there, and why officers with no
protective clothing on were allowed to continue standing guard outside the house for the next
few weeks?
5. Can the authorities explain how these decisions did not put the health and even the lives
of those officers in jeopardy?
6. Before the door handle theory was settled on, the majority of competing theories put out
by the authorities tended to assume that Mr Skripal was poisoned long before he went to Zizzis.
For example, the flowers, the cemetery, the luggage, the porridge and the car explanations all
assume this to be the case. What this means is that according to the assumptions of police at
that time, when Mr Skripal fed the ducks near the Avon Playground with a few local boys, at
around 1:45pm, he was already contaminated. Yet although this event was caught on CCTV camera,
it was more than two weeks before the police contacted the parents of these boys.
Can the authorities explain why it took more than two weeks to track down the boys, who
– as the CCTV apparently shows – were given bread by Mr Skripal?
7. Can the authorities comment on why they did not air the CCTV footage on national
television, in an effort to appeal to the boys or their parents to come forward, and whether
the delay in tracking them down might have put them in danger?
8. If the door handle was the place of poisoning, it is extremely likely that the bread
handed by Mr Skripal to the boys would have been contaminated. Certainly, areas that he visited
after this incident were deemed to be so much at risk that they were either closed down (for
example, The Mill and Zizzis, which are both still closed), or destroyed (for instance, the
restaurant table, the bench and – almost certainly – the red bag near the bench
have all been destroyed).
Can the authorities comment on how the boys, who were handed bread by Mr Skripal, managed to
avoid contamination?
9. It has been said that one of the reasons the Government is/was so sure that the ultimate
culprit behind the poisoning was the Russian state, is the apparent existence of an "FSB
handbook" which, amongst other things, allegedly features descriptions of how to apply nerve
agent to a door handle. Given that the Prime Minister first made a formal accusation of
culpability on 12th March in her speech to the House of Commons, the Government must therefore
have been in possession of this manual prior to that day. However, claims about the door handle
being the location of the poison did not appear until late March (the first media reports of it
were on 28th March). What this means is there was a delay of several weeks between the
Government making its accusation, based partly on the apparent existence of the "door handle
manual", and the door handle of Mr Skripal's house being a subject of interest to
investigators.
Can the authorities therefore tell us whether the Government's failure to pass on details of
the "door handle manual" put the lives of the officers going in and out of Mr Skripal's house
from 5th March to 27th March in jeopardy?
10. On 17th March, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said:
"We are learning more about Sergei and Yulia's movements but we need to be clearer around
their exact movements on the morning of the incident. We believe that at around 9.15am on
Sunday, 4 March, Sergei's car may have been in the areas of London Road, Churchill Way North
and Wilton Road. Then at around 1.30pm it was seen being driven down Devizes Road, towards
the town centre. We need to establish Sergei and Yulia's movements during the morning, before
they headed to the town centre. Did you see this car, or what you believe was this car, on
the day of the incident? We are particularly keen to hear from you if you saw the car before
1.30pm. If you have information, please call the police on 101."
Now that Sergei and Yulia Skripal have been awake and able to communicate for around four
months, these details are presumably now all known to investigators. In the normal course of
such a high profile investigation, details such as these would be relayed to the public in the
hope of jogging memories to prompt more information. And in fact, many such details have been
released to the public in this case. Yet, confirmation of Mr Skripal's and Yulia's movements
that day remain conspicuous by their absence.
Can the authorities confirm that the movements of the Skripals that day are now understood,
and that they will be made known shortly, in order that more information from the public might
then be forthcoming?
These questions have nothing to do with any conspiracy theory. On the contrary, they are all
based on the assumption that the two central claims made by the authorities regarding the mode
and the method used in this incident are correct. They are, however, very serious and perfectly
legitimate questions about the way the authorities have dealt with this incident, on their own
terms and on the basis of their own claims .
"Reports that the United Kingdom is planning to ask Russia to extradite suspects in a
Salisbury poisoning incident are nothing more than a "speculation," a spokesperson for the UK
Foreign Office told Sputnik on Monday.
"This is just more speculation. The police investigation is ongoing and anything on the
record will need to come from the Police," the spokesperson said."
"... During his election campaign, Donald Trump reportedly received a $20 million donation from the American-Israeli casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. Adelson has Israeli citizenship. Is that not foreign help, according to definition of US laws? ..."
"... Russiagate is a cover to conceal the really disturbing scandal which was, and continues to be, the attempt to subvert American democracy by US intelligence agencies working in cahoots with the Obama administration and Clinton's election campaign. To cover up those crimes, Russia is being maligned for "attacking American democracy". ..."
So the US news
media are in uproar over President Trump's latest admission that a meeting between his son and
a Russian lawyer more than two years ago was about "getting dirt" on Hillary Clinton.
With self-righteous probity, Trump's political and media enemies are declaring him a felon
for accepting foreign interference in the US presidential election.
Admittedly, President Trump appears to have been telling lies about the past meeting, which
took place at Trump Tower in New York City in the summer of 2016. Or maybe it's just this
American president shooting himself in the foot -- again -- with his inimical
gibberish-style.
However, the burning issue of "foreign interference" is being stoked out of all proportion
by Trump's enemies who want him ousted from the White House.
US constitutional law forbids candidates from receiving help from foreign governments or
foreign nationals.
Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?
Thus, by appearing to accept a meeting with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 -- during the
presidential campaign -- the Trump election team are accused of breaking US law.
The alleged transgression fits in with the wider narrative of "Russiagate" which posits that
Republican candidate Donald Trump colluded with the Kremlin to win the race to the White House
against Democrat rival Hillary
Clinton .
Russia has always denied any involvement in the US elections, saying the allegations are
preposterous. Moscow also points out that in spite of indictments leveled by American
prosecutors, there is no evidence to support claims that Russian hackers meddled in the
presidential campaign, or that the Kremlin somehow assisted Trump.
The Russian lawyer, Natalia
Veselnitskaya , who met with the Trump campaign team in early June 2016 is described in US
media as "Kremlin-linked". But that seems to be just more innuendo in place of facts. She
denies any such connection. The Kremlin also says it had no relation with the attorney on
her business of approaching Team Trump.
In any case, what is being totally missed in the latest brouhaha is the staggering hypocrisy
in the US media circus over Trump. Let's take Trump at his word -- not a reliable source
admittedly -- that his campaign team were trying to "get dirt" on Clinton. That would appear to
be a violation of US law.
If Trump is going to be nailed for improper conduct with regard to alleged foreign
assistance, then where does that leave Hillary Clinton and US intelligence agencies?
During the presidential campaign, Clinton's team contracted a British spy, Christopher
Steele, to dig up dirt on Trump in the form of the so-called "Russian dossier". That was the
pile of absurd claims alleging that the Kremlin had blackmailing leverage over Donald Trump. It
was Steele's fantasies that largely turned into the whole Russiagate affair which has dominated
US media and politics for the past two years.
Not only that, but now it transpires that the Federal Bureau of Investigation also paid the
same British spy to act as a source for the FBI's wiretapping of Trump's associates, according to
declassified documents obtained by Judicial Watch, a US citizens' rights group.
In other
words, the foreign interference that the FBI engaged in under the Barack Obama administration,
as well as by Hillary Clinton's campaign team, is on a far greater and more scandalous scale
that Trump seems to have clumsily endeavored to do with a Russian lawyer.
The real, shocking interference in US democracy was not by Russia or Trump, but by American
secret services working in collusion with the Clinton Democrats to distort the presidential
elections. This scandal which Princeton Professor Stephen Cohen has labeled "Intelgate" is far
more grievous than the Watergate crisis which resulted in President Richard Nixon's ignominious
resignation back in the mid-1970s.
The Obama administration's intelligence agencies and the Democrats attempted to sabotage the
2016 presidential election in order to keep Trump out of the White House. They failed. And they
have never gotten over that defeat to their illegal scheming.
The Russiagate claims are just a sideshow. As American writer Paul Craig Roberts, among
others, has
commented , the media-driven "witch hunt" against Trump and Russia is blown out of all
proportion in order to distract from the real scandal which is Intelgate -- and how millions of
American voters were potentially disenfranchised by the US intelligence apparatus for a
political power grab.
Another staggering hypocrisy in the US media kerfuffle over Trump and alleged Russian
interference is that all the fastidious hyperbole completely ignores actual foreign
interference in American democracy -- foreign interference that is on an absolutely colossal
scale.
As American critical thinker Noam Chomsky points out , "Israeli intervention in
US elections overwhelms anything Russia may have done".
Israel's interference includes the multi-million-dollar lobbying by such groups as the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its financial sponsorship of hundreds of
lawmakers in both houses of Congress. Many critics maintain
that the entire Congress is in effect "bought" by AIPAC.
Chomsky referred specifically to the occasion in 2015 when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu snubbed then President Obama by addressing the US Congress with a speech openly
calling for lawmakers to reject the internationally-backed nuclear deal with Iran.
During his election campaign, Donald Trump
reportedly received a $20 million donation from the American-Israeli casino mogul Sheldon
Adelson. Adelson has Israeli citizenship. Is that not foreign help, according to definition of
US laws?
Trump has since shown himself to do Adelson's and Israel's bidding by walking away from the
Iran deal and in pushing stridently pro-Israeli interests in the conflict with
Palestinians.
Another foreign benefactor in US politics is the so-called Saudi lobby and other oil-rich
Gulf Arab states. Millions of dollars are funneled into Congress by these dubious regimes to
shape US government foreign policy in the Middle East. For several decades, Saudi oil money is
also documented to be
a major contributor to the CIA and its off-the-books covert operations around the world.
Foreign interference in US politics -- in which often nefarious foreign interests are
promoted over those of ordinary American citizens -- is conducted on a gargantuan and
systematic scale. But this massively illegal interference in flagrant violation of US laws is
stupendously ignored by the American media.
Trump is being assailed over an alleged scandal regarding Russia which is, by any objective
measure, negligible.
The whole Russiagate narrative is sheer hysteria driven by anti-Trump forces who do not want
to accept the result of the 2016 election. It is, in effect, a coup attempt by unelected
political forces.
Russiagate is a cover to conceal the really disturbing scandal which was,
and continues to be, the attempt to subvert American democracy by US intelligence agencies
working in cahoots with the Obama administration and Clinton's election campaign. To cover up
those crimes, Russia is being maligned for "attacking American democracy".
Such lies are an odious distortion of the truth by America's real enemies who are its own
domestic political and media operators trying to cover up their anti-constitutional crimes.
What's even more despicable is that these people are willing to inflame US-Russia relations to
the point of starting a war between two nuclear powers.
Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published
in several languages. He is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a
scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a
career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he
worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish
Times and Independent.
This article was originally published by " Sputnik "
-
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Political War! Washington Goes Full Retard on the Russia Hoax
by David
Stockman Posted on
August 08, 2018 August 7, 2018 It's hard to identify anything that's more uncoupled from
reality than the Donald's Trade War and reckless Fiscal Debauch. Together they will soon
monkey-hammer today's delirious Wall Street revilers and send main street's aging and anemic
recovery back into the drink.
Except, except. When it comes to unreality, Trump's crackpot economics is actually more
than rivaled by the full retard Russophobia of the MSM, the Dems and the nomenclatura of
Imperial Washington.
In fact, their groupthink mania about the alleged Russian attack on American democracy is
so devoid of fact, logic, context, proportion and self-awareness as to give the Donald's
tweet storms an aura of sanity by comparison.
Their endless obsession with the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian nobody by
the name of Natalia Veselnitskaya proves the point. She was actually in New York doing god's
work, as it were, defending a Russian company against hokey money-laundering charges related
to the abominable Magnitsky Act and its contemptible promoter, Bill Browder.
The latter had pulled off an epic multi-billion swindle during the wild west days of
post-Soviet Russia and was essentially chased from the country in 2005 by Putin for hundreds
of millions in tax evasion. Thereafter he turned the murky prison death of his accountant,
Sergei Magnitsky, who was also charged with massive tax evasion, into a revenge crusade
against Putin.
That resulted in a huge lobbying campaign subsidized by Browder's illicit billions and
spearheaded by the Senate's most bloodthirsty trio of warmongers – Senators McCain,
Graham and Cardin – to enact the 2012 Magnitsky Act.
The latter, of course, is the very excrescence of Imperial Washington's arrogant meddling
in the internal affairs of other countries. It imposes sweeping sanctions on Russians (and
other foreigners) deemed complicit in Magnitsky's death in a Russian jail and for other
alleged human rights violations in Russia and elsewhere.
Needless to say, imperial pretense doesn't get any more sanctimonious than this. Deep
State apparatchiks in the US Treasury Department get to try Russian citizens in absentia and
without due process for vaguely worded crimes under American law that were allegedly
committed in Russia, and then to seize their property and persons when involved in any act of
global commerce where Washington can browbeat local satrapies and "allies" into
cooperation!
Only in an imperial capital steeped in self-conferred entitlement to function as global
hegemon would such a preposterous extraterritorial arrangement be even thinkable. After all,
what happens to Russians in Russian prisons is absolutely none of Washington's business
– nor by any stretch of the imagination does it pose any threat whatsoever to America's
homeland security.
So the irony of the Trump Tower nothingburger is that the alleged Russian agent was here
fighting Washington's meddling in Russia , not hooking up with Trump's campaign
to further a Kremlin plot to attack American democracy.
You could properly call this a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but Imperial
Washington and its shills among the ranks of Dem politicians and megaphones in the MSM
wouldn't get the joke in the slightest. That's because Washington is in the business of
meddling in the domestic affairs of virtually every country in the world – friend, foe
and also-ran – on a massive scale never before imagined in human history.
That's what the hideously excessive $75 billion budget of the so-called
17-agency "intelligence community" (IC) gets you. To wit, a backdoor into every access point
and traffic exchange node on the entire global internet, and from there the ability to hack,
surveil, exfiltrate or corrupt the communications of any government, political party,
business or private citizen virtually anywhere on the planet.
And, no, this isn't being done for the noble purpose of rooting-out the terrorist needles
in the global haystack of communications and Internet traffic. It's done because the IC has
the resources to do it and because it has invested itself with endless missions of global
hegemony.
These self-serving missions, in turn, justify its existence, keep the politicians of
Washington well stocked in scary bedtime stories and, most important of all, ensure that the
fiscal gravy train remains loaded to the gills and that the gilded prosperity of the beltway
never falters.
Indeed, if Washington were looking for corporate pen name it would be Meddling "R" Us. And
we speak here not merely of its vast and secretive spy apparatus, but also of its completely
visible everyday intrusions in the affairs of other countries via the billions that are
channeled through the National Endowment for Democracy and the vast NGO network funded by the
State Department, DOD and other organs of the national security complex.
The $750 million per year Board For International Broadcasting, for example,
is purely in the propaganda business; and despite the Cold War's end 27 years ago, still
carries out relentless "agit prop" in Russia and among the reincarnated states of the old
Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of
America.
For example, here is a Voice of America tweet from this morning falsely charging Russia
with the occupation of the former Soviet state of Georgia.
In fact, Russia came to the aid of the Russian-speaking population of the breakaway
province of South Ossetia in 2008; the latter felt imperiled by the grandiose pretensions of
the corrupt Saakashvili government in Tbilisi, which had unilaterally launched an
indiscriminate military assault on the major cities of the province.
Moreover, even an EU commission investigation came to that conclusion way back in 2009
shortly after the events that the inhabitants of South Ossetia feared would lead to a
genocidal invasion by Georgia's military.
An investigation into last year's Russia-Georgia war delivered a damning indictment of
President Mikheil Saakashvili today, accusing Tbilisi of launching an indiscriminate
artillery barrage on the city of Tskhinvali that started the war.
In more than 1,000 pages of analysis, documentation and witness statements, the most
exhaustive inquiry into the five-day conflict dismissed Georgian claims that the artillery
attack was in response to a Russian invasion
The EU-commissioned report, by a fact-finding mission of more than 20 political,
military, human rights and international law experts led by the Swiss diplomat, Heidi
Tagliavini, was unveiled in Brussels today after nine months of work.
Flatly dismissing Saakashvili's version, the report said: "There was no ongoing
armed attack by Russia before the start of the Georgian operation Georgian claims of a
large-scale presence of Russian armed forces in South Ossetia prior to the Georgian offensive
could not be substantiated
The point is, whatever the rights and wrongs of the statelets and provinces attempting to
sort themselves out after the fall of the Soviet Union, this was all happening on Russia's
doorsteps and was none of Washington business even at the time. But wasting taxpayer money 10
years later by siding with the revanchist claims of the Georgian government is just plain
ludicrous.
It's also emblematic of why the Imperial City is so clueless about the rank hypocrisy
implicit in the Russian meddling hoax. Believing that America is the Indispensable Nation and
that Washington operates by its own hegemonic rules, they are now Shocked, Shocked! to find
that the victims of their blatant intrusions might actually endeavor to fight back.
Even then, the Russophobes have been frantically making a mountain out of a molehill. We
investigated the Russian troll farm in St. Petersburg, for example, and found that it was
actually the hobby horse of a mid-sized Oligarch. The latter had been minding his own
business trolling the Russian Internet, as the oligarchs of that country are wont to do
– until the US sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014 became the occasion for Washington's
relentless vilification of Russia and Putin.
Accordingly, this particular Russian patriot hired a few dozen students at $3-4 per hour
who mostly spoke English as a third-language. Operating on 12-hour shifts, they randomly
trolled Facebook and other US based social media, posting crude and sometimes incoherent
political messages from virtually all points on the compass – messages that were
instantly lost in the great sea of social media trivia and mendacity.
Still, there is no evidence that this two-bit hobby farm was an instrument of Kremlin
policy or that its tiny $2 million budget could hold a candle to the $200
million per year round-the-clock propaganda of Voice of America, and multiples
thereof by the other Washington propaganda venues.
In any event, turning the Trump Tower meeting into evidence of Russian meddling and
collusion actually gives the old saw about turning a molehill into a mountain an altogether
new meaning. That is to say, on any given evening Anderson Cooper will be interviewing a
lathered-up ex-general or ex-spook admonishing that Natalia Veselnitskaya was actually a
nefarious Russian "cut out" sent by Putin to infiltrate the Trump campaign.
Really?
We have no brief for Vlad Putin, but one thing we are quite sure of is that he is anything
but stupid. So would he really send a secret agent to Trump Tower – who neither speaks
nor writes a word of English and has been to America only once – in order to plot a
surreptitious attempt to manipulate the American election?
The fact is, the meeting happened because Veselnitskaya wanted to reach the Trump campaign
in behalf of her anti-Magnitsky Act agenda, and to do so used the good offices of what
appears to be the Russian Justin Bieber!
Specifically, the offer came to Don Trump Jr. via a London-based PR flack named Rob
Goldstone, a music publicist who knew the Trumps through the Miss Universe pageant that was
held in Moscow in 2013. Goldstone didn't know his head from a hole in the ground when it
comes to international affairs or Russian politics, but he did represent the Russian pop
singer Emin Agalarov, whose father was also a Trump- style real estate developer and had been
involved in the 2013 pageant.
Said the London PR flack in an email to Don Jr:
"Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting .The
Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered
to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would
incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your
father .( this is) "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."
And a very big so what!
For one thing, the last "Crown prosecutor of Russia" was assassinated by the Bolsheviks in
1917, suggesting Goldstone's grasp of the contemporary Russian government was well less than
rudimentary.
Secondly, there was neither a crime nor national security issue involved when a campaign
seeks to dig-up dirt from foreign nationals. The crime is when they pay for it, and do not
report the expenditure to the Federal Elections Commission.
Of course, that's exactly what Hillary Clinton's campaign did with its multi-million
funding of the Trump Dossier, generated by foreign national Christopher Steele and
intermediated to the FBI and other IC agencies by Fusion GPS.
And that gets us to the mind-boggling silliness of the whole Trump Tower affair.
Self-evidently, the dirt on Hillary suggestion was a come-on so that Veselnitskaya (through
her Russian translator) could make a pitch against the Magnitsky Act; and to point out that
after 33,000 Russian babies had been adopted by Americans before its enactment, that avenue
of adoption had been stopped cold when the Kremlin found it necessary to retaliate.
Don's Jr. emails to his secretary from the meeting long ago proved that he immediately
recognized Natalia's bait and switch operation, and that he wanted to be summoned to the
phone so he could end what he saw was a complete waste of the campaign's time.
But here's the joker in the woodpile. Its seem that Glenn Simpson, proprietor of Fusion
GPs, had also been hired by Veselnitskaya Russian clients to make a case in Washington
against the Magnitsky Act, and to also dig up dirt on the scoundrel behind it: Bill
Browder.
More fantastically yet, Natalia had meet with Simpson both before and after the
Trump Tower meeting apparently to be coached by him on her anti-Magnitsky pitch to
the Trump campaign.
So if Veselnitskaya was part of a Russian collusion conspiracy, then so was the Glenn
Simpson, the midwife of the Trump Dossier!
It doesn't get any crazier than that – meaning that the Donald could not be more
correct about this entire farce:
This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged
Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is
totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace
to USA!
In truth, the only basis for Natalia Veselnitskaya's alleged Putin ties was through
Russia's prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika.
And exactly why was Chaika interested in making American contacts?
Why, because he was pursuing one Bill Browder, fugitive from Russian justice and the
driving force behind the abominable Magnitsky Act – an instrument of meddling in the
domestic affairs of foreign countries like no other. As one report described it:
Chaika's foray into American politics began in earnest in April 2016. That is when his
office gave Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher and three other US representatives a
confidential letter detailing American investor Bill Browder's "illegal scheme of buying up
Gazprom shares without permission of the Government of Russia" between 1999 and 2006, one
month after Rohrabacher returned from Moscow.
As it happened, Veselnitskaya had apparently brought a memo to the Trump Tower meeting
that contained many of the same talking points as one written by Chaika's office two months
earlier.
There you have it.
At the heart of the Russian collusion hoax and the wellspring of the current Russophobia
is nothing more than a half-baked effort by Russians to tell their side of the Magnitsky
story, and to expose the real villain in the piece – a monumentally greedy hedge fund
operator who had stolen the Russian people blind and then conveniently gave up his American
citizenship so that he would neither do time in a Russian jail or pay taxes in America.
Spoiler Alert for next part: When both economic policy and politics have gone full retard
in the Imperial City is there anything which could possibly go wrong – that might
pollute the punch bowl on Wall Street?
Here are ten bombshell revelations and fascinating new details to lately come out of both Sy
Hersh's new book, Reporter , as well as
interviews he's given since publication...
1) On a leaked Bush-era intelligence memo outlining the neocon plan to remake the Middle
East
(Note: though previously alluded to only anecdotally by General Wesley Clark in his memoir and in a 2007
speech , the below passage from Seymour Hersh is to our knowledge the first time this
highly classified memo has been quoted . Hersh's account appears to corroborate now retired
Gen. Clark's assertion that days after 9/11 a classified memo outlining plans to foster regime
change in "7 countries in
5 years" was being circulated among intelligence officials.)
From Reporter: A Memoir
pg. 306 -- A few months after the invasion of Iraq, during an interview overseas with a general
who was director of a foreign intelligence service, I was provided with a copy of a Republican
neocon plan for American dominance in the Middle East. The general was an American ally, but
one who was very rattled by the Bush/Cheney aggression. I was told that the document leaked to
me initially had been obtained by someone in the local CIA station. There was reason to be
rattled: The document declared that the war to reshape the Middle East had to begin "with the
assault on Iraq. The fundamental reason for this... is that the war will start making the U.S.
the hegemon of the Middle East. The correlative reason is to make the region feel in its bones,
as it were, the seriousness of American intent and determination." Victory in Iraq would lead
to an ultimatum to Damascus, the "defanging" of Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Arafat's Palestine
Liberation Organization, and other anti-Israeli groups. America's enemies must understand that
"they are fighting for their life: Pax Americana is on its way, which implies their
annihilation." I and the foreign general agreed that America's neocons were a menace to
civilization.
From Reporter: A Memoir
pages 306-307 -- Donald Rumsfeld was also infected with neocon fantasy. Turkey had refused to
permit America's Fourth Division to join the attack of Iraq from its territory, and the
division, with its twenty-five thousand men and women, did not arrive in force inside Iraq
until mid-April, when the initial fighting was essentially over. I learned then that Rumsfeld
had asked the American military command in Stuttgart, Germany, which had responsibility for
monitoring Europe, including Syria and Lebanon, to begin drawing up an operational plan for an
invasion of Syria. A young general assigned to the task refused to do so, thereby winning
applause from my friends on the inside and risking his career. The plan was seen by those I
knew as especially bizarre because Bashar Assad, the ruler of secular Syria, had responded to
9/11 by sharing with the CIA hundreds of his country's most sensitive intelligence files on the
Muslim Brotherhood in Hamburg, where much of the planning for 9/11 was carried out... Rumsfeld
eventually came to his senses and back down, I was told...
3) On the Neocon deep state which seized power after 9/11
From Reporter: A Memoir
pages 305-306 -- I began to comprehend that eight or nine neoconservatives who were political
outsiders in the Clinton years had essentially overthrown the government of the United States
-- with ease . It was stunning to realize how fragile our Constitution was. The intellectual
leaders of that group -- Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle -- had not hidden their
ideology and their belief in the power of the executive but depicted themselves in public with
a great calmness and a self-assurance that masked their radicalism . I had spent many hours
after 9/11 in conversations with Perle that, luckily for me, helped me understand what was
coming. (Perle and I had been chatting about policy since the early 1980s, but he broke off
relations in 1993 over an article I did for The New Yorker linking him, a fervent supporter of
Israel, to a series of meetings with Saudi businessmen in an attempt to land a
multibillion-dollar contract from Saudi Arabia . Perle responded by publicly threatening to sue
me and characterizing me as a newspaper terrorist. He did not sue.
Meanwhile, Cheney had emerged as a leader of the neocon pack. From 9/11 on he did all he
could to undermine congressional oversight. I learned a great deal from the inside about his
primacy in the White House , but once again I was limited in what I would write for fear of
betraying my sources...
I came to understand that Cheney's goal was to run his most important military and
intelligence operations with as little congressional knowledge, and interference, as possible.
I was fascinating and important to learn what I did about Cheney's constant accumulation of
power and authority as vice president , but it was impossible to even begin to verify the
information without running the risk that Cheney would learn of my questioning and have a good
idea from whom I was getting the information.
4) On Russian meddling in the US election
From the recent
Independent interview based on his autobiography -- Hersh has vociferously strong opinions
on the subject and smells a rat. He states that there is "a great deal of animosity towards
Russia. All of that stuff about Russia hacking the election appears to be preposterous." He has
been researching the subject but is not ready to go public yet.
Hersh quips that the last time he heard the US defense establishment have high confidence,
it was regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He points out that the NSA only has moderate confidence in Russian
hacking. It is a point that has been made before; there has been no national intelligence
estimate in which all 17 US intelligence agencies would have to sign off. "When the intel
community wants to say something they say it High confidence effectively means that they don't
know."
5) On the Novichok poisoning
From the recent
Independent interview -- Hersh is also on the record as stating that the official version
of the
Skripal poisoning does not stand up to scrutiny. He tells me: "The story of novichok
poisoning has not held up very well. He [Skripal] was most likely talking to British
intelligence services about Russian organised crime." The unfortunate turn of events with the
contamination of other victims is suggestive, according to Hersh, of organised crime elements
rather than state-sponsored actions –though this files in the face of the UK government's
position.
Hersh modestly points out that these are just his opinions. Opinions or not, he is scathing
on Obama –
"a trimmer articulate [but] far from a radical a middleman". During his Goldsmiths talk, he
remarks that liberal critics underestimate Trump at their peril.
He ends the Goldsmiths talk with an anecdote about having lunch with his sources in the
wake of 9/11 . He vents his anger at the agencies for not sharing information. One of his
CIA sources fires back: "Sy you still don't get it after all these years – the FBI
catches bank robbers, the CIA robs banks." It is a delicious, if cryptic aphorism.
* * *
6) On the Bush-era 'Redirection' policy of arming Sunni radicals to counter Shia Iran, which
in a 2007 New Yorker article
Hersh accurately predicted
would set off war in Syria
From the
Independent interview : [Hersh] tells me it is "amazing how many times that story has been
reprinted" . I ask about his argument that US policy was designed to neutralize the Shia sphere
extending from Iran to Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon and hence redraw the Sykes-Picot
boundaries for the 21st century.
He goes on to say that Bush and Cheney "had it in for Iran", although he denies the idea
that Iran was heavily involved in Iraq: "They were providing intel, collecting intel The US did
many cross-border hunts to kill ops [with] much more aggression than Iran"...
He believes that the Trump administration has no memory of this approach. I'm sure though
that the military-industrial complex has a longer memory...
I press him on the RAND and Stratfor reports including one authored by Cheney and Paul
Wolfowitz in which they envisage deliberate ethno-sectarian partitioning of Iraq . Hersh
ruefully states that: "The day after 9/11 we should have gone to Russia. We did the one thing
that George Kennan warned us never to do – to expand NATO too far."
* * *
7) On the official 9/11 narrative
From the
Independent interview : We end up ruminating about 9/11, perhaps because it is another
narrative ripe for deconstruction by sceptics. Polling shows that a significant proportion of
the American public believes there is more to the truth. These doubts have been reinforced by
the declassification of the suppressed 28 pages of the 9/11 commission report last year
undermining the version that a group of terrorists acting independently managed to pull off the
attacks. The implication is that they may well have been state-sponsored with the Saudis
potentially involved.
Hersh tells me: "I don't necessarily buy the story that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11.
We really don't have an ending to the story. I've known people in the [intelligence] community.
We don't know anything empirical about who did what" . He continues: "The guy was living in a
cave. He really didn't know much English. He was pretty bright and he had a lot of hatred for
the US. We respond by attacking the Taliban. Eighteen years later How's it going guys?"
8) On the media and the morality of the powerful
From a recent
The Intercept interview and book review -- If
Hersh were a superhero, this would be his origin story. Two hundred and seventy-four pages
after the Chicago anecdote, he describes his coverage of a massive
slaughter of Iraqi troops and civilians by the U.S. in 1991 after a ceasefire had ended the
Persian Gulf War. America's indifference to this massacre was, Hersh writes, "a reminder of the
Vietnam War's MGR, for Mere Gook Rule: If it's a murdered or raped gook, there is no crime." It
was also, he adds, a reminder of something else: "I had learned a domestic version of that rule
decades earlier" in Chicago. "Reporter" demonstrates that Hersh has derived three simple lessons from that rule:
The powerful prey mercilessly upon the powerless, up to and including mass murder.
The powerful lie constantly about their predations.
The natural instinct of the media is to let the powerful get away with it.
If half of what I have come to understand about the Curious Case of Bill Browder is true,
then the "Magnitsky Trio" of Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Ben Cardin are guilty of
espionage, at a minimum.
Why? Because they know that Browder's story about Sergei Magnitsky is a lie. And that means
that when you tie in the Trump Dossier, Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, the Skripal poisoning
and the rest of this mess, these men are consorting with foreign governments and agencies
against the sitting President.
As Lee Stranahan pointed out recently on Fault Lines, Cardin invited Browder to testify to
Congress in 2017 to push through last year's sanctions bill, a more stringent version of the
expiring Magnitsky Act of 2011, which has since been used to ratchet up pressure on Russia.
I'd read it a few times, because it's about as murky as The Swamp gets. And, still my eyes
glaze over.
The Magnitsky Act and its sequel have been used to support aggressive policy actions by the
U.S. against Russia and destroy the relationship between the world's most prominent militaries
and nuclear powers.
The new bill is said to want to put 'crushing sanctions' on Russia to make 'Putin feel the
heat.' In effect, what this bill wants to do is force President Trump to enforce sanctions
against
the entire Russian state for attempting to do business anywhere in the world.
The new financial penalties would target political figures, oligarchs, family members and
others that "facilitate illicit and corrupt activities" on behalf of Putin.
It would also impose new sanctions on transactions tied to investments in state-owned
energy projects, transactions tied to new Russian debt, and people with the capacity or
ability to support or carry out a "malicious" cyber act.
In addition, if it wasn't clear enough already, that he's no friend of the President, Graham
is trying to tie the President's hands on NATO withdrawal, requiring a two-thirds majority.
Now, why would Graham be worried about that, unless it was something the President was
seriously considering? This is similar to last year's sanctions bill requiring a similar
majority for the President to end the original sanctions placed on Russia in 2014 over the
reunification with Crimea.
And behind it all stands Bill Browder.
Because it has been Browder's one-man campaign to influence members of Congress, the EU and
public opinion the world over against Putin and Russia for the past 10 years over Magnitsky's
death.
Browder's story is the only one we see in the news. And it's never questioned, even though
it has. He continually moves to block films and articles critical of him from seeing
distribution.
Browder is the epicenter around which the insane push for war with Russia revolves as
everyone involved in the attempt to take over Russia in 1999 continues to try and cover their
collective posteriors posterities.
And it is Browder, along with Republic National Bank chief Edmond Safra, who were involved
together in the pillaging of Russia in the 1990's. Browder's firm hired Magintsky as an
accountant (because that's what he was) to assist in the money laundering Heritage Capital was
involved in.
The attempted take over of Russia failed because Yeltsin saw the setup which led him to
appoint Putin as his Deputy Prime Minister.
There was $7 billion that was wired through Bank of New York which involved money stolen
from the IMF loans to Russia. The attempt to takeover Russia by blackmail was set in motion.
As soon as that wire was done, that is when Republic National Bank ran to the Department of
Justice to say it was money-laundering. I believe this started the crisis and Yeltsin was
blackmailed to step down and appoint Boris A. Berezovsky as the head of Russia.
Clearly, Republic National Bank was involved with the US government for they were sending
also skids of $100 bills to Russia. It was written up and called the
Money Plane . Yeltsin then turned to Putin realizing that he had been set up. This is how
Putin became the First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia on August 9th, 1999 until August 16th,
1999 when he became the 33rd Prime Minister and heir apparent of Yeltsin.
So, now why, all of a sudden, do we need even stronger sanctions on Russia, ones that would
create untold dislocation in financial markets around the world?
Look at the timeline today and see what's happening.
Earlier this year Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicts 13 people associated with
Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll farm, for influencing the 2016 election.
Then Mueller indicts twelve members of Russian intelligence to sabotage the upcoming
summit between Trump and Putin while the Russia Hacked Muh Election narrative was
flagging.
Three days later President Trump met with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. There a Putin let
the world know that he would assist Robert Mueller's investigation if in return the U.S.
would assist Russia in returning Bill Browder, who was tried and convicted in absentia for
tax evasion.
All of a sudden Browder's story is all over the alternative press. Browder is all over
U.S. television.
Earlier this week Facebook comes out, after horrific earnings, to tell everyone that IRA
was still at it, though being ever so sneaky, trying to influence the mid-terms by engaging
Democrats and anti-Trumpers to organize... In that release, Facebook let it be known it was
working with the political arm of NATO, The Atlantic Council, to ferret out these dastardly
Russian agents.
And now we have a brand-new shiny sanctions bill intended to keep any rapprochement between
the U.S. and Russia from occurring.
Why is that? What's got them so scared of relations with Russia improving?
Maybe, just maybe, because Putin has all of these people dead to rights and he's informed
Trump of what the real story behind all of this is.
That at its core is a group of very bad people who attempted to steal trillions but only got
away with billions and still have their sights set on destroying Russia for their own
needs.
And Lindsay Graham is their mouthpiece. (all puns intended)
That all of U.S. foreign policy is built on a lie.
That our relationship with Russia was purposefully trashed for the most venal of reasons,
for people like Bill Browder to not only steal billions but then have the chutzpah to steal the
$230 million he would have paid in taxes on those stolen billions.
And the only way to ensure none of those lies are exposed is for Trump to be unable to
change any of it by forcing him to openly side with the Russian President over members of his
own political party.
The proposed sanctions by the Graham bill are so insane that even the Treasury department
thinks they are a bad idea. But, at this point there is nothing Graham won't do for his
owners.
Because they are desperate they will push for open warfare with Russia to push Putin from
power, which is not possible. All of this is nothing more than a sad attempt to hold onto power
long enough to oust Trump from the White House and keep things as horrible as they currently
are.
Because no one gives up power willingly. And the more they are proven to be frauds the more
they will scream for war.
I should also mention Putin's treatment of certain Jewish oligarchs who have attempted
to influence Western policies toward Russia (e.g., Mikhail Khodorkovsky). A truly stunning
moment in the Trump-Putin presser (all but ignored in the MSM) was Putin saying that Bill
Browder and his associates had illegally earned $1.5 billion in Russia ("the way the money
was earned was illegal") without paying taxes either to Russia or the United States where
the money was transferred. And that he and his associates had contributed $400 million to
Hillary Clinton's campaign. While the charges back and forth are impossible for me to
evaluate, Browder's firm, Hermitage Capital Management, has been involved in other
accusations of fraud. Browder was the main force promoting the Magnitsky Act, signed by
President Obama in 2012, that barred Russian officials said to be involved in the death of
Sergei Magnitsky, a Browder associate, from entering the U.S. or using the U.S. banking
system.
Here the point is that American neocons have been in the forefront of hostility over
Putin's treatment of Jewish oligarchs, taking the view that Browder et al. are completely
innocent victims of Russian evil. Along with Russian foreign policy, Putin's actions toward
the oligarchs is one factor in neocon and hence some factions of the GOP toward Russia.
It's no surprise that they are now eagerly joining the hate-Trump chorus throughout the
American establishment.
"William Felix "Bill" Browder was born into a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois.
Browder's paternal grandfather was Earl Browder , who was born in Kansas in
1891. [1] He was a
radical and had lived in the Soviet Union for several years from 1927 and married Raisa
Berkman, a Jewish Russian woman, while living there. [1]
After his return to the United States in 1931, [1] Earl Browder
became the leader of the Communist Party USA , and ran for
U.S. president in 1936 and 1940. [13]
After World War II, Earl Browder lost favor with Moscow and was expelled from the American
Communist party . [1]
Remove all jew supremacists from all positions of power, no matter how small-NOW!
Get It, Read It:
"A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind" Stephon Mitford Goodson
Great film that takes you from Browder the poor defrauded good guy with a hero lawyer
Magnitsky, to a bad guy with Magnitsky the long employed accountant who made none of the
assertions injected into the Russian -English translations that no one reviewed. But why is
this film banned in the West? (/s)
Not only is Steele part of this shady group but there are ties with Alexander Litvinenko,
Boris Berezovsky, Alexander Perepelichny (who all meet thier untimely deaths) around Bill
Browder (directly/indirectly)"
As Browder responds with "I do not recall" and "I do not know" on any substantial
inquiry in the court, the US judiciary could be very interested in hearing Perepelichny.
This menace to Magnitsky Act was eliminated one week before the bill passed the US House:
on Nov 10, 2012 Alexander Perepelichny was found dead outside his mansion in London. The
police investigation did not bring any tangible result but the theory of "Russian mafia"
involved was timely injected into the international media. One month later Magnitsky Act
was signed by president Obama
McCain hand carried the Steele Dossier to Comey. McCain was in Canada when MI6 operative
Sir Andrew Wood enlisted McCain. Then McCain took the bait, no he was working to take Trump
out.
He tried to get out of it in his new book, The Restless Wave.
I've watched McCain for years, I believe he has brain damage from the Vietnam War.
I can understand repealing Jackson-Vanik because it pertained to how U. S. deals with
"non-market economies." Free market mechanisms were introduced in Russia and China since the
1970s so there needed to be changes. However, if there's government corruption in other
nation states, how does this rate an act of Congress? Why repeal the law that required annual
reviews of trade relations and replace it with normalization of trade only to sanction
foreign government officials that have never even had a trial? What about all the financial
misdeeds, money laundering, abuse of the banking system that can be traced to Browder, the
congressional instigator? How does Graham, McCain and Cardin benefit by derailing relations
with Russia over ONE GUY's WORD with a dicey past?
Law
In June 2012, the United
States House Committee on Foreign Affairs reported to the House a bill called the Sergei
Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 (H.R. 4405). The main intention of the law
was to punish Russian officials who were thought to be responsible for the death of Sergei
Magnitsky by prohibiting their entrance to the United States and their use of its banking
system. The legislation was taken up by a Senate panel the next week,
sponsored by Senator Ben
Cardin , and cited in a broader review of the mounting tensions in the international
relationship.
In November 2012, provisions of the Magnitsky bill were attached to a House bill (H.R.
6156) normalizing trade with Russia (i.e., repealing the Jackson–Vanik
amendment ) and Moldova . On December 6, 2012, the U.S. Senate
passed the House version of the law, 92-4. The law was signed by President Barack Obama on December 14, 2012.
In 2016, Congress enacted the Global Magnitsky Act which allows the US Government to
sanction foreign government officials implicated in human rights abuses anywhere in the
world.
In 16 November 2009, tax specialist lawyer Sergey Magnitsky died in Matrosskaya
Tishina prison (Moscow). Immediately, the US Press claimed that he had been in possession of
information concerning a State scandal, and had been tortured by the " régime ".
The
Magnitsky Act
The death of Magnitsky shut down the legal procedures that had been launched against him by the
Russian Minister of Justice. Billionaire William ("Bill") Browder declared in Washington that the
tax expert possessed proof that Russian Power had stolen 3 billion dollars from him. Despite
lobbying by Goldman Sachs, the US Congress believed it had clarified the affair, and in 2012
adopted a law sanctioning the Russian personalities suspected of having murdered the lawyer.
Goldman Sachs, which did not believe the information forwarded by the parliamentarians, hired the
lobbying firm Duberstein Group in an attempt to block the vote on the law [
1
].
On this model, in 2016, the Congress extended the "
Magnitsky Act
" to the whole world,
requesting the President to implement sanctions against all people and all states which violate
individual property. Presidents Obama and Trump obeyed, placing about twenty personalities on the
list, including the President of the Republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.
These two laws were aimed at giving back to the United States the role it had assumed during the
Cold War as defender of individual property, even though they had no communist rival.
The two versions of the " Magnitsky affair "
As for the Russian State Duma, it responded to its US counterpart by forbidding the adoption of
Russian children by US families, and by denouncing the responsibility of US personalities in the
legalisation of torture (the Dima Yakovlev Law, from the name of the Russian child adopted in the
USA who died as a result of negligence by the parents). President Putin applied this text in 2013,
also forbidding ex-US Vice President Dick Cheney access to Russian territory.
The " Magnitsky affair " could have ended there. It seems to be independent of the "
Khodorkovsky affair ", exploited by NATO in order to accuse Russia of interference in Western
democracies by way of disinformation or " fake news " [
2
].
However, the Russian Prosecutor General contests the narrative presented by William Browder to the
US Congress.
According to William Browder, his company Hermitage Capital invested in Russia, particularly in
Gazprom. He allegedly discovered signs of irregular practices and attempted to warn the Kremlin.
However, his resident's visa was then cancelled. Then his Russian companies were allegedly robbed
by Lieutenant-Colonel Artem Kuznetsov, a civil servant from the Financial Brigade of the Russian
Ministry of the Interior. Kuznetsov apparently seized the property documents during a search, then
used them to register a new owner. Lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, who apparently blew the whistle on the
embezzlement, was arrested, tortured and finally died in prison. In the end, Lieutenant-Colonel
Artem Kuznetsov and " godfather " Dmitry Klyuev were allegedly able to deposit the 3 billion stolen
dollars in a Cypriot bank. This is a classic case of theft by the Russian mafia with the help of
the Kremlin [
3
].
This narrative inspired the seventh season of the Showtime TV series,
Homeland
.
On the contrary, according to Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, William Browder illegally
acquired 133 million shares in Gazprom on behalf of the Ziff brothers, via various straw men. Not
only did Browder avoid paying 150 million dollars in taxes, but the acquisition of part of this
crown jewel of the Russian economy is in itself illegal. Furthermore, his financial advisor, Sergey
Magnitsky, who had developed another scam for the same Browder, was arrested and died of a heart
attack in prison [
4
].
It is obviously impossible to tell the truth from the lies in these two versions. However, it is
now recognised that Sergey Magnitsky was not a lawyer working freelance, but was employed by
William Browder's companies. He was not investigating embezzlement, but was tasked by Browder
with the creation of financial structures which would avoid him having to pay taxes in Russia.
For example, the two men imagined remunerating mentally handicapped people as front men in order to
benefit from their tax exempt status. Browder had much experience with tax evasion – which is why
he lived for ten years in Russia with a simple tourist visa, then abandoned his US citizenship and
became a British citizen.
These last elements prove William Browder wrong, and are compatible with Prosecutor Chaika's
accusations. In these conditions, it seems at the least imprudent for the US Congress to have
adopted the
Magnitsky Act
, unless of course the operation was aimed not at defending
individual property, but at hurting Russia [
5
].
A leader of the Russian opposition paid by Browder
Alongside the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Browder abundantly finances the work of a
young lawyer, Alexeď Navalny. Thanks to the help of US ambassador Michael McFaul, the young man
pursued his studies in the USA at Yale in 2010. He created an Anti-Corruption Foundation in order
to promote Browden's version and accuse Putin's administration.
Having become a leader of the political opposition, Navalny and his Foundation directed a first
documentary accusing the family of Prosecutor Chaika of corruption. But although the video is
convincing at first look, it presents no proof of the facts it relates.
Simultaneously, Navalny ordered a second documentary from a Russian film director and member of
the opposition about the " Magnitsky affair ". But this journalist turned against his employer
during the investigation, which was finally broadcast by Russian public television.
Thereafter, William Browder engaged an ex-agent of MI6 in Moscow (1990-93), Christopher Steele,
and the ex-US ambassador to Moscow (2012-14), Michael McFaul.
It so happens that it was Christopher Steele who, in 2006 – while he was with MI6 – accused
President Vladimir Putin of having ordered the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko with Polonium. In
2016, he also worked – freelance this time – for the US Democratic Party. That was when he wrote
the famous dossier accusing candidate Donald Trump of being under the threat of blackmail by the
Russian secret services [
6
]
; an unwarranted charge which has just resurfaced after the bilateral Summit in Helsinki. We find
Steele once again, in 2018, involved in the Novitchok poisoning of Sergueď Skripal – as a "
consultant " for MI6, he of course accused the inevitable Vladimir Putin.
The Russian riposte
During the US Presidential campaign of 2016, Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika attempted to
influence a member of Congress who was open to Russian thinking, Dana Rohrabacher (Republican,
California). He sent her a note concerning his version of the Browder-Magnitsky affair. Russian
lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya met the son and son-in-law of candidate Donald Trump at Trump Tower,
in order to inform them that a part of Browder's dirty money was being used to finance the
candidacy of Hillary Clinton [
7
].
Thereafter, William Browder became the main source of the enquiry run by Special Prosecutor
Robert Mueller about possible Russian interference in " US Democracy ". A long time before he
became the Director the FBI, Mueller – who officially has no link to the CIA – had been responsible
for the enquiry on the Lockerbie attack, which he attributed to Mouammar Kadhafi. Let's remember
that Libya never recognised that it was implicated in this affair, although it accepted to pay a
compensation to the victims. Above all, Scottish Justice established the fact that fragments of the
detonator found on site were placed there by the CIA in order to accuse Libya. Mueller used the
meeting of Trump's team with Natalia Veselnitskaya as " proof " of the subordination of Donald
Trump to the Russian Intelligence services.
In the USA, Natalia Veselnitskaya represents the interests of several of Browder's Russian
victims. She also acted in 2014 on behalf of one of the companies that Browder accused of being
connected to " godfather " Dmitry Klyuev. She also raised the question about the manner in which an
agent of Homeland Security, Todd Hyman, had transmitted a trial document without proceeding with
the usual verifications.
There will be no moment of truth
During the US-Russia summit in Helsinki, President Vladimir Putin proposed that his US
counterpart allow US investigators to question those Russian civil servants suspected of
interference in the US Presidential campaign, on the condition that Russian investigators would
also be allowed to question suspects in the USA. Donald Trump is reserving his answer.
However, when the office of Prosecutor Yury Chaika transmitted the list of witnesses to be
questioned, Washington panicked. Not only did Chaika ask to question British subjects William
Browder and Christopher Steele if they should travel in the United States, but also ambassador
Michael McFaul, lawyer Jonathan Winer, researcher David J. Kramer, and finally, agent Todd Hyman.
Jonathan Winer was in charge of the Lockerbie dossier at the State Department during the 1990's.
He is a personal friend of Christopher Steele, and transmitted his reports to the neo-conservatives
for a decade [
8
].
During Bush Jr.'s first term, David J. Kramer played an important role in the management of the
propaganda system for the State Department as well as looking after the stay-behind agents in
Eastern Europe and in Russia. After having worked in various think tanks, he became the president
of Freedom House, and campaigned on the " Magnitsky affair ". He is today a researcher at the
McCain Institute.
Although, so far, nothing enables us to tell which of the Browder and Chaika versions is
accurate, the truth will soon emerge. It is possible that Russian interference may be no more than
fake news, but US interference (by introduction into the crown piece of the Russian economy as well
as via Alexeď Navalny) may in fact be a reality.
In the context of' Washington's unanimous anti-Russian stand, President Trump declines Vladimir
Putin's proposition.
Thierry Meyssan
[
4
]
Note from Yury Chaika Office to Dana Rohrabacher, June 2016.
[
5
]
"
Intouchable, Mr. Browder ?
", par
Israël Shamir, Traduction Maria Poumier,
Entre la plume et l'enclume
(France),
The Unz
Review
(USA),
Réseau Voltaire
, 22 juin 2016.
trump has wrecked environmental policy, trade policy and domestic social policy....the
upshots will be: 1- a much more toxic environment & much higher level of respiratory
disease and cancerous related ailments; overall poorer health & health care for the
average citizen 2- higher prices for imported goods, lower level of trade exports, fewer US
based jobs and more off-shoring of US jobs 3- a substantial increase in the homeless
population in the urban areas of this country; increased rates of poverty for the poor, lower
economic prosperity for the lower and lower middle class income brackets; wage stagnation for
the middle & upper middle income brackets; less advanced education & lower worker
productivity and innovation to name just a few of the impacts created by this idiot....in
simple in English, Trump and his so-called initiatives are shafting this country in almost
every way possible
What part of international law is not just pissed on toiler paper strewn over the floors of a
urinal? Which post WWII president respected this law?
None.
International law, since WWII failed. It failed in '47 when no referendum was held in
Palestine - against Chapter 1, Article 1 paragraph 2 of the UN Charter. It failed in Crimea,
when the results of such a referendum was spat on by the previous war criminal to sit in the
Oval Office. It fails now as sanctions are used unilaterally - being equivalent to the use of
force in result, they should be
But then let's not stop at after the war. The US is the only country to nuke civilians.
6/7 US four star generals at the time said the action had no strategic or tactical purpose
whatsoever.
The US is what ISIS dreams to be, the sooner it falls into obscurity the better.
Pure nonsense. The Great Depression began on October 29, 1929. FDR was inaugurated on March
4, 1933 nearly 4 years after it began. Hoover had actually only been in office for just over
6 months before Black Tuesday. GDP began growing and unemployment began falling in 1933
shortly after FDR took office. The Depression officially came to an end in 1939 when GDP
returned to pre-Depression levels.
There is no long term US growth. There is a debt default after people realize the fact that
the top of the whole US government is incompetent. That it has chained itself to such
astronomic liabilities for useless wars (as the Empire has not succeeded in world hegemony),
is even sadder. It coould have spent the $5tn of Iraq and Afghanistan on building shit, but
instead it bombed shit.
Trump doesn't matter for US long run - in 5-10 years time the country will be only found
in history books.
Remember Kruschev's (sp?) last words on leaving office, and I'm paraphrasing: "Don't worry
about America, they'll spend themselves to death (just like we have)". Continued economic
growth is a wet dream of Wall Street origin. We are massively overpopulated and rapidly using
up earth's natural resources at an increasingly unsustainable rate. We must begin to reduce
our growth, not keep increasing it. Population density stress is killing us now and only
increasing every day along with the 220,000 new mouths to feed that we are turning out into a
world that has no room for 28,000,000 homeless migrants already. Just how crazy are we
really. If this article is to be believed, we are nuts. E.F. Schumacher is rolling in his
grave! Stress R Us
The contribution of a president to the national debt depends a bit on how you calculate it.
You could simply look at rhe dates of inauguration or go a step further and look at the
fiscal years. For the latter see :
In absolute terms Obama is indeed at the top of the list, percentagewise his predecessor
played a larger part. No matter how you look at it or what the causes were, under Bush and
Obama the U.S. debt seems to have spiralled out of of control and Trump is doing bugger all
to stop that trend.
On January 20, 2009, when he was sworn in, the debt was $10.626 trillion. On January 20,
2017, when he left, it was $19.947 trillion. Most people would calculate Obama added $9
trillion to the debt, more than any other president. But then Tom Eleven isn't "Most people".
"... In addition, Russia is being literally fenced off from Europe, with NATO members and/or EU member states Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland building border fences. Finland, Norway and Ukraine are members of neither NATO nor the EU but contribute to NATO and are also building fences with Russia. ..."
"All Russian security documents explicitly single out the challenges that the policies of Western states supposedly create
for Russian security (with particularly harsh words in the Security strategy). Grievances connected to what Russia sees as 'systemic
problems in the Euro-Atlantic region' (Foreign policy concept), the enlargement of NATO, the location of its military infrastructure
close to Russian borders, its 'offensive capabilities' and the trend towards the Alliance acquiring 'global functions', the 'symptoms'
of the U.S. efforts to retain absolute military supremacy (the global antimissile system, Global Strike capabilities, militarization
of space) "
Are Russian forces in Canada and Mexico conducting joint exercises against the US? No. Are Russian forces in Ireland conducting
joint exercises against Britain? No. Is there an obvious Russian presence in Scotland promoting independence from the UK? No. But
Britain and the US are mounted on Russia's borders and conducting joint exercises with its neighbors.
In addition, Russia is being literally fenced off from Europe, with NATO members and/or EU member states Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania and Poland building border fences. Finland, Norway and Ukraine are members of neither NATO nor the EU but contribute to
NATO and are also building fences with Russia.
But what do Russia's neighbours, like the Estonians, rank as their national security priorities? A
survey suggests that for Estonians, the biggest threat to global security is the Islamic State, followed by the refugee crisis
in Europe and the war in Syria. Russia came fourth on the list, even after the Ukraine crisis. According to
Gallup , a majority
52% of Estonians consider NATO a protective force, but 43% see it as either a threat (17%) or neither (26%). Estonians are behind
Kosovars, Albanians, Poles and Lithuanians in their opinions of NATO.
At very least, a leader should be able to tell right from wrong... and sadly, too often in
this world, "nice guys finish last".
"There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain."
Plato
n 16 November 2009, tax specialist lawyer Sergey Magnitsky died in Matrosskaya
Tishina prison (Moscow). Immediately, the US Press claimed that he had been in possession of
information concerning a State scandal, and had been tortured by the " régime ".
The
Magnitsky Act
The death of Magnitsky shut down the legal procedures that had been launched against him by the
Russian Minister of Justice. Billionaire William ("Bill") Browder declared in Washington that the
tax expert possessed proof that Russian Power had stolen 3 billion dollars from him. Despite
lobbying by Goldman Sachs, the US Congress believed it had clarified the affair, and in 2012
adopted a law sanctioning the Russian personalities suspected of having murdered the lawyer.
Goldman Sachs, which did not believe the information forwarded by the parliamentarians, hired the
lobbying firm Duberstein Group in an attempt to block the vote on the law [
1
].
On this model, in 2016, the Congress extended the "
Magnitsky Act
" to the whole world,
requesting the President to implement sanctions against all people and all states which violate
individual property. Presidents Obama and Trump obeyed, placing about twenty personalities on the
list, including the President of the Republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.
These two laws were aimed at giving back to the United States the role it had assumed during the
Cold War as defender of individual property, even though they had no communist rival.
The two versions of the " Magnitsky affair "
As for the Russian State Duma, it responded to its US counterpart by forbidding the adoption of
Russian children by US families, and by denouncing the responsibility of US personalities in the
legalisation of torture (the Dima Yakovlev Law, from the name of the Russian child adopted in the
USA who died as a result of negligence by the parents). President Putin applied this text in 2013,
also forbidding ex-US Vice President Dick Cheney access to Russian territory.
The " Magnitsky affair " could have ended there. It seems to be independent of the "
Khodorkovsky affair ", exploited by NATO in order to accuse Russia of interference in Western
democracies by way of disinformation or " fake news " [
2
].
However, the Russian Prosecutor General contests the narrative presented by Wiliam Browder to the
US Congress.
According to William Browder, his company Hermitage Capital invested in Russia, particularly in
Gazprom. He allegedly discovered signs of irregular practices and attempted to warn the Kremlin.
However, his resident's visa was then cancelled. Then his Russian companies were allegedly robbed
by Lieutenant-Colonel Artem Kuznetsov, a civil servant from the Financial Brigade of the Russian
Ministry of the Interior. Kuznetsov apparently seized the property documents during a search, then
used them to register a new owner. Lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, who apparently blew the whistle on the
embezzlement, was arrested, tortured and finally died in prison. In the end, Lieutenant-Colonel
Artem Kuznetsov and " godfather " Dmitry Klyuev were allegedly able to deposit the 3 billion stolen
dollars in a Cypriot bank. This is a classic case of theft by the Russian mafia with the help of
the Kremlin [
3
].
This narrative inspired the seventh season of the Showtime TV series,
Homeland
.
On the contrary, according to Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, William Browder illegally
acquired 133 million shares in Gazprom on behalf of the Ziff brothers, via various straw men. Not
only did Browder avoid paying 150 million dollars in taxes, but the acquisition of part of this
crown jewel of the Russian economy is in itself illegal. Furthermore, his financial advisor, Sergey
Magnitsky, who had developed another scam for the same Browder, was arrested and died of a heart
attack in prison [
4
].
It is obviously impossible to tell the truth from the lies in these two versions. However, it is
now recognised that Sergey Magnitsky was not a lawyer working freelance, but was employed by
William Browder's companies. He was not investigating embezzlement, but was tasked by Browder
with the creation of financial structures which would avoid him having to pay taxes in Russia.
For example, the two men imagined remunerating mentally handicapped people as front men in order to
benefit from their tax exempt status. Browder had much experience with tax evasion – which is why
he lived for ten years in Russia with a simple tourist visa, then abandoned his US citizenship and
became a British citizen.
These last elements prove William Browder wrong, and are compatible with Prosecutor Chaika's
accusations. In these conditions, it seems at the least imprudent for the US Congress to have
adopted the
Magnitsky Act
, unless of course the operation was aimed not at defending
individual property, but at hurting Russia [
5
].
A leader of the Russian opposition paid by Browder
Alongside the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Browder abundantly finances the work of a
young lawyer, Alexeď Navalny. Thanks to the help of US ambassador Michael McFaul, the young man
pursued his studies in the USA at Yale in 2010. He created an Anti-Corruption Foundation in order
to promote Browden's version and accuse Putin's administration.
Having become a leader of the political opposition, Navalny and his Foundation directed a first
documentary accusing the family of Prosecutor Chaika of corruption. But although the video is
convincing at first look, it presents no proof of the facts it relates.
Simultaneously, Navalny ordered a second documentary from a Russian film director and member of
the opposition about the " Magnitsky affair ". But this journalist turned against his employer
during the investigation, which was finally broadcast by Russian public television.
Thereafter, William Browder engaged an ex-agent of MI6 in Moscow (1990-93), Christopher Steele,
and the ex-US ambassador to Moscow (2012-14), Michael McFaul.
It so happens that it was Christopher Steele who, in 2006 – while he was with MI6 – accused
President Vladimir Putin of having ordered the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko with Polonium. In
2016, he also worked – freelance this time – for the US Democratic Party. That was when he wrote
the famous dossier accusing candidate Donald Trump of being under the threat of blackmail by the
Russian secret services [
6
]
; an unwarranted charge which has just resurfaced after the bilateral Summit in Helsinki. We find
Steele once again, in 2018, involved in the Novitchok poisoning of Sergueď Skripal – as a "
consultant " for MI6, he of course accused the inevitable Vladimir Putin.
The Russian riposte
During the US Presidential campaign of 2016, Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika attempted to
influence a member of Congress who was open to Russian thinking, Dana Rohrabacher (Republican,
California). He sent her a note concerning his version of the Browder-Magnitsky affair. Russian
lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya met the son and son-in-law of candidate Donald Trump at Trump Tower,
in order to inform them that a part of Browder's dirty money was being used to finance the
candidacy of Hillary Clinton [
7
].
Thereafter, William Browder became the main source of the enquiry run by Special Prosecutor
Robert Mueller about possible Russian interference in " US Democracy ". A long time before he
became the Director the FBI, Mueller – who officially has no link to the CIA – had been responsible
for the enquiry on the Lockerbie attack, which he attributed to Mouammar Kadhafi. Let's remember
that Libya never recognised that it was implicated in this affair, although it accepted to pay a
compensation to the victims. Above all, Scottish Justice established the fact that fragments of the
detonator found on site were placed there by the CIA in order to accuse Libya. Mueller used the
meeting of Trump's team with Natalia Veselnitskaya as " proof " of the subordination of Donald
Trump to the Russian Intelligence services.
In the USA, Natalia Veselnitskaya represents the interests of several of Browder's Russian
victims. She also acted in 2014 on behalf of one of the companies that Browder accused of being
connected to " godfather " Dmitry Klyuev. She also raised the question about the manner in which an
agent of Homeland Security, Todd Hyman, had transmitted a trial document without proceeding with
the usual verifications.
There will be no moment of truth
During the US-Russia summit in Helsinki, President Vladimir Putin proposed that his US
counterpart allow US investigators to question those Russian civil servants suspected of
interference in the US Presidential campaign, on the condition that Russian investigators would
also be allowed to question suspects in the USA. Donald Trump is reserving his answer.
However, when the office of Prosecutor Yury Chaika transmitted the list of witnesses to be
questioned, Washington panicked. Not only did Chaika ask to question British subjects William
Browder and Christopher Steele if they should travel in the United States, but also ambassador
Michael McFaul, lawyer Jonathan Winer, researcher David J. Kramer, and finally, agent Todd Hyman.
Jonathan Winer was in charge of the Lockerbie dossier at the State Department during the 1990's.
He is a personal friend of Christopher Steele, and transmitted his reports to the neo-conservatives
for a decade [
8
].
During Bush Jr.'s first term, David J. Kramer played an important role in the management of the
propaganda system for the State Department as well as looking after the stay-behind agents in
Eastern Europe and in Russia. After having worked in various think tanks, he became the president
of Freedom House, and campaigned on the " Magnitsky affair ". He is today a researcher at the
McCain Institute.
Although, so far, nothing enables us to tell which of the Browder and Chaika versions is
accurate, the truth will soon emerge. It is possible that Russian interference may be no more than
fake news, but US interference (by introduction into the crown piece of the Russian economy as well
as via Alexeď Navalny) may in fact be a reality.
In the context of' Washington's unanimous anti-Russian stand, President Trump declines Vladimir
Putin's proposition.
Thierry Meyssan
[
4
]
Note from Yury Chaika Office to Dana Rohrabacher, June 2016.
[
5
]
"
Intouchable, Mr. Browder ?
", par
Israël Shamir, Traduction Maria Poumier,
Entre la plume et l'enclume
(France),
The Unz
Review
(USA),
Réseau Voltaire
, 22 juin 2016.
If half of what I have come to understand about the Curious Case of Bill Browder is true,
then the "Magnitsky Trio" of Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Ben Cardin are guilty of
espionage, at a minimum.
Why? Because they know that Browder's story about Sergei Magnitsky is a lie. And that means
that when you tie in the Trump Dossier, Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, the Skripal poisoning
and the rest of this mess, these men are consorting with foreign governments and agencies
against the sitting President.
As Lee Stranahan pointed out recently on Fault Lines, Cardin invited Browder to testify to
Congress in 2017 to push through last year's sanctions bill, a more stringent version of the
expiring Magnitsky Act of 2011, which has since been used to ratchet up pressure on Russia.
I'd read it a few times, because it's about as murky as The Swamp gets. And, still my eyes
glaze over.
The Magnitsky Act and its sequel have been used to support aggressive policy actions by the
U.S. against Russia and destroy the relationship between the world's most prominent militaries
and nuclear powers.
The new bill is said to want to put 'crushing sanctions' on Russia to make 'Putin feel the
heat.' In effect, what this bill wants to do is force President Trump to enforce sanctions
against
the entire Russian state for attempting to do business anywhere in the world.
The new financial penalties would target political figures, oligarchs, family members and
others that "facilitate illicit and corrupt activities" on behalf of Putin.
It would also impose new sanctions on transactions tied to investments in state-owned
energy projects, transactions tied to new Russian debt, and people with the capacity or
ability to support or carry out a "malicious" cyber act.
In addition, if it wasn't clear enough already, that he's no friend of the President, Graham
is trying to tie the President's hands on NATO withdrawal, requiring a two-thirds majority.
Now, why would Graham be worried about that, unless it was something the President was
seriously considering? This is similar to last year's sanctions bill requiring a similar
majority for the President to end the original sanctions placed on Russia in 2014 over the
reunification with Crimea.
And behind it all stands Bill Browder.
Because it has been Browder's one-man campaign to influence members of Congress, the EU and
public opinion the world over against Putin and Russia for the past 10 years over Magnitsky's
death.
Browder's story is the only one we see in the news. And it's never questioned, even though
it has. He continually moves to block films and articles critical of him from seeing
distribution.
Browder is the epicenter around which the insane push for war with Russia revolves as
everyone involved in the attempt to take over Russia in 1999 continues to try and cover their
collective posteriors posterities.
And it is Browder, along with Republic National Bank chief Edmond Safra, who were involved
together in the pillaging of Russia in the 1990's. Browder's firm hired Magintsky as an
accountant (because that's what he was) to assist in the money laundering Heritage Capital was
involved in.
The attempted take over of Russia failed because Yeltsin saw the setup which led him to
appoint Putin as his Deputy Prime Minister.
There was $7 billion that was wired through Bank of New York which involved money stolen
from the IMF loans to Russia. The attempt to takeover Russia by blackmail was set in motion.
As soon as that wire was done, that is when Republic National Bank ran to the Department of
Justice to say it was money-laundering. I believe this started the crisis and Yeltsin was
blackmailed to step down and appoint Boris A. Berezovsky as the head of Russia.
Clearly, Republic National Bank was involved with the US government for they were sending
also skids of $100 bills to Russia. It was written up and called the
Money Plane . Yeltsin then turned to Putin realizing that he had been set up. This is how
Putin became the First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia on August 9th, 1999 until August 16th,
1999 when he became the 33rd Prime Minister and heir apparent of Yeltsin.
So, now why, all of a sudden, do we need even stronger sanctions on Russia, ones that would
create untold dislocation in financial markets around the world?
Look at the timeline today and see what's happening.
Earlier this year Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicts 13 people associated with
Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll farm, for influencing the 2016 election.
Then Mueller indicts twelve members of Russian intelligence to sabotage the upcoming
summit between Trump and Putin while the Russia Hacked Muh Election narrative was
flagging.
Three days later President Trump met with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. There a Putin let
the world know that he would assist Robert Mueller's investigation if in return the U.S.
would assist Russia in returning Bill Browder, who was tried and convicted in absentia for
tax evasion.
All of a sudden Browder's story is all over the alternative press. Browder is all over
U.S. television.
Earlier this week Facebook comes out, after horrific earnings, to tell everyone that IRA
was still at it, though being ever so sneaky, trying to influence the mid-terms by engaging
Democrats and anti-Trumpers to organize... In that release, Facebook let it be known it was
working with the political arm of NATO, The Atlantic Council, to ferret out these dastardly
Russian agents.
And now we have a brand-new shiny sanctions bill intended to keep any rapprochement between
the U.S. and Russia from occurring.
Why is that? What's got them so scared of relations with Russia improving?
Maybe, just maybe, because Putin has all of these people dead to rights and he's informed
Trump of what the real story behind all of this is.
That at its core is a group of very bad people who attempted to steal trillions but only got
away with billions and still have their sights set on destroying Russia for their own
needs.
And Lindsay Graham is their mouthpiece. (all puns intended)
That all of U.S. foreign policy is built on a lie.
That our relationship with Russia was purposefully trashed for the most venal of reasons,
for people like Bill Browder to not only steal billions but then have the chutzpah to steal the
$230 million he would have paid in taxes on those stolen billions.
And the only way to ensure none of those lies are exposed is for Trump to be unable to
change any of it by forcing him to openly side with the Russian President over members of his
own political party.
The proposed sanctions by the Graham bill are so insane that even the Treasury department
thinks they are a bad idea. But, at this point there is nothing Graham won't do for his
owners.
Because they are desperate they will push for open warfare with Russia to push Putin from
power, which is not possible. All of this is nothing more than a sad attempt to hold onto power
long enough to oust Trump from the White House and keep things as horrible as they currently
are.
Because no one gives up power willingly. And the more they are proven to be frauds the more
they will scream for war.
The Skripals' misadventure (contretemps, dust up, theater, bit of bother) is absurd but
did the U.K. government embrace it with alacrity and a vengeance or what?
The only thing
missing was narration by Edgar R. Murrow. Not to mention the Skripals.
The very absurdity of it calls into question anything that preceded it with the same story
line, viz., "Russians are animals."
What anyone needs to be wary of is the people who push this and other "narratives":
"Animal Assad," "religion of peace," "multiculturalism," "propositional nation,"
"comprehensive immigration law reform," "living Constitution," "equality," "hate speech,"
"Iranchiefsponsorofterror," "regime change," "treason," "collusion," "McCarthyism,"
"humanitarian intervention," "global/climate freeze/warming/change/disruption,"
"anti-Semitism," "Judeo-Christian," "target civilians/hospitals," and such like.
McFaul lies. and that raises question about his connections to intelligence agencies as
well.
In no way a regular businessman would lobby for Magnitsky act, using false evidence and
blatant lies (for example that Magnitsky was a lawyer; Browder admitted that this is a lie in his
court deposition. This was yet another false flag operation with fingerprints of MI6
It really is peculiar what's happened to these dimwit Dems. I used to listen to Thom
Hartmann and Rachel Maddow when they were on Air America, and their main political positions
were for working people. Now, all they do is partisan politics which they don't seem to
understand benefits only the Deep State war party.
Incidentally, State of the Nation website, http://www.sott.net , has an article by Alex Krainer, who wrote
the book about Bill Browder's crooked dealings in Russia. His book, which was suppressed by
Browder first, i think is "Grand Deception", now available from Red Pill Press for $25 (and
must be selling well because it's being reprinted). I wrote this hastily but you'll see it on
sott.net. Russia's resurgence under Putin is nothing short of astounding.
Also, there is a video on Youtube, "The Rise of Putin and the Fall of the Russian Jewish
Oligarchs", 2 parts. I only saw the beginning showing how the Russian people were given state
vouchers that led to the oligarchs buying them up for their own profit and plunging Russians
into shock therapy disaster instigated by IMF and other US led monetary agencies including
Harvard. This is why it is so incredible how Americans receive political "perception control"
when the truth is exactly opposite of what they are being told. At least more people are
realizing the lies being told about Russia and Putin.
BROWDER MOVIE. A Russian documentary maker believed everything Browder said and started a
film to justify him. As it progressed, he discovered anomalies and came to realise the story
was false.
See here . It is moving around the Net now and it's worth looking for because Browder's
story is a primary founding myth of the Putin hysteria. The film is fatal to Browder's
story.
"... Some things are now clearer though. The settled narrative has been for months that the initial 'Novichok' attack on the Skripals had been via a "gel" ..."
"... The government claims that the #Novichok poison was a "gel" smeared onto Sergei Skripal's "front door handle". If the #Novichok was in the form of a gel, how could it be in a perfume bottle which are only designed to hold liquids? pic.twitter.com/BV0pUY5uAM ..."
"... More importantly, if this narrative were to be accepted, it doesn't explain how long (several hours) the substance took to work, nor the fact that it became effective on both Skripals at precisely the same moment – despite the huge divergence in their size, weight, age, and state of health. ..."
"... Mr Rowley of course was a criminal – he had been imprisoned for possession of 11 wraps of heroin in Salisbury only a couple of years before – and is still a daily drug-user. In those circumstances, in any normal police investigation, Mr Rowley would himself be a suspect rather than only a victim in this crime. So far as we know this is not the case, though no-one can ask him in his safe house, even through his non-existent television or undelivered newspapers. ..."
"... American filmmaker and radio host Lee Stranahan, who works out of Washington DC, was a house guest of mine last week. During his brief visit to England, he took his camera to Salisbury. Without wishing to spoil the documentary he's working on, I know he won't mind me saying that of the dozens of people he spoke to at the heart of the crime scene, not a single one of them believed the state version of events. ..."
"... "Russian criminals," ..."
"... "Not the Russian state then?" ..."
"... "They are the least likely suspects," ..."
"... "It was Ukraine." ..."
"... "military-grade deadly nerve agent." ..."
"... Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! ..."
'Novichok' survivor Charlie Rowley is in a "safe house" but has been denied
access to television and newspapers, according to his brother. The ever-stranger case of the
Salisbury-Amesbury poisonings gets curiouser and curiouser. Whoever said 'Novichok' was a
"military-grade lethal nerve agent" doesn't know their tables.
For a program which Boris Johnson told us had been 10 years in the making, had cost
(presumably) millions of dollars to develop (and "train" agents to put poison on a
doorknob), a 20-percent success rate must have been a bitter disappointment.
Four out of five of those affected by 'Novichok' – Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Detective
Sergeant Bailey, and Charlie Rowley – have survived the contact, with only poor Dawn
Sturgess, a homeless alcoholic, succumbing to its "deadly" effects.
A polythene bag would have been a rather more effective method of assassination.
Moreover, so little of their "training" had the assassins absorbed that they
apparently "discarded" this valuable deadly nerve agent in a perfume bottle in a park,
coincidentally close to the bench on which the Skripals had been found slumped four months
previous. The bottle miraculously evaded the dragnet of "hundreds of anti-terror police"
working on the case. Thus discarded, the perfume bottle carelessly provided evidence which
could well lead to the indictment of the criminals involved. Doubtless
such carelessness was not in the Russian "training manual" that Mr Johnson said was in
the possession of British intelligence.
No information has emerged as to when or where Mr Rowley and/or the late Ms Sturgess
happened upon this perfume bottle, or why in the middle of the swirl of the Salisbury events
they picked it up, took it home, but either waited until the fateful day to spray it or
alternatively the bottle had lain unattended for weeks – even months – despite the
fine-tooth-comb search of the park by the authorities.
Some things are now clearer though. The settled narrative has been for months that the
initial 'Novichok' attack on the Skripals had been via a "gel" on their front doorknob
(in accordance with the manual and the 10-year training program). Not many believe this any
longer, although unfortunately the taxpayer is committed to a way-above-market-price compulsory
purchase of the house.
Apart from anything else, it is difficult to envisage a gel being dispensed via a spray from
a perfume bottle.
The government claims that the #Novichok poison
was a "gel" smeared onto Sergei Skripal's "front door handle".
If the #Novichok was in
the form of a gel, how could it be in a perfume bottle which are only designed to hold
liquids? pic.twitter.com/BV0pUY5uAM
More importantly, if this narrative were to be accepted, it doesn't explain how long
(several hours) the substance took to work, nor the fact that it became effective on both
Skripals at precisely the same moment – despite the huge divergence in their size,
weight, age, and state of health.
It has always seemed much more plausible to me that the Skripals were attacked either in the
restaurant where they had a leisurely full lunch, and where Mr Skripal was initially reported
as behaving oddly towards the end of the restaurant experience, or on the short walk from the
restaurant to the park bench, or on the bench itself. This would be far more consistent with
their simultaneous collapse and, of course, would explain the perfume bottle discarded
nearby.
The perfume bottle being thrown away at all casts significant doubt that this attack was by
a state (any state) actor at all, unless that state actor wanted the substance to be found and
wanted false inferences of its provenance to be drawn. It makes it much more likely to me at
least that the assailants sprayed something at the Skripals for criminal rather than political
purposes and for reasons we can only, for now, speculate upon.
Mr Rowley of course was a criminal – he had been imprisoned
for possession of 11 wraps of heroin in Salisbury only a couple of years before – and is
still a daily drug-user. In those circumstances, in any normal police investigation, Mr Rowley
would himself be a suspect rather than only a victim in this crime. So far as we know this is
not the case, though no-one can ask him in his safe house, even through his non-existent
television or undelivered newspapers.
It will be evident that I think little of the official state narrative in the
Salisbury-Amesbury affair, but you'd be surprised at the kind of people who agree with me.
American filmmaker and radio host Lee Stranahan, who works out of Washington DC, was a house
guest of mine last week. During his brief visit to England, he took his camera to Salisbury.
Without wishing to spoil the documentary he's working on, I know he won't mind me saying that
of the dozens of people he spoke to at the heart of the crime scene, not a single one of them
believed the state version of events.
I myself spoke to a senior British Army officer at a black-tie event in London last week.
There were hundreds of them there, so I'm not giving his identity away. He asked me, who did I
really think was responsible for the 'Novichok' affair?
"Russian criminals," I answered. "Not the Russian state then?" he pressed. "They are the least likely suspects," I said. At which point this heavily decorated soldier leant over and whispered in my ear, "It
was Ukraine."
He offered no evidence, I should say, and – but for his rank and position – I
wouldn't even bother relaying it. But that is what he said.
Finally, I wish to place on record another of my dissident views on this matter. I do not
believe that the substance used to attack the Skripals, and which we are told killed Ms
Sturgess, was 'Novichok' at all – or any other kind of "military-grade deadly nerve
agent." I am on the trail of this matter and you will be the first to know when I've found
it.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
George Galloway was a member of the British Parliament for nearly 30 years. He presents TV and radio shows (including
on RT). He is a film-maker, writer and a renowned orator.
"... As it happens, the same writer – Marco Giannangeli – had disseminated a parallel piece of palpable fiction on 1 September 2013, in the 'Sunday Express', in relation to the Ghouta 'false flag.' ..."
More evidence for the at least passive complicity of GCHQ – for which Matt Tait used
to work, and which Robert Hannigan used to run – in corrupt 'information operations'
comes in a report yesterday on CNN.
'Police have identified two suspects in the poisoning of former Russian double agent
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN
on Thursday.
'The pair left the UK in the wake of the attack on what is believed to have been a
commercial flight, the source added.
'Their departure was revealed in a coded Russian message to Moscow sent after the attack,
which was intercepted by a British base in Cyprus, the source said. The British government
blames the Skripals' poisoning on Russia.'
The base in question is high up in the Troodos mountains, and is formally run by the RAF
but actually a key resource for both GCHQ and NSA in monitoring communications over a wide
area. According to an internal document from the former organisation, it has 'long been
regarded as a 'Jewel in the Crown' by NSA as it offers unique access to the Levant, North
Africa, and Turkey'.
That the quote comes a report in 'The Intercept' in January 2016 revealing that one of the
uses of the Troodos facility is to intercept live video feeds from Israeli drones and fighter
jets brings out how paradoxical the world is. For it also appears to have emerged as an
important resource in 'information operations' in support of 'Borgist' agendas.
The claim about intercepts incriminating the Russians over the Salisbury incident was
first made in a piece by Marco Giannangeli in the Daily Express on 9 April, which followed up
the claims which Colonel de Bretton-Gordon had been instrumental in disseminating, and was
then widely picked up by the MSM.
It was headlined: 'REVEALED: The bombshell Russian message intercepted on DAY of Skripal
poisonings,' and opened: 'AN ELECTRONIC message to Moscow sent on the day former Russian spy
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury included
the phrase "the package has been delivered".'
Supposedly, this 'prompted a young Flight Lieutenant to recall a separate message that had
been intercepted and discounted on the previous day.' The messages were 'understood to have
formed "just one part" of the intelligence packet which later allowed Prime Minister Theresa
May to state it was "highly likely" that Russia was behind the attacks.'
As it happens, the same writer – Marco Giannangeli – had disseminated a
parallel piece of palpable fiction on 1 September 2013, in the 'Sunday Express', in relation
to the Ghouta 'false flag.'
This one was headlined, even more melodramatically, 'Senior Syrian military chiefs tell
captain: fire chemicals or be shot; BRITISH intelligence chiefs have intercepted radio
messages in which senior Syrian military chiefs are heard ordering the use of chemical
weapons.'
Part of the story of how bogus claims about 'smoking gun' evidence from 'SIGINT' were used
to support the attempt to use the Ghouta 'false flag' to inveigle the British and Americans
into destroying the Syrian government was told in my SST post on the incident. However, to
mix metaphors, I only scratched the surface of a can of worms.
In a report on the 'Daily Caller' site on 29 August 2013, Kenneth Timmerman claimed that
the sequence had started with an actual intercept by Unit 8200 – the Israeli equivalent
of GCHQ and NSA.
Claiming to base his account on Western intelligence sources, he suggested that:
'According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain,
France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian military communication intercepted by Israel's famed
Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads a reader to just
the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.'
While I am not in a position to establish whether his claim is or is not accurate, an AP
report on the same day quoted 'U.S. intelligence officials' explaining that 'an intercept of
Syrian military officials discussing the strike was among low-level staff, with no direct
evidence tying the attack back to an Assad insider or even a senior Syrian commander'.
Meanwhile, Timmerman's claim that 'The doctored report was picked up on Israel's Channel 2
TV on Aug. 24, then by Focus magazine in Germany, the Times of Israel, and eventually by The
Cable in Washington, DC' is supported by links to the relevant stories, which say what he
claims they say.
Moreover, it seems clear that the 1 September 2013 report was an attempt to counter a
– somewhat devastating – critique made in a 31 August post entitled 'The Troodos
Conundrum' by the former British Ambassador Craig Murray, who had been closely involved with
the facility during his time at the Foreign Office (and has written invaluable material on
the Salisbury incident.)
Precisely because of the closeness of the GCHQ/NSA collaboration, Murray brought out,
there was indeed a major problem explaining why claims about 'SIGINT' had been central to the
case made in the 'Government Assessment' released by the White House on 30 August 2013, but
not even mentioned in the Joint Intelligence Community 'Assessment' produced two days
before.
The answer, Murray suggested, was that the 'intelligence' came from Mossad, and so would
not have been automatically shared with the British. But, given the superior capabilities of
Troodos, if Mossad had it, the British should have also. So his claims 'meshed' with those by
Timmerman and the AP, and the 'Express' report looks like a lame attempt at a cover-up.
Again however, one finds the world is a paradoxical place. As I noted in my SST post,
detailed demolitions of the claims about 'SIGINT' in relation to Ghouta were provided both
Seymour Hersh, in the 'Whose sarin?' article, and also on the 'Who Attacked Ghouta?' site
masterminded by one 'sasa wawa.'
Later, it became clear that this was likely to be the Israeli technology entrepreneur Saar
Wilf, a former employee of Unit 8200. So this may – or may not – be an indication
of deep divisions within Israeli intelligence.
Between 18 March and 31 April, a fascinating series of posts on the Salisbury incident
appeared on the 'Vineyard of the Saker' blog. The author, who used the name 'sushi', was a
self-professed IT professsional, who had however obviously acquired an extensive familiarity
with 'chemical forensics' and appeared to have some experience of 'SIGINT.'
In a 14 April post, 'sushi' produced a dismissal of the claims about 'SIGINT' implicating
the Russians over the Salisbury incident quite as contemptuous as that which 'sasa wawa' had
produced in relation to the claims about it incriminating the Syrian government over
Ghouta.
Pointing to the implausibility of the story disseminated by the 'Express', he remarked
that:
'It is doubted that any message traffic is processed on Cyprus. It is more likely that the
entire take is transmitted back to GCHQ in Cheltenham via a fibre optic link. There exabytes
of take are processed, not by a bored flight lieutenant, but by banks of high speed
computers.
'Clearly someone in Cheltenham has committed a programming error. Anyone with any
knowledge of secret communications knows that the code phrase used to confirm a murder in
Salisbury is "small pizza, no anchovies." '
Interestingly, another paper in the 'Express' group made a parallel claim in relation to
the Khan Sheikhoun incident to that about the Ghouta incident, but the story was not picked
up and may indeed have been suppressed.
On 9 April, the paper published a report headlined 'Brit spies' lead role in Syrian air
strikes; RAF BASE IS 'WEAPON.' This claimed that 'within an hour of the airstrike', Troodos
had intercepted communications revealing that nerve gas had been used, and had been delivered
by jets from the Syrian Arab Air Force's Shayrat Air Base.
I was drafting a response to the comment by 'Barbara Ann' – thanks for the link to
the recent posts by Adam Carter – before going out. Returning and reading some very
interesting comments, I think what I wanted to say has more general relevance.
One reason I am reading so much into 'this Dzerzhinsky thing' is the body of accumulating
evidence that people like Tait are part of a system of networks which combine
sanctimoniousness, corruption and stupidity in about equal measures. So some more examples
may be to the point.
Different cases in which I have taken an interest come together in a post by Tait on the
'Lawfare' site on 13 March, entitled 'U.K. Prime Minister's Speech on the Russian Poisoning
of Sergei Skripal: Decoding the Signals.'
In support of the claim that in accusing Russia of a pioneering act of chemical terrorism
Theresa May was relying upon accurate analysis from the 'U.K. intelligence community', Tait
wrote that:
'May then explained that Skripal was poisoned by a "military-grade nerve agent of a type
developed by Russia one of a group of nerve agents known as 'Novichok.'" She is laying out
the basic groundwork for the government's attribution to a nation state and, more
specifically, Russia. At Porton Down, the U.K. has one of the world's best forensic labs for
analyzing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. With the poisoning of Alexander
Litvinenko in 2006, this lab not only established that Polonium-210 was used but also which
reactor in Russia it came from.'
In the event, as is by now well know, Boris Johnson's claim that Porton Down scientists
had told him that the agent which poisoned the Skripals came from Russia was specifically
repudiated by the head of that organisation, Gary Aitkenhead, on 3 April. Our Foreign
Secretary told a flagrant lie, and was exposed.
As I have shown in previous posts on this site, the 'Inquiry' conducted by Sir Robert Owen
into the death of Litvinenko was patently corrupt. Moreover, it seems highly likely that, in
fabricating 'evidence' to cover up what actually happened, Christopher Steele was doing a
'dry-run' for the fabrication of material in the dossier published by 'BuzzFeed.'
In fact, however, Owen's report made quite clear that the role of Porton Down was
marginal. Furthermore, 'Scientist A1' from the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston
quite specifically rejected the claim that 'impurity profiling' made it possible to establish
that the source of the polonium was the Avangard facility at Sarov, her arguments being
accepted by Owen. Either Tait has not bothered to read the report or very much of the
coverage, or he is lying.
What Porton Down did do was to use 'impurity profiling', which can produce 'spectra'
identifying even the tiniest traces of substances, to frustrate the attempt to use the 'false
flag' attack at Ghouta on 21 August 2013 to inveigle the American and British governments
into destroying the Assad 'régime' and handing the country over to jihadists.
It may well be that this display of competence and integrity led to a 'clampdown' at the
organisation, which encouraged Boris Johnson to believe he could get away with lying about
what its scientists told him.
A general pattern which emerges is that the same small group of 'disinformation peddlers'
resurfaces in different contexts – and the pattern whereby 'private security companies'
are used to create a spurious impression of independence also recurs.
As I bring out in my piece on Ghouta, two figures who were critical in shaping the
'narrative' acccording to which Syrian government responsibility for the atrocity had been
conclusively proved, were Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, formerly the former commanding
officer of the UK Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, and also NATO's
Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion, and Dan Kaszeta.
Immediately after the story of the poisoning of the Skripals on 4 March broke, the same
duo reappeared, and have been as critical to shaping the 'narrative' about the later incident
as they were to that about the former.
(For the piece by Kaszeta on 'Bellingcat' which introduced the 'Novichok' theme four days
later, see
https://www.bellingcat.com/... .)
This makes it particular interesting to look at the website of Kaszeta's consultancy,
'Strongpoint Security Limited', in conjunction with the 'Companies House' documentation on
the company.
One would have thought from the website that his company was a small, but hardly
insignificant, player, in the field of 'physical and operational security.' As it happens,
having filed 'Total exemption small company accounts' since its incorporation in May 2011,
last December it filed 'Micro company accounts' for the year to 31 May 2017.
With a turnover of £20,000, staff costs of a bit more than half of that, and a
profit of £394, we can see that although unlike Matt Tait's, Kaszeta's company did
trade, if indeed it was his sole source of income, this pivotal figure in Anglo-American
'disinformation operations' was living on something less than $15,000 a year, at current
exchange rates. (Pull the other one, as we say in Britain.)
This is all the more ironic, as the website brings out quite how critical a figure Kaszeta
has been in obscuring the truth. From the bio he gives, we learn that having started as a
Chemical Officer in the U.S. Army, he worked for 12 years in the White House, dealing with
CBRN matters, before moving to Britain in 2008.
Among the articles to which he links on the site, we see his response in 'NOW Lebanon' in
December 2013 to Hersh's original 'Whose sarin?' piece on Ghouta, -- in which Kaszeta first
introduced the famous 'hexamine hypothesis.'
This – patently preposterous – suggestion that the presence of a single
'impurity' is a 'smoking gun' incriminating the Syrian government has echoed on into the
clearly corrupt OPCW documents purporting to demonstrate that it was responsible for the 4
April 2017 Khan Sheikhoun attack.
Of some interest in understanding where Kaszeta he is coming from is what he describes as
his 'oldest (and most footnoted on Wikipedia)' piece, which is an article published in 1988
on a site called 'Lituanus', on 'Lithuanian Resistance to Foreign Occupation 1940-52.'
As to Colonel de Bretton-Gordon, it is of interest to look at the attempt to 'finger' the
GRU over the Skripal poisoning published under the title 'UK Poisoning Inquiry turns to
Russian Agency in Mueller Indictments' in the 'New York Times' last Sunday, and the response
by the Russian Embassy in London to a question about it.
The response objects that 'while the British authorities keep concealing all information
concerning the investigation into the Salisbury incident, the newspaper has quoted "one
former US official familiar with the inquiry".'
It also asserts that that crucial evidence which has not been made available to the
Russians – and here, as with Ghouta and Khan Sheikhoun, the results of 'impurity
profiling' are critical – appears to have been shared not just with inappropriate
Americans, but with all kinds of others.
And indeed, the Embassy is quite right in suggesting that the claim made by the supposed
creator of 'Novichok', Vladimir Uglev, to the BBC in April about 'all the spectrum data I was
sent recently' has neither been confirmed nor denied. This seems a general pattern –
the 'spectra' which may actually be able to provide definitive answers to questions of
responsibility are only provided to people who can be relied upon to give the 'right'
answers.
The Embassy response also quite fairly refers to a report in the 'Times' also in April,
about the 'intelligence' which had been 'used to persuade world leaders that Moscow was
behind the poisoning' and that the 'Novichok' had been manufactured at the Shikhany facility
at in southwest Russia, which stated that de Bretton-Gordon, 'who had seen the intelligence,
called it very compelling.' He has a long history of lying about CW in Syria – so is
obviously the right person to lie about them in the UK.
It thus becomes interesting to probe into what lies behind the opening of de
Bretton-Gordon's entry on the 'Military Speakers' website ('Real Heroes; Real Stories.')
According to this, he is 'Chief Operating Office of SecureBio Ltd a commercial company
offering CBRN Resilience, consultancy and deployable capabilities.'
From 'Companies House', we learn that the liquidation of 'Secure Bio', which started in in
June 2015, was concluded in August last year. The really interesting thing about the records,
however, is that at the time of the liquidation the company had very large debts, which were
written off, of a kind and in a manner which suggested that de Bretton-Gordon's activities
may have been largely funded by loans from untraceable sources which were not meant to be
repaid.
Actually, with the 'NYT' report we come full circle. Among those quoted is Mark Galeotti
– apparently his admission that he had totally misrepresented the thinking of the
Russian General Staff has not him made more cautious about making extravagant claims about
its Main Intelligence Directorate (misreported as Main Directorate by the 'NYT.')
Also quoted are two figures who play key roles in Owen's Report – the Soviet era-GRU
defector 'Viktor Suvorov' (real name 'Vladimir Rezun') and the former KGB operative Yuri
Shvets. Both of these feature prominently in the posts on the Litvinenko affair to which I
have linked, and both were key members of the 'information operations' network centred around
the late Boris Berezovsky. This now seems to have taken control of American policy, as of
British.
The role of 'Suvorov'/Rezun in attempting to defend the interpretations of Stalin's policy
put forward by MI6 in the run-up to the Second World War, and those asserted later by General
Keitel, and the way he was demolished by the leading American historian of the War in the
East, Colonel David Glantz, and the Israeli historian Gabriel Gorodetsky, is too large a
subject to go into here.
However, it provides further reason to wonder whether the misreadings of Stalin's policy
which caused MI6 to give advice to Chamberlain which helped destroy the last chances of
preventing the Nazi-Soviet Pact, may still be the 'house view' of that organisation. It was,
obviously, the Pact which spelled 'curtains' both for Poland and the Baltics.
There is a pattern of abuse of formerly well regarded institutions to achieve the
propaganda aims of the Deep State establishment. The depths that were plumbed to push the
Iraq WMD falsehoods are well known. Yet no one was held to account nor was there any honest
accounting of the abuse. There have been pretenses like the Owen inquiry that you note.
We see the same situation of sweeping under the rug malfeasance and even outright
criminality through obfuscation and obstruction in the case of the meddling in the 2016
election by top officials in intelligence and law enforcement. Clearly less and less people
are buying what the Deep State sells despite their overwhelming control of the media
channels.
It seems that we are marching towards a credibility crisis similar to what was experienced
in the Soviet Union when no one trusted the contents in Pravda.
What is to be gained by the leadership in Britain in promoting these biological weapons
cases since Litvinenko? In the US it is quite apparent that the Deep State have become
extremely powerful and the likelihood that Trump recognizes that resistance is futile is very
high. Schumer may be proven right that they have six ways from Sunday to make you kowtow to
their dictats.
"... So Kramer is a good example of how CIA runs the State Department. When a CIA vital interest like impunity comes up, they parachute a mole in to get their criminals off the hook. ..."
Yes indeed, first Britain, and now Russia has pantsed the US too. In a virtuosic dick
move, they exposed a CIA spook who's implicated not only in Secret Agent Browder's war
propaganda ( http://russiahouse.org/current_news.php?language=eng&id_current=1454
) but in CIA crimes against humanity -- specifically, 'legal pretexts for manifestly illegal
acts."
David Kramer, Tufts/Harvard Political Science/Russian studies, **PNAC** , DoS focal point,
then CIA's famous captive NGO **Freedom House** , and a featherbed job at the McCain
Institute for Freedom, Democracy, and Abandoning Thousands of MIAs in Vietnam to Die Slow
Agonizing Deaths in Penal Camps.
Here he is talking to his co-conspirator Robert Otto, "Only idiots like Kerry think we
have common interests in Syria."
Needless to say, Kramer wouldn't know a human right from a bar of soap. He's a
knuckledragger. CIA sent Kramer to DRL when Alfreda Bikowsky got her tit caught in the
crimes-against-humanity wringer for systematic and widespread torture.
The US was five years late reporting to the Committee Against Torture and got a
mind-boggling eight (8) follow-on inquiries for urgent derogations of non-derogable rights.
So Kramer had to think fast and make up some bullshit why simulated live burial, object rape,
death by dryboard suffocation, and penis-slitting is not torture. Kramer is not the brightest
bulb, but that's not a hard job. During the Bush administration all the delegation did was
say, "The US does not Torture," robotically over and over.
So Kramer is a good example of how CIA runs the State Department. When a CIA vital
interest like impunity comes up, they parachute a mole in to get their criminals off the
hook.
"... "a calculated attempt to harm our campaign and to make people doubt the legacy of Sergey Magnitsky," ..."
"... "This is a core issue about getting points of view into the public domain," ..."
"... I believe Magnitsky died ..."
"... Questions remain, but the fact that he was not killed, as Mr Browder says, by the same people who investigated his case and had a 'motive' to make him silent as a whistleblower – this is totally certain. ..."
"... "The story of Magnitsky turned out to be made-up," ..."
"... "I saw facts that do not add up, that prove that the story of Magnitsky was faked by Browder," ..."
"... "There is no evidence that he [Magnitsky] was killed or even was beaten," ..."
"... "I am a critic of the Russian authorities and I continue to be this critic, but in this particular case, the West made a mistake by adopting the Magnitsky Act and the Magnitsky resolutions, as they are based on a made-up story," ..."
"... "it is not in the interests of the US to remain trammelled by prejudice against Russia." ..."
"... "I thought I was filming about great the whistleblower Magnitsky. But it became my story of coming together basically with a lie, and with a lot of selfishness, and cynicism," ..."
"... "You have become a foot soldier of the propaganda war," ..."
"... "I am ashamed for you, Andrei. You will have to live with that." ..."
"... "I am a critic of the Russian regime and still am. I had a sort of political affiliation to Browder and his friends," ..."
"... "It goes against your ideology and your worldview to say that actually the Russian cops did not kill Magnitsky, the Russian cops didn't steal the money. Russia is still a very corrupt country, but in this case it was different." ..."
Despite
threats of a libel lawsuit, a documentary about the Magnitsky case by a prominent critic of the
Russian government has been shown in Washington. The film rejects the narrative about the case
accepted in the West, on which the US Magnitsky Act is based. The film, titled 'The Magnitsky
Act – Behind the Scenes', was presented to the public for the first time on Monday at the
Newseum, a private museum dedicated to the news industry and freedom of speech in Washington,
DC. The two-hour production is part documentary, part dramatization of the events that surround
the death of Russian lawyer Sergey Magnitsky six years ago. Read more After Magnitsky: Dead
lawyer's boss Browder and his legal hurdles – now in US
Magnitsky worked as an accountant for US-British investor William F. Browder, who made
millions in Russia during the 1990s, but was later accused of tax evasion and fled the country.
The lawyer was detained by the Russian police as part of a separate fraud investigation and
died in police custody in November 2009.
Browder claimed that Magnitsky had been investigating corrupt police officers and was thrown
into jail and murdered by them. He declared a crusade against what he called endemic corruption
in the Russian government and lobbied across Europe and the US for punishment of the
individuals whom he accused of involvement in Magnitsky's death.
In 2012 the US passed an act named after the Russian lawyer, which imposed sanctions against
40 Russian citizens – a move that Moscow saw as blatantly anti-Russian, and apparently
retaliated against by banning the adoption of Russian orphans by US citizens.
'Story of
coming together with lie, selfishness & cynicism'
Director Andrei Nekrasov struggled for months to have his controversial work shown to the
public. Scheduled screenings in three European venues, including the European Parliament, were
canceled because Browder threatened multimillion-dollar libel lawsuits against producers or
would-be broadcasters of the film.
Browder opposes the film because he believes it to be "a calculated attempt to harm our
campaign and to make people doubt the legacy of Sergey Magnitsky," as he told
euobserver.com back in April.
Newseum was threatened in the same way, but rejected the pressure, saying that publishing
Nekrasov's film was an issue of freedom of speech.
"This is a core issue about getting points of view into the public domain,"
investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who moderated the event, told the audience before the
screening.
Nekrasov says he wanted to make a docudrama film about Magnitsky ever since he heard of his
story. He received funding for the project from eight European film foundations and state
broadcasters and got in touch with Browder as part of his work.
But he found inconsistencies in the evidence presented by Browder's campaign to back his
story, saying most of it was circumstantial at best. When he confronted the businessman about
them, he said Browder broke off all contact and started to oppose the film.
The director believes that the narrative of Magnitsky as the brave whistleblower killed by
corrupt Russian cops, as it was accepted in the West, is a scam by Browder, who capitalized on
the lawyer's death to shield himself from all past and future accusations from Russian law
enforcement, which he could claim to be politically motivated.
" I believe Magnitsky died ," Nekrasov told journalists in response to a question
on whether he believed the lawyer was killed or died. " Questions remain, but the fact that
he was not killed, as Mr Browder says, by the same people who investigated his case and had a
'motive' to make him silent as a whistleblower – this is totally certain. "
"The story of Magnitsky turned out to be made-up," Nekrasov told journalists as he
commented on revelations he made during the making of his film. "I saw facts that do not
add up, that prove that the story of Magnitsky was faked by Browder," he added.
Documents show that the evidence presented by Browder as proof that Magnitsky was a
whistleblower was in fact a transcript of Magnitsky's interrogations, which were conducted
before he made his statements, Nekrasov claimed, stressing that police officers had no motive
for killing Magnitsky as he did not expose them.
"There is no evidence that he [Magnitsky] was killed or even was beaten," the film
director told journalists.
"I am a critic of the Russian authorities and I continue to be this critic, but in this
particular case, the West made a mistake by adopting the Magnitsky Act and the Magnitsky
resolutions, as they are based on a made-up story," Nekrasov said, adding that "it is
not in the interests of the US to remain trammelled by prejudice against Russia."
"I thought I was filming about great the whistleblower Magnitsky. But it became my story
of coming together basically with a lie, and with a lot of selfishness, and cynicism,"
Nekrasov told RT in May, when the screening of the film was cancelled at the last moment in
Brussels.
The director's view didn't go well with some of the first viewers of the film, including
Russian opposition politicians and rights activists.
"You have become a foot soldier of the propaganda war," exclaimed Ilya Yashin, a
veteran opposition figure in Russia. "I am ashamed for you, Andrei. You will have to live
with that."
The outcry was perhaps to be expected. Nekrasov himself has been a critic of the Russian
government for years. Some of his earlier works explored alleged involvement of the Kremlin in
very serious issues, including the Chechnya war, the murder of Aleksandr Litvinenko, corruption
in security agencies and others.
His documentaries, both political and otherwise, were praised by critics and won a number of
awards, including the prestigious German Grimme-Preis award. Georgia named him person of the
year 2009 for a film about the 2008 war against Russia.
"I am a critic of the Russian regime and still am. I had a sort of political affiliation
to Browder and his friends," Nekrasov said of his latest film. "It goes against your
ideology and your worldview to say that actually the Russian cops did not kill Magnitsky, the
Russian cops didn't steal the money. Russia is still a very corrupt country, but in this case
it was different."Where to
watchSchedule Subscribe to RT
newsletter to get stories the mainstream media won't tell you
I have read Alex Krainer's book. It is a devastating critique of Browder, which exposes him
as the corrupt thug he is. Browder is no more interested in "democratizing" Russia than the
U.S. Deep State is in protecting the integrity of the U.S. election process! That Browder was
the "star witness" for the Congress before it overwhelmingly passed the latest sanctions bill
against Russia shows why it is important that he be exposed.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know something about the networks and
individuals acting to prevent a rapprochement between the U.S. and Russia.
At the press conference following their summit meeting in Helsinki, Russian President
Vladimir Putin and American President Donald Trump discussed the possibility of resolving
potential criminal cases involving citizens of the two countries by permitting interrogators
from Washington and Moscow to participate in joint questioning of the individuals named in
indictments prepared by the respective judiciaries. The predictable response by the American
nomenklatura was that it was a horrible idea as it would potentially require U.S. officials to
answer questions from Russians about their activities.
Putin argued, not unreasonably, that if Washington wants to extradite and talk to any of the
twelve recently indicted GRU officers the Justice Department has named then reciprocity is in
order for Americans and other identified individuals who are wanted by the Russian authorities
for illegal activity while in Russia. And if Russian officials are fair game, so are American
officials.
"... Included in the documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday is a one-page document submitted by Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for Donald Trump's 2016 effort. Manafort was serving in that role on June 9, 2016, when he joined Donald Trump Jr. and campaign adviser Jared Kushner in a meeting with a Kremlin-linked attorney who had promised incriminating information about Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... Those notes, apparently taken on Manafort's phone , are as follows. ..."
"... Offshore -- Cyprus ..."
"... Not invest -- loan ..."
"... Value in Cyprus as inter ..."
"... Active sponsors of RNC ..."
"... Browder hired Joanna Glover ..."
"... Tied into Cheney ..."
"... Russian adoption by American families ..."
"... In the absence of other context, the notes are cryptic and include words that certainly seem to wave red flags. "Offshore," "Illici[t]" -- even an apparent mention of former vice president Richard B. Cheney. ..."
Included in the documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday is a
one-page document submitted by Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for Donald Trump's
2016 effort. Manafort was serving in that role on June 9, 2016, when he joined Donald Trump Jr.
and campaign adviser Jared Kushner in a meeting with a Kremlin-linked attorney who had promised
incriminating information about Hillary Clinton.
In the absence of other context, the notes are cryptic and include words that certainly
seem to wave red flags. "Offshore," "Illici[t]" -- even an apparent mention of former vice
president Richard B. Cheney.
"... [ Note by the Saker : for my review of Alex Krainer's book please click here ] ..."
"... "I always say the truth is best even when we find it unpleasant. Any rat in a sewer can lie. It's how rats are. It's what makes them rats. But a human doesn't run and hide in dark places, because he's something more. Lying is the most personal act of cowardice there is." ― Nancy Farmer, "The House of the Scorpion" ..."
"... Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch. Nay, you may kick it about all day, and it will be round and full at evening. ..."
"... Alex Krainer is a hedge fund manager based in Monaco. His book, "The Killing of William Browder" may still be available in paperback at Book Depository , Barnes&Noble (USA), Amazon.fr , Amazon.co.uk , or ..."
[ Note by the Saker : for my review of Alex Krainer's book please
click here ]
"I always say the truth is best even when we find it unpleasant. Any rat in a sewer can
lie. It's how rats are. It's what makes them rats. But a human doesn't run and hide in dark
places, because he's something more. Lying is the most personal act of cowardice there is."
― Nancy Farmer, "The House of the Scorpion"
In January 2015 I received a book titled "Red Notice" written by Bill Browder, once a hedge
fund manager running Hermitage Capital the largest foreign-owned hedge fund in Russia. In the
past, my path had crossed with Browder's on two occasions. In 2005, I was invited to his
presentation, only days before he was expelled from Russia. On that occasion Browder surprised
me because he was the first credible person I ever heard speaking positively about Vladimir
Putin. The next time I met Browder was in 2010 during an investment conference in Monaco. This
time he was very anti-Putin. When I received his book, it was recommended to me as an excellent
read.
Through his book, Browder presents himself in glowing colors. By contrast, he portrays
Russia as a sinister, backward tyranny and President Putin as the greediest, most ruthless
tyrant since Genghis Khan. The book's main plot shapes up as an appealing story about the
struggle of good against evil, about a lone maverick (Browder himself), taking on a powerful
network of dangerous criminals and corrupt government officials in selfless pursuit of justice.
It would be a beautiful story – if only it were true.
I was familiar with Parts of Browder's story, so his tale seemed fishy to me. A few days
after reading it I had to re-read it from the beginning. Sure enough, I discovered quite a
number of things that didn't add up which prompted me to do some research of my own. Much about
it bothered me enough that I ended up writing a whole book which I titled "The Killing of
William Browder: Deconstructing Bill Browder's Dangerous Deception." In August of this year I
finally finished it and self-published it on Amazon.com.
My book's main object is to unmask Browder's brazen and dangerous deception. Beyond this,
I've also sought to put his story into proper context by including a rather detailed account of
the relevant events that led to the collapse of the USSR, Russia's subsequent transition from
Communism to Capitalism and what
17 years of Vladimir Putin's leadership have changed . I've also included a section
discussing the person and character of Vladimir Putin (since Browder relentlessly demonizes
him). The book's last chapter discusses the history of the relations between the U.S. and
Russia from the beginnings of the 19 th century, including the U.S.
Civil War when Russia came to Abraham Lincoln's aid and played the key role in preserving the
Union and what the future relations between the U.S. and Russia might, or should be.
As it turned out, my book was surprisingly well received by its readers and during the first
few weeks it received very encouraging reader reviews (seven five-star and one four-star
review). Unfortunately, by mid-September "The Killing of William Browder" came up on Browder
team's radar and my problems began. It seems that in the free world, the freedom of expression
comes with some restrictions. Exposing Bill Browder is one of them.
On 13 th September, University of Tulsa professor Jeremy Kuzmarov cited some of
the materials from my book in his own Hffington Post article about Bill Browder, titled
"Raising the Curtain on the Browder-Magnitsky Story." I was flattered by that article, but
Huffington Post scrubbed it from their website within hours. A week later, Amazon's publishing
company, CreateSpace "suppressed" my book, purging it from Amazon.com website and from its
Kindle store.
CreateSpace explained that a third party claimed that my book "may contain defamatory
content," and that to resolve the issues I needed to contact Mr. Jonathan M. Winer, Mr.
Browder's legal counsel. Mr. Winer's word was all that was necessary for Amazon to oblige and
remove my book from its bookstore. My protest and subsequent communications with CreateSpace
had no effect and my only venue was to "work" with Browder's lawyers to "resolve the issues."
In other words, I was put in the situation to have Browder censor my book and decide on whether
it could be published or not. At first I rejected idea and refused to contact Mr. Winer
offering instead my book for free to whoever requested a copy. But subsequently I decided to
write to Mr. Winer anyway to find out what, if anything went wrong. So far, I have received no
response.
This is not the first time Bill Browder – and whoever is backing him – has
effectively censored what the Western public may or may not know about his story. In 2016,
Russian film-maker Andrei Nekrasov made the documentary film, "The Magnitsky Act – Behind
the Scenes."
Over the years, Nekrasov had built a reputation for producing documentaries that were
critical of the Russian government, and with the Magnitsky affair, he initially followed
Browder's narrative of the events and even envisioned Browder as the film's narrator. But his
research into the subject turned up a number of problems with Browder's story. Nekrasov reached
out to him for an explanation, but was unable to get in touch with Browder for several months.
Nekrasov finally tracked down Browder at a book signing event where he tried and failed to get
clarifications from him. Ultimately however, Nekrasov managed to meet with Browder and with the
cameras rolling, he began to lay out his findings. As he did so, Browder became visibly vexed
until at one moment he abruptly interrupted Nekrasov with an accusation that he was spreading
Russian propaganda.
When Nekrasov's film was completed, Browder took aggressive action to block its screenings.
With threats of lawsuits, he prevented an already scheduled screening to a group of Members of
the European Parliament in Brussels. He did the same with another screening in Norway, and even
managed to pressure the Franco-German television network "Arte" to call off the showing of
Nekrasov's film on its channel. In June 2016, Browder tried to force The Newseum in Washington DC to cancel the screening of
Nekrasov's film. Thankfully, The Newseum, whose laudable mission is to promote freedom of
expression and "the five freedoms of the First Amendment to the U.S. Consitution," refused to
be cowed by Browder's intimidation and showed the film to a Washington audience.
No, unfortunately this did not happen. Freedom of expression – which should be
sacrosanct – is dangerously compromised in the west.
Open, civilized societies seek resolution of contentious issues by allowing proponents of
different sides in any dispute to present their respective points of view. An informed, open
debate is by far the best mechanism of conflict resolution because we can only arrive at
constructive solutions to problems by taking different stakeholders' points of view into
consideration. Browder's approach is contrary to that of civilized societies: he seeks to
silence all points of view but his own. He seeks to persuade not by initiating an informed
debate, but by suppressing all debate. This is not the conduct of a truth teller pursuing
elevated objectives like human rights, justice, and truth. Truth does not need such forceful
defense. As Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, " Truth is tough. It will not break, like a
bubble, at a touch. Nay, you may kick it about all day, and it will be round and full at
evening. " Browder is clearly anxious that his story cannot take any kicking at all.
Meanwhile in the western world, we appear to be at the mercy of lawyered-up elites for what we
are allowed to know and what we are not.
In the end, I have no doubt that truth will prevail and that Bill Browder will lose his
battle to keep his deception going. It is because there's something sacrosanct about truth and
most people will reject a lie once they are aware of it.
This shocking tale of alleged Russian official corruption and brutality drove legislation
that was a major landmark in the descent of U.S.-Russian relations under President Barack
Obama to a level rivaling the worst days of the Cold War.
.But what the film shows is how Nekrasov, as he detected loose ends to the official story,
begins to unravel Browder's fabrication which was designed to conceal his own corporate
responsibility for the criminal theft of the money. As Browder's widely accepted story
collapses, Magnitsky is revealed not to be a whistleblower but a likely abettor to the fraud
who died in prison not from an official assassination but from banal neglect of his medical
condition.
The cinematic qualities of the film are evident. Nekrasov is highly experienced as a maker
of documentaries enjoying a Europe-wide reputation. What sets this work apart from the
"trade" is the honesty and the integrity of the filmmaker as he discovers midway into his
project that key assumptions of his script are faulty and begins an independent investigation
to get at the truth .
The reason nekrasov has a following among European liberal snowflakes is that his
documentaries have had a sarcastic jaded and negative tinge with respect to Russia (even BBC
News has aired his documentaries as recently as 2016). He is rather pessimistic regarding
Russia. That's what makes this revelation that even he (Nekrasov, a darling of the debauch
liberals of the west, and Putin critic) found browder to not be credible. Coming from
Nekrasov, that allegation and documentary would really destroy the battering ram (and useful
fraud) that browder had provided the Western establishment.
Nekrasov is now getting a painful reality check as to how sophisticated the West's
totalitarian nature is: they are not crude like the Chinese who will arrest small time
nobodies for being too honest or critical, the West focusses it's blunt oppression for high
value targets; just as outlined in 1984, the higher up you are and the greater your reach,
the greater the scrutiny and the more blunt the instrument used to keep you in line. One must
admit that the Anglo empire and their hypocrit vassals/covert-competitors in the EU, have
refined this to an art and are far more efficient at it than their poor understudies in CCP
China, or the Soviet Union.
Krainer is right though, the truth is going to prevail and eventually browder will be
exposed (especially when the deep state decides he's too much of an annoying liability
– as times progresses or as the deep state finds browder's agenda and his supporters
getting in the way of the state's own agenda).
There is one thing that no one has clarified: Why was magnitsky allowed to die, why was he
denied medical treatment, who was responsible for that? What are the facts around magnitsky's
death?
Hi RC – a few great point. In Nekrasov's defence, I think I can understand him. I'm
Croatian and if we started discussing Croatia, you'd find me very critical. My inclination
would be to expose negative developments – not because I'm anti-Croatian but becauseI
would want to draw public attention to problems that need to be addressed. To his credit,
when he realized truth was different from what he initially believed, he made a turn to
pursue truth when he could have made the film that would have been far better for his career.
I agree with you that Browder will probably end up thrown under the bus. That's what I'm
afraid of (and the #1 reason for my book's title). But they will try to first make Browder a
household name (crusader for human rights and justice, bla, bla..) with their Hollywood
movie. Then they'll try to make it look like Putin had him killed.
As to why Magnistky died – that's a mystery. It was definitely a massive cock-up on
the part of Russian law enforcement, but there's also the angle that his death was VERY
convenient for Browder and his goodfellas.
I think that Magnitsky was such a pain in the ass ( he made 450 complaints about the
prison-conditions during 358 days in prison, most ofwhich nobody could solve without a much
larger budget) that doctors and staff prefered to not hear or to look the other way when
Magnitsky came into a psychosis. He got into this psychosis after a court case from where he
returned very disappointed. Future looked a lot worse than he had expected.
Parry's article
mentions that he viewed the film on Vimeo, using a password provided by Piraya Film, the
Norwegian production company.
This is a fairly standard way that independent producers shop their films around, looking
for a distribution deal. I.e., a journalist or distributor contacts them, and they are given
a Vimeo link and password for a private, limited-time viewing of the film. Journalists get
this access because their writing helps to promote the film. The simplest distribution deal
would then be through a subscription-based streaming platform. DVDs are more complicated and
usually happen later.
However, in this case, the film is a co-production with four other companies, including
ZDF and ARTE, which are large European networks, and all of whom have been threatened with
litigation, presumably by Browder's lawyers.
In effect, then, the film in its original version has been censored. It is not available,
unless or until somebody pirates it. There are several scammy-looking streaming sites that
claim to have it, but they want your credit card number and they might just have the same
Russian-dubbed version that you can watch for free via the link posted above.
I suspect the version of the film with the Russian voice-over was not done by Piraya Film,
as the production of the sound doesn't seem very high compared to the quality of the
original. This might have been done with authorization of Piraya, but if not, it means
somebody has a illegitimate copy of the film to which they added the Russian voice-over. This
means, they could also post the film in its original form. If they really want to increase
awareness in the West of how the new Cold War is playing out, such a move could help.
Given the legal threats and the fact that few small distribution companies have the
resources to fight legal battles, this might be a situation in which we are waiting for
somebody to pirate the film, somebody who has access to the original, and to distribute it
via a torrent.
I wonder whether Nekrasov himself knows of the level of interest (at least in some quarters)
in seeing the film, and could find a way to make one available somehow. . .
Something tells me he doesn't want to push this too much as money for this film came from
French and German sources. It is nice to see him sticking his neck out to uphold the Truth.
When I watched the US rep. who supposedly investigated this Magnitzky affair for the US
gov. state under oath that he never verified any of the info that Browder gave him, I kept
thinking "Is this guy serious ?" But when you realize that they never did any investigation
then it all seems logical.
"... Look at the case, frequently discussed here, of British intelligence services and the fake rock , which had the guts of a Blackberry cellular telephone inside it, in Moscow. This 'rock' was strategically situated so that intelligence assets (you only call them 'traitors' if they are western citizens; Russians who betray their country are dissident heroes) could stroll past and flip messages to the rock, and every so often, British intelligence services could remotely extract it; the 'rock' only had to be touched to charge the batteries. ..."
"... But that was six years after the fact. For six years the British stonewalled and denied, and acted hurt that anyone would believe such an obvious Russian-bullshit story ..."
"... Tony Blair, for example, has never to the best of my knowledge admitted to having lied to influence public opinion in the UK in favour of committing with its partner, the United States, to the Iraq War, which was such a smorgasbord of lies that the weapons-of-mass-destruction whopper was only the biggest. Iraq was wrecked, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and the liars were never punished, nor ever in fact admitted their guilt. In cases where the guilty must begrudgingly admit they lied, nobody does anything about it, the firebolts of celestial retribution never appear, and the liars go on to lie some more with increased confidence. An eager and gullible audience is always ready to swallow some more horseshit. ..."
"... Like now, with the Skripal case. We are supposed to believe mysterious Russian assassins daubed Novichok nerve agent on the Skripals' front doorknob, which transferred to their hands, and then they drove downtown, enjoyed a good meal in a restaurant, and then started feeling poorly, and collapsed on a public bench, victims of a nerve agent much more toxic than VX. Five to eight times, says FOX News . ..."
"... But the Skripals did not die. They were carefully shielded and monitored by the British security services so that they could not be questioned by the public, but they did not die. ..."
"... Perhaps of greatest concern, if chemical-weapons professionals were aware that Novichok could persist in deadly concentrations for months – that it was specially engineered to be not only virtually undetectable by NATO sensors, but to remain deadly through the deleterious effects of the elements why did they say nothing when the dozy police assured the public that it was in absolutely no danger? ..."
"... This article is a timely reminder that the UK never stopped fighting the Cold War. I had forgotten about the embarrassing spy rock incident. The (labour) government lies were accepted without question by the media. ..."
"... The Novichok issue – fits into this pattern of behaviour. ..."
Uncle Volodya says, "Stupidity is the same as evil, if you judge by the results."
I've been waiting for something to happen for a day, or a week, or a year; with the blood in the ink of the headlines
and the roar of the crowd in my ears. You might ask what it takes to remember but you know that you've seen it before;
when a government lies to a people and a country is drifting to war
Jackson Browne, from "Lives in the Balance"
"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election."
Otto von Bismarck
During an hour or so of poring over quotes about lying (of course I don't make these up myself), before the snatch of lyric from
"Lives in the Balance" floated into my memory unbidden, I was struck as never before by the prevalence of belief in the
truth always coming out. Lyric after quote after stanza has it that you can lie and lie and lie, but eventually the truth will always
surface, and the liar will be caught.
Is that true? Was it ever true? Perhaps among the congenitally stupid, who labour simultaneously under their guilt and
a suspicion that smarter people (which is everybody else) can read minds; I'm reminded of a story which was set in the American southern
states, in which the probable perpetrator of some petty crime or other was brought into the rural sheriff's office for questioning.
He was told that he must take a lie-detector test. Accordingly, a metal colander, such as is used for washing salad ingredients,
was placed on his head, with wires from it leading to the photocopier. The deputies had put a piece of paper in the copier which
read, "He's Lying!!", and whenever they asked the suspect a question, they would press the 'print' button following the answer, and
out would come a paper which averred that the answer was a lie, which they would show to him. Eventually, confronted with his tapestry
of falsehoods and under the apprehension that he was being measured by other-worldly technology, he confessed. But the local law
enforcement was already well aware that he was guilty – they just wanted a confession.
So, perhaps in circumstances like that, in which the liar is a desperate fool, perhaps then the truth always comes out. But in
reality, not only does truth almost never come out, it only does when all possibility of further elaboration on existing lies has
been exhausted. But here's the real kicker – when the truth does come out, we are led by philosophers to believe that evangelical
vengeance will be swift to follow. Does that really happen? Perhaps after the liar is dead, he or she goes someplace featuring a
dancing-flames motif, where he or she is prodded the livelong day by imps with little pitchforks. But that sort of forestalls the
satisfaction of justice done in the here and now – punishment delayed is punishment denied, am I right?
Look at the case, frequently discussed here, of
British intelligence services and
the fake rock , which had the guts of a Blackberry cellular telephone inside it, in Moscow. This 'rock' was strategically situated
so that intelligence assets (you only call them 'traitors' if they are western citizens; Russians who betray their country are dissident
heroes) could stroll past and flip messages to the rock, and every so often, British intelligence services could remotely extract
it; the 'rock' only had to be touched to charge the batteries.
But that was six years after the fact. For six years the British stonewalled and denied, and acted hurt that anyone would believe
such an obvious Russian-bullshit story; the Foreign Office
scornfully retorted , "We are concerned and surprised
at these allegations. We reject any allegation of improper conduct in our dealing with Russian NGO's ." So receiving surreptitious
messages through a styrofoam rock is just the above-board, in-plain-sight honest dialogue in which foreign embassies everywhere engage;
why the outrage? And when Britain finally admitted what had been going on, minus all the holier-than-thou gilding of trying to build
a better world with Russia through an active and engaged civil society absolutely nothing was done. Not only does the truth not necessarily
ever come out – Tony Blair, for example, has never to the best of my knowledge admitted to having lied to influence public opinion
in the UK in favour of committing with its partner, the United States, to the Iraq War, which was such a smorgasbord of lies that
the weapons-of-mass-destruction whopper was only the biggest. Iraq was wrecked, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and
the liars were never punished, nor ever in fact admitted their guilt. In cases where the guilty must begrudgingly admit they lied,
nobody does anything about it, the firebolts of celestial retribution never appear, and the liars go on to lie some more with increased
confidence. An eager and gullible audience is always ready to swallow some more horseshit.
Like now, with the Skripal case. We are supposed to believe mysterious Russian assassins daubed Novichok nerve agent on the Skripals'
front doorknob, which transferred to their hands, and then they drove downtown, enjoyed a good meal in a restaurant, and then started
feeling poorly, and collapsed on a public bench, victims of a nerve agent much more toxic than VX. Five to eight times,
says FOX News . Ten times more deadly than its better-known predecessors, says Anne Applebaum. But the Skripals did not die.
They were carefully shielded and monitored by the British security services so that they could not be questioned by the public, but
they did not die.
And that's possible – in the case of a mild dose of, say, VX (much less deadly than Novichok, remember), as a liquid through a
skin-contact vector, it might take up to two hours for symptoms (local sweating and muscular twitching) to appear, according to the
US Army's Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command Chemical Research, Development and Engineering Center's
Reigle Report . The trouble with that scenario
as applied to the Skripals is that the duration of those effects would be about 3 days for a mild exposure, and 5 days for a severe
exposure. The Skripals showed no such effects; they ate dinner in what must have been to all appearances a normal fashion, and then
collapsed unconscious on a bench outside. Some accounts suggested they had a quantity of foam around their mouths, which might result
from salivation. At least one report says Yulia Skripal had vomited. No reports mentioned excessive sweating and muscular twitching,
both of which are hallmarks of nerve-agent poisoning via liquid (as opposed to gas) exposure through the skin.
There are a couple of other problems with the British approach. We've all seen the pictures of the chemical-warfare types in their
green dung-beetle suits, meticulously taking samples, while unprotected firemen in simple turnout gear with no masks or breathing
apparatus stood just a couple of feet away. VX as a liquid could become a gas, but it'd have to be pretty hot. If that happened,
it would not be persistent beyond a couple of hours. VX as a liquid, under very cold conditions, can actually persist for a couple
of months. Quite a bit colder than it typically is in even England, though, in spring and summer.
Daily averages for Salisbury, UK in March are
above freezing, an average of about 45F, and it customarily gets much warmer going into summer. So you can't have it both ways –
if it's a liquid, it's more persistent in its toxicity over time, but that effect is greatly attenuated by temperature. If it's a
gas, breathing apparatus for anyone who might be exposed is an absolute rule.
Another discrepancy came up, in
a timeline of the Skripals'
movements . They left the father's home at some time close to but prior to 1:30 PM, and drove into town. This, it is estimated,
would take about 10 to 15 minutes. They are observed by CCTV entering a multi-story car park in Salisbury at around 1:32 PM. Here
one of the Skripals – both of whom apparently touched the front doorknob on the way out, the second one perhaps just for luck – then
touched the ticket machine with their bare hand. This machine remained unchecked for 8 days after the event. How many other people
touched it between that time and the time anyone checked it for toxicity? Yet nobody else showed any symptoms.
It was an extremely oddball event, which continues to inspire skeptical questions and scornful refutations. But I don't want to
get too bogged-down in the Skripal affair – instead, I want to focus a bit on the more recent incident, the 'poisoning' of Dawn Sturgess
and Charles Rowley, in nearby Amesbury. This incident, also, has featured a wildly-improbable British-government narrative and skeptical
questioning, and one of the foremost skeptical questions has been "How the hell could a nerve agent that did not kill the people
who were its targets accidentally kill a chance victim four months later?"
Enter, stage left, the American Chemical Weapons Expert, who announces that
Novichok was specially engineered to remain persistent over a long time . So that it could, you know, kill incidental victims
months later and further incriminate the country where it is supposed to have originated. That's why it is the go-to poison for Russian
assassins. It might not kill the people you wanted to kill, but it could kill someone totally unrelated, months later. True story.
There are a few things you should know about the expert quoted, Dan Kaszeta. One, he's the Managing Director of
Strongpoint Security (it seems like all the UK's
go-to commentators are executives in the security industry, like FireEye or Crowdstrike). Sounding off in the media, taking a position
which unreservedly supports the government narrative – no matter how nutty it is – is a good way to get noticed in the security business,
and Strongpoint is a fairly new operation. Two, he's the
resident CBRN expert at Bellingcat . Three, he is not a Trump fan,
broadcasting for his anti-Trump audience
how the President of the United States' motorcade and security detail might be confused, frustrated and sidetracked so that he would
get the message he was not welcome. I can hardly fault Kaszeta for that, since Trump is over-the-top unpopular just about everywhere
he goes, but it's a little unusual to see a former White-House consultant handing out advice on how to screw up a White House visit.
Four, he is a much bigger noise on the CBRN front than you might have imagined if you've never heard of him before, confidently
chatting up the wide-eyed press corps on all things chemical-warfare. And always supporting the UK government's contention that Novichok
was always Russian, only Russian, and that it could not have been anyone else. Here he is,
letting the WBUR
Boston audience know in no uncertain terms, "I don't know anybody who knows how to make it except these guys in Russia. They've
been a deep, dark secret." But their purported engineer, Vil Marzayanov,
claimed their precursors were
ordinary organophosphates which are commercially available; "One should be mindful that the chemical components or precursors
of A-232 and its binary version novichok-5 are ordinary organophosphates that can be made at commercial chemical companies that manufacture
fertilizers and pesticides [nerve agents, after all, arose from research into pesticides and are really advanced versions of
pesticides]. In my opinion, this research program was premised on the ability to hide the production of precursor chemicals under
the guise of legitimate commercial chemical production of agricultural chemicals . And if America was concerned that its manufacture
was devious and covert, it is kind of difficult to imagine why an American publisher
published a book which featured the
formula for making it, courtesy of Marzayanov, and which anyone can obtain for around $30.00. Is that how you keep something
a deep, dark secret? And obviously the Defense Research establishment at Porton Down, only a couple of miles from the site of the
Salisbury poisoning, had samples of Novichok, since they were able to identify it in a couple of hours. It's beginning to shape up
like the worst-kept deep dark secret in the world.
According to Dan, the Soviets wanted to engineer chemical agents that NATO equipment could not detect. Gosh! Those tricky sons
of bitches. So then they engineered it to be extra-persistent, so it would stay around for months, just to make it fair, so NATO
could have lots of time to take more samples. The thing is, the whole raison d'etre of a nerve agent is that it be non
-persistent; you want it to rapidly and efficiently kill off the enemy, but you want to move your own troops into that same
area in a matter of days, to consolidate your gains and establish your own military presence. Months just doesn't cut it.
Asked why an assassin would use such a distinctive agent, pointing straight back at his own country, Dan suggests that given the
historic secrecy of the project, someone might have reasoned that it would go undetected. Uh huh; sure – the Stimson Report came
out in 1995. And the agent used is 'specially engineered to remain a toxic menace for months'.
Here's Dan again , backstopping the White House's assertion that only Assad could have been behind an alleged sarin gas attack
at Khan Sheikhoun; the Russian version, he says, is "highly implausible". "Nerve agents are the result of a very expensive, exotic,
industrial chemical process -- these are not something you just whip up." Oh, dear – put John Gilbert, senior science fellow
at the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, in the "Disagree" column: he says
all you would need to make sarin
is about a 200 square-foot room and a competent chemist.
Two other attributes compound sarin's insidiousness. First, it's not especially hard to produce, in terms of both resources
and expertise. "A competent chemist could make it, and possibly very quickly, in a matter of days," says John Gilbert, a senior science
fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, who spent much of his Air Force career assessing countries' WMD capabilities.
Producing sarin doesn't require any kind of massive facility; a roughly 200 square foot room would do.
According to Dan
– yet again, this time in the Los Angeles Times – one form of Novichok is as a solid at normal temperatures, and it
might have been deployed as a dust or powder. Uh huh, might have been. But (a) that would have been the least-persistent method except
for as a gas, it would never have lasted four months outside, through rain, and (b) not even a rummy like Charles Rowley would have
tried to pawn off a bottle of dust to his girlfriend as perfume.
Because here we are again, at another 'Novichok' poisoning, and Dan helpfully dispels the myth that Novichok would not still be
around and deadly after four months, by announcing the Soviets specially engineered it to do just that. And not only that – they
made it especially for contaminating large areas of land, such as ports, and equipment, like tanks, so that they would be dangerous
for months. That was supposedly 'the idea' when they were developed.
Horseshit. Nerve agents are most effective against unprotected troops in the open, and if you want to contaminate an area the
size of a port, the only possible way you could do it would be with a spray – the least persistent form of all. All organophospate-based
nerve agents can be effectively dealt with – before unprotected personnel are exposed – by spraying and washing contaminated areas
with water; moisture makes them break down quickly. Nobody has engineered a miracle waterproof organophosphate nerve agent. Once
nerve agents are known to have been used, troops in the field are in TOPP (Threat-Oriented Protective Posture) Medium at least, in
full chem suits with breathing apparatus available for rapid donning. Nerve agents were not developed as a weapon of covert assassination,
although they have definitely been used in that role; they were developed as a weapon of mass destruction to be used against a military
adversary who presumably is trained in CBRN countermeasures. They were not developed to spray tanks, in the hope that some mook would
put his bare hand on it two months later, and fall over jerking and drooling. How the fuck would you disperse enough nerve agent
to contaminate an airfield? Fly over with a water-bomber and drench it from end to end? You don't think that might offer a bit of
a clue? If you want to disperse a large amount of nerve agent, it will have to be vaporized, and it will have to be carried in the
dispersal vehicle as a liquid. Liquids are heavy – the more you want to disperse, the bigger your dispersal vehicle will have to
be. The Soviet Union developed gas warheads, to be used on a ballistic missile, but if you can land a gas warhead next to an airfield
you might as well go the whole nine yards and blow it up, because a warhead that lies there hissing and dispersing a cloud of vapour
is kind of a giveaway. Unless, of course, you only want to kill the military personnel in the area, and not damage the airfield,
so you can quickly take it over and deploy your own aircraft from it. In which instance you would have been pretty stupid to envelope
it in a toxic nerve agent that is still going to be active next spring. And the whole idea of a nerve agent is to deploy a small
amount of it, using an unobtrusive dispersal vehicle, so as not to call attention to it until personnel in the target area are affected.
It's nice of Dan to try and fill in the blanks the way he did, but there are just too many blanks. The latest story from HM government
is that a perfume bottle was found in Charles Rowley's home, and tests revealed – surprise! – that it contained Novichok. The story
is that Rowley found it in Queen Elizabeth Park. Somehow, Dawn Sturgess is supposed to have sprayed the contents of the bottle on
her wrists and face, like perfume. Oops! now it's an aerosol, the fastest-acting form of nerve agent, and she probably would have
been affected in minutes at most, not hours. But she was not at Rowley's home, where the bottle was supposedly discovered. So he
either took the bottle with him to meet her, and after noticing her exhibiting symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning, took the bottle
home with him and put it in his house, or they were both affected at roughly the same time, and somebody thoughtfully posted the
bottle to his home address. If she was poisoned at his house, she would not likely have made it out.; remember, it was dispersed
as a vapor. So there is a question as to how the bottle got there, and another as to how it laid there in the park for nearly four
months, until Rowley discovered it.
And how it remained powerful enough to kill after all that time, when the fresh-off-the-shelf
Novichok, four months previously, failed to kill the Skripals. Not to mention how it got there in the first place – are we supposed
to believe that highly-trained assassins straight from the Kremlin did the Skripal job, and then tossed away their backup supply
in a local park?
Perhaps of greatest concern, if chemical-weapons professionals were aware that Novichok could persist in deadly concentrations
for months – that it was specially engineered to be not only virtually undetectable by NATO sensors, but to remain deadly through
the deleterious effects of the elements why did they say nothing when the dozy police assured the public that it was in absolutely
no danger?
Thanks, Al! Yes, Britain – like the USA – has a reliable stable of current and ex-military officers
to call upon whenever the broader public starts getting inquisitive or uncomfortable with the official storyline, to get us
back on the path with the uncompromising guarantee of military experience and exotic knowledge the average yokel can never
hope to possess.
General (Ret'd) Wesley Clark, for example, the affable and polished talking head for CNN during the Iraq War
and onetime presidential candidate.
Yes, the term CBRN replaced the old NBCD, Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense.
This article is a timely reminder that the UK never stopped fighting the Cold War.
I had forgotten about the embarrassing spy rock incident. The (labour) government lies were accepted without question by the
media.
The Novichok issue – fits into this pattern of behaviour.
The story Browder refuses to tell is far more interesting than the one he wrote for the
book.
I found the book quite easy to put down: I got tired of all the chapters about how he made
so much money following the fall of the Soviet Union. But Norman Pearlstine's statement that
"Browder's business saga meshes well with the story of corruption and murder in Vladimir
Putin's Russia" is more true than he realizes. With the release of Glenn Simpson's 20 hours
of testimony before three Senate committees we now know that there is a great deal of
information Browder failed to disclose. I'll let Simpson tell it:
He was willing to, you know, hand stuff off to the DOJ anonymously in the beginning and
cause them to launch a court case against somebody, but he wasn't interesting in speaking
under oath about, you know, why he did that ... All of this -- his determined effort to avoid
testifying under oath, including running away from subpoenas and changing -- frequently
changing lawyers and making lurid allegations against us, including that, you know, he
thought we were KGB assassins in the parking lot of Aspen, Colorado when we served the
subpoena, all raised questions
in my mind about why he was so determined to not have to answer questions under oath about
things that happened in Russia.
I'll add that, you know, I've done a lot of Russia reporting over the years. I originally
met William Browder back when I was a journalist at the Wall Street Journal when I was doing
stories about corruption in Russia. I think the first time I met him he lectured me about --
I was working on a story about Vladimir Putin corruption and he lectured me about how have
Vladimir Putin was not corrupt and how he was the best thing that ever
happened to Russia.
But returning to the detailed discussion of my work, we investigated William Browder's
business practices in Russia, we began to understand maybe what it was he didn't want to talk
about, and as we looked at that we then began to look at his decision to surrender his
American citizenship in 1998. At that point somewhere in there the Panama papers came out and
we discovered that he had incorporated shell companies offshore in the mid 1990s, in 1995 I
believe it was in the British Virgin Islands, and that at some point his hedge fund's shares
had been transferred to this offshore company. This offshore company was managed -- several
of his offshore companies were managed by the Panamanian law firm called Mossack Fonseca,
which is known now for setting up offshore companies for drug kingpins, narcos, kleptos, you
name it. They were servicing every bad guy around. And I'm familiar with them from other
money laundering and corruption and tax evasion investigations that I've done.I'll note
parenthetically that William Browder talks a lot about the Panama papers and the Russians who
are in the Panama papers without ever mentioning that he's in the Panama papers.
Now, I choose to believe Simpson, who not only chose to submit to 20 hours of Senate
committee but then demand that it be made public, and not Browder, who fled from Simpson in
the parking lot of an Aspen resort, later claiming he thought Simpson was KBG.
This is not a book to be set aside lightly... in the words of Dorothy Parker. It has been
many years since I have read a book this bad. And many more since I finished one this bad. In
recent years I have been more able to simply give up on bad books, ignoring the sunk cost
fallacy that previously drove me to soldier on - perhaps it's an increasing awareness of the
value of time, but nowadays I will bail out when it is clear I've made a big mistake. But
this one was recommended by a friend whose taste I had no reason to doubt so I kept on,
chapter after gruelling chapter, hoping for some epiphany or quality uptick. Let me save you
from the same mistake.
One service this book does render, though, is to remind you, if you need it, that writing
is hard. You may be the world's most fabulous person (well, second most fabulous - the author
of this book is pretty clear about who occupies the top spot) but it don't make you a good
writer, see. So the first important thing to know is that Bill Browder cannot write. He
strings together cliches, name drops, humble brags (and regular brags too) but he can't
write. No matter; perhaps the content can make up for it? I'm sure there are plenty of books
where the content redeems the awful style, such as... well, I'm sure there are plenty. But
the second thing to know going in is that the story is a pretty tedious, linear tale of BB's
triumphs in the world of finance and then, as he calls it, "human rights". The problem, I
think, is that the tone of the book is very smug and, despite the occasional and obviously
cynical self-deprecation, deeply self-satisfied. The author has a real tin ear for his tone,
I think, and it's well illustrated by a very early part of the story. He arrives in Poland in
his first job, charged with the assessment and, hopefully, revival of a failing bus company.
He expresses his deep sorrow and pity for the poor, poor workers and wonders what he can do
to help. Meanwhile, he comes across a class of stocks in Poland that seem to him to be
ridiculously underpriced. Aha! thinks the naive reader - I know where this is going: he will
get the bus company to invest in these stocks ad save the day. But no! It turns out that
these narratives shall not meet: he buys the stocks himself and makes out like a bandit, and
he recommends that the bus company be shut down, throwing all the workers on the street. He
is very, very sorry about the latter, of course, but, on the other hand, he has discovered
his true calling as a value investor! Gaudeamus!
The author seems to have absolutely no appreciation of his role as a functionary in a very
particular social system and it makes all of his carefully laid out social conscience ring
hollow and renders his thoroughly documented tears crocodilian.
Both sides of this story are doing horrible things and the writer thinks what he did was
correct!
This is a story where the writer only criticizes the horrible things the russian goverment
did to him and how some oligarchs steal tax money (as everywhere but blatantly) but fails to
realize that what he did, purchasing people-owned companies at fractions of a penny on the
dollar and knowing it, while taking advantage of the imperfect systems put in place for the
distribution of those companies' wealth to the people of that country, as he perfectly
describes in this book, is also wrong in the first place. He fails to understand he actually
hurt the people of that country when he bought shares at a "steal" price as he writes, he
thinks he is doing the right thing because of his wall street mentality, no rules, prey on
whomever gives an opportunity. Sad, but it's the world we live in today
Browder's story seems like a complete scam. First, he personally profited to the tune of
$2 BN off the backs of the Russian people, taking advantage of inequities in the voucher
system used with the dissolution of the USSR. He never mentions how much he personally made,
as that would have cast too much reality on the sheer vanity, self-aggrandizement, and
sanctimonious rubbish that is the rest of the story. More pointedly, he does not speak to how
his money provided access to the highest levels of government, John McCain, and greased the
wheels of the European legal system. Take for example, his ability to miraculously get two
Interpol Red Notices removed within days of their placement. The Magnitsky case was terrible
but he clearly uses it as a sanctimonious shield to get public sympathy and protection. I
could go on but the bottom line is do not waste your time or money. Browder is one of the bad
guys- at best a delusional narcissist, or more likely a greedy scam artist, pulling the wool
over everyone's eyes.
After finishing Masha Gessen's "Man Without a Face" (insightful) Karen Dawisha's "Putin's
Kleptocracy" (a mind-boggling, devastating indictment of Putin and his cronies), and David
Hoffman's "Billion Dollar Spy" (reads like a thriller novel), I was hoping that Bill
Browder's book would provide some additional depth and an interesting perspective on the
thoroughly corrupt workings of post-Soviet Russia. It does not.
Like Browder, I went to Russia numerous times -- but didn't have an office there as he did
-- during the 90s and did a number of deals there. Unlike Browder, I speak the language and
know Russian business and legal culture quite well. (I'm an average American, born and raised
in Ohio, where I still live, but I do have a Russian wife, whom I met on one of my trips
there in the 1990s.)
Browder is an extremely unsympathetic figure: Although he doesn't admit to it in the book,
he was blinded by greed and arrogance to the point where he viewed his marriage and his son
as of only trivial importance compared to his mission in life to get rich. He went to Russia
to get something for nothing, thinking he was being shrewd. His utter ignorance of Russian
business and Russian culture permeate the book -- his condescending attitude is similar to
that of a British governor-general back in 1940s Iran, when the British role was limited to
exploiting Iran by grabbing its oil for a pittance while speaking contemptuously of the
locals. Browder contemptuously describes Russian attempts to reign him in: "Russians will
gladly -- gleefully even -- sacrifice their own success to screw their neighbor." Yet he is
oblivious to the fact that he himself, without any second thoughts, sacrificed his own family
for the prospect of making just one more deal, just one more deal, and then just one more
deal. American citizenship too was just another expendable in his all-consuming quest for
riches.
Russia in the 1990s was a sea of corruption, intrigue, mafia protection rackets, turf
battles, economic chaos, incompetence, and power grabs. Browder injected himself into it,
completely ignorant of what he was getting into, determined to take advantage. He got
burned.
"Red Notice" doesn't provide any perspective or depth; it isn't even particularly
interesting. Browder's narcisssm and self-justifications permate the book, making it
extremely unpleasant to read.
The author is, inter alia, wanted in Russia for tax fraud and so, obviously, will say
everything he can that is negative about Russia. His background and backers are also very
suspicious, to my mind anyway.
I found the book to be nothing but hype. This was confirmed when I read Alex Krainer's
"The Killing of William Browder: Deconstructing Bill Browder's Dangerous Deception." This
excellent book - with factual content and well referenced - tears Browder to shreds. As he
deserves to be.
But the sheeple will continue to want to believe this fiction - it suits the current
american meme.
I recommend to turn off the TV ( tel-a-vision or the-lies-on-vision ...
The ' truth ' and the brainwashed herd of the sheeple. The death of the
Anglo-American-Zionist Empire. For those who think for themselves and cares for the others,
here in the USA ( former United States of America, now United Slaves of America ) and
all-over the World, for those of you in the research of ' whatreallyhappened ', I recommend
to turn off the TV ( tel-a-vision or the-lies-on-vision ) and read...R E A D INDEPENDENT
books and watch INDEPENDENT documentaries ! Books like ' The Killing of William Browder:
Deconstructing Bill Browder's Dangerous Deceptions ' - NOT for sale on 'amazon.com' - WHY
???!!!...Documentaries like ' The Magnitsky act: Behind the Scenes ', produced by filmmaker
Andrei Nekrasov ( a fierce critic of President Putin ).
Crook got his chances in Russia ----- HE IS A LIER!!!!
Complete Rubbish! Not only he concealed a lot of facts - he fabricated a lot of them. The
book is complete fiction, Why he doesnt mention that Magnitsky helped Hermitage create
schemes to avoid taxes, crate shell-companies to buy stocks of Gazprom (foreigners can not
buy Gazprom stocks), created shell companies in Cyprus and Kalmikia to pay joke taxes, hired
disabled people to again lower taxes? etc He is a joke
Mr. Browder went to Russian in the early 90s to make quick cash - he did it by buying
stocks from uneducated russians (similar to other russian oligarchs). Story of another greedy
individual who wanted to become a billionaire fast - once he had to pay the price he become
outraged by injustice of the system... XOXOXOXOXOX next time when you, Mr Browder, go to
another developing country with the intention to rob the system be prepared to take the
responsibility and do not whine about it like a little girl. A crook got upset that he didnt
make as much money as he wanted and got kicked out from the country - what a joke.
BTW - the youtube video with Mr. Browder running away from the officer who served him
subpoena is hilarious. If Mr Browder is so ethical and clean why he doesn't want to testify
in court?
This book came highly recommended to me by someone in the hedge fund industry. I was
surprised at how bad it was. I was looking into insight as to how Bill Browder, who once ran
the largest Russian hedge fund, made his fortune, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions
of dollars. Instead the book was a very self serving book which I would identify as 20% self
aggrandizement, self serving, 20% discussion of the arbitrage trades that made him rich, 60%
discussion of the Sergie Magnitsky Act which he worked to pass. The book is full of
contradictions including Browder's moral position and his self righteousness. It makes you
wonder if anyone thought about this book in context of the 2008 financial markets collapse or
did any research on Browder when reading it. Also, why does Browder today actively evade
subpoenas to testify about what happened in American court as shown in Youtube videos?
The book is full of villains on both sides. Browder is the grandson of the former head of
the US communist party. He gave up his US citizenship to become a British citizen in 1997. He
worked for the criminal Robert Maxwell who had misappropriated corporate pension funds to
live a flamboyant lifestyle, then he went to work with Edmond Safra as a partner in Hermitage
Capital. Not only these global speculators but the book includes Mossad and a host of Russian
oligarchs (all financed by Fred Goodwin's Royal Bank of Scotland). Browder's arbitrage was
that Russian companies were severely undervalued because no other investors trusted Russian
corporations and Russian rule of law. Whereas most other investors thought Russian companies
were 100% un-investable, Browder figured many of them were only 50% un-investable and he
invested in that 50% that was investable. After that arbitrage went away, he decided to start
investigating Russian corporations for inside dealing and his activist strategy paid off but
made many enemies. He was warned by numerous other investors that his life and others would
be in danger for this. Everyone he works with leaves wreckage behind until he does the same.
When one of his lawyers who gets less than 1% of coverage in the first half of the book dies
in a Russian prison, he goes all out to try to get revenge on the Russians who he claims made
tax fraud on the Russian government and him by seizing control of companies he owned. Many
questions arise from the book some of which I list below.
(1) Browder's hedge fund is domiciled in Guernsey and Cayman Islands, notorious tax
evasion locales, yet the premise of the second half of the book is to get revenge on corrupt
Russian officials for stealing Russian tax money (his hundreds of millions of dollars)
(2) Browder is drawn to evil people and shady characters (Maxwell, oligarch companies,
mossad, etc) like moths to a flame. Is it force of habit for him to fall into bad situations
with them? Is it the US government's role to spend taxpayer money on exacting revenge for him
on the crooked crowd he deals with? His friends are spoken with in great superlatives, his
enemies despised. It is easy to imagine if you were a friend and became an enemy he would
label you with epithets thus immediately.
(3) Browder becomes a British citizen (but a hedge fund deci or centi millionaire) yet he
easily gets access to John McCain, Joe Lieberman and other US elected officials to get the
Magnitsky act passed. Ultimately the Magnitsky act passes and Russia responds by banning all
US adoptions of Russian children. For all you childless women looking to adopt Russian
babies, thank the egotist Browder for your inability to do so going forward. Were you screwed
in the 2008 financial markets collapse? The system may not work for you but it works for a
global speculator who wants vengeance.
(4) But its worse. Browder goes to war with the Oligarchs who were funded by Royal Bank of
Scotland and who defaulted on their loans from RBS. The UK citizens had to bail out RBS.
Browder tries to utilize the British government to exact vengeance on the very same Oligarchs
the British government is bailing out in some ways.
(5) Browder is the great example of the speculative hedge fund trader of the 90's and 00's
run amok. He is a speculator, he was warned about the risks, he jumps headlong into them and
knows Russia does not have American or British rule of law. But he expects the US and Britain
to jump to his aid for his recklessness and bail him out like the other crooks of the 2008
vintage. EVEN THOUGH HE IS A BRITISH CITIZEN.
(6) Lookup the Wall Street Journal articles or Youtube videos about how the cowardly Browder
runs away from being served by a subpoena and has constantly sought to avoid subpoena's from
the Russians who are countersuing him in US and British court. If he is for rule of law, why
not work his way through the legal systems. Seems like there is another side to the
story.
Hey, guys and gals, the man is a shark. An investment banker. He'd sell his own
grandmother if he thought he's make a profit. And now he's trying to profit by selling his
own story, all teary-eyed about his lawyer and his quest for "justice." Barf. He wants to
expose Kremlin corruption, happily forgetting Wall St. corruption that he hoped would make
HIM millions. He only saw the light when other folks made millions and he got arrested. Kinda
like any low-life Baltimore drug pusher. Please don't buy his line of crack cocaine.
This is a thrilling page-turner of financial and political intrigue. The problem is that
it is much like the pot calling the kettle black. Just about everything of which Browder
accuses the Russian kleptocrats is equaled or excelled by the US robber barons and the
agencies of violence wielded by the US government. Browder also digresses from time to time
into the history of the USSR about which he knows nothing except the propaganda that we have
been fed, most of which originates, ironically enough, from the very oligarchs he so
justifiably criticizes.
Very interesting to hear an insider's experience of Russia privatization and the politics
of the 90's and early 2000s. I enjoyed that part.
That said, I found Browder spent a lot of time tooting his own horn and virtue signaling . He
seemed quite impressed with himself and spends much of the book detailing why you should be
too.
I never thought Putin was a good guy.
I never thought neocon/ deep state John McCain was a good guy. ( Browder does).
I don't think Browder made his gazillions by being a good guy. A lot of ordinary Russians got
ripped off . Browder and a lot of others got rich.
This is a fairly interesting, if pretty unsurprising, story of high-level graft and
corruption in Russia. Yes, Putin and the Russian government are rife with corruption, and the
rules are subject to change on a whim. That should be obvious to anyone who paid any
attention to Russia's preparation for the Sochi Olympics. I'm even inclined to take Browder's
story about the torture and eventual death of Sergei Magnitsky (who he describes as a tax
lawyer, but was actually an accountant) at face value.
But where Browder really grates is with his remarkable lack of self-awareness and
out-of-touch declarations. At one point, for instance, in the run-up to the 1996 elections,
in which there was a chance that the Communist candidate, Gennady Zyuganov, would win the
presidency and potentially re-nationalize state companies, Browder said that he could deal
with food shortages, hyperinflation, or any number of terrible conditions, but what he
couldn't stomach was re-nationalization of industry. So, according to this guy, people
starving and their savings evaporating into thin air is tolerable, but the worst thing
imaginable is him losing his gains from fleecing Russian peasants. Solid guy, Browder.
For some background-- when the USSR fell, Russia embarked on a program of "voucher
privatization" where every citizen received vouchers that they could use to bid on the shares
of previously state-owned enterprises. Since Russia has incredible resource wealth, these
were quite valuable. Unfortunately, in a country with no history of any kind of capital
markets, the overwhelming majority of people had no clue what use they could get out of stock
ownership. Immediately after they were issued, you could buy a voucher for a bottle of cheap
vodka. And the people who became the oligarchs, as well as western vultures like Browder, did
just that. Eventually, these shares sold at incredibly low valuations, and investors made a
killing. But what Browder doesn't mention is that these absurdly low valuations almost
certainly came about, in large part, from the fact that investors hate uncertainty. The
possibility that a Zyuganov would come to power and re-nationalize state-owned enterprises
was a real possibility, so plenty of investors stayed on the sidelines. Not Browder-- he
jumped in, and when (surprise!) the Russian government behaved like the Russian government is
wont to do, he acted like he was the victim of the world's worst injustice. Sure, what
happened was in some way unfair. So was all the vultures jumping in to take advantage of
peasants. Browder had no problem ripping off Russian peasants while extolling himself as a
"great capitalist," but, when the Russian government took him in, he complained about the big
bad Russians. It was extremely tiresome.
There were other places where his tone was equally annoying. He spent time talking about
how "sexy" his second wife was/is, how she's "not like those other Russian girls that are
just after money," and how many other people wanted to date her and how awesome he was
because she chose him. Sergei Magnitsky's death is a sad story from a sad place. It's too bad
the person to tell it is such a wildly out of touch hypocrite.
The book was fun to read, like a Marvel comic book. Truly Bill Browder is, according to
Bill Browder, a brilliant man willing to take daring risks where he sees an opportunity for
personal gain. And I have to agree with him. With his inherited genetic intelligence, and
some of the best education money can buy, he made himself enormously rich profiting from
financial transactions that produced nothing of real value. I found this book to be quite
self-congratulatory, written with no embarrassment for taking advantage of a whole
population.
As Browder writes, "I found that to transition from communism to capitalism, the Russian
government had decided to give away most of the state's property to the people. The
government was going about this in a number of ways, but the most interesting was something
called voucher privatization. The government granted one privatization certificate to every
Russian citizen---roughly 150 million people in total -- and taken together these were
exchangeable for 30 % of nearly all Russian companies." "The market price of the vouchers
equaled 3 billion this meant that the valuation of the entire Russian economy was only 10
billion! That was one-sixth the value of Wal-Mart!" "Russia had 24% of the word's natural
gas, 9% of the world's oil, and produced 6.6 % of the world's steel, among many other things.
Yet this incredible trove of resources [owned by ordinary Russian citizens] was trading for a
mere 10 billion! Even more astonishing was that there were no restrictions on who could
purchase these vouchers. I could buy them, anyone could buy them." He recounts, "The Russian
people had no idea what to do with the vouchers when they received them for free from the
state and, in most cases, were happy to trade them for a $7 bottle of vodka or a few slabs of
pork." Mr. Browder took advantage of their ignorance and brought millions of vouchers from
the Russian people for a pittance of their true value. This is something to brag about? It is
not laudable to buy something for a pittance of its real worth, from owners who have no idea
of its true value. It is reprehensible. It was disturbing to me to see no introspection on
the rightness or wrongness of beating someone out of his or her money.
Mr. Browder describes in his Sidanco deal the feeling he has when an opportunity for ungodly
gains presents itself, "I had that tingling, greedy tension in my gut, similar to when I saw
my $2,000 Polish investment multiply by nearly ten times, or when I unearthed the Russian
voucher scheme."
Greed is not a virtue, Mr. Browder. It is a vice.
Reviewer Ian Kaplan wrote:
The second half of the book is about how Putin's gang tried to crush Hermitage Capital and
everyone associated with it."
And, I would add, how Browder's gang is trying to crush Putin.
It makes me think that a large part of Mr. Browder's dogged determination in pushing the
Maginsky Act through Congress, and signed into law, was not so much a humanitarian turn of
the leaf for him, but a strategy to enlist the whole backing of the United States into his
personal war with Putin, who put him out of a lucrative business in Russia.
I was familiar with Hermitage and Browder so it was not "news" to me. I feel Browder makes
himself look good when in reality he was a jerk.
I don't wish him well!
Bill Schaffer
Bill Browder is a shrewd fellow, at least up to a point. He saw an opportunity to make
money after the collapse of Communism in Russia. He moved to Moscow, started a hedge fund,
and succeeded in a big way. He made piles of money in essentially the same way the Russian
oligarchy made it, by purchasing formerly state owned assets at hugely discounted rates.
It all worked beautifully for a while, but clever as he was Browder didn't realize he was
living in a fool's paradise. Rather than remaining cool and quiet while making money, he
publicly accused certain local enterprises of corruption. He did this, rather naively, in a
country notoriously resentful of foreign interference in its affairs. Furthermore, there are
indications that he himself was not above involvement in dodgy dealings, including fudging on
taxes and sneaking funds into tax havens.
Not surprisingly, Browder, away on a trip, was barred from reentering Russia. Authorities
raided his Moscow offices, confiscating files and computers. Although Browder managed to get
his staff out of Russia, a man named Sergei Magnitsky whom Browder calls his lawyer, though
he was apparently only an auditor, chose not to leave. This was a grave error, as poor
Magnitsky became the foil for Russian displeasure with Browder. He was jailed, beaten, denied
medical treatment, and died in prison. Meanwhile, a couple of thugs attached to the KGB,
Russia's secret police, extorted large sums of money from Browder via a complex fraud,
presumably accomplished with the tacit consent of establishment superiors.
Browder used Magnitsky's death to launch a major and eventually successful lobbying
campaign for a U.S. law which came to be known as the Magnitsky Act. The law imposing
sanctions on Russian officials responsible for Magnitsky's death. The Russians retaliated by
placing Browder on the Interpol wanted list and later sentencing him in absentia to nine
years in prison for tax fraud.
"Red Notice" is written in the fashionably breezy and colloquial style seemingly favored
by many professional ghost writers. Not surprisingly, it portrays Browder as a skilled and
principled financier who, prompted by the Magnitsky tragedy, turns himself into a towering
figure in the world of human rights.
There are odd omissions in descriptions of Browder's family life. Divorce from his first
wife is mentioned only in passing; although much ado is made over his meeting his glamorous
Russian second wife, she fades entirely from later portions of the manuscript. "Red Notice"
is a work of considerable interest. However, given the many controversies that hover over
Browder's life and reputation, I believe it wise to view its contents with a generous degree
of skepticism.
Other reviewers have accurately summarized the book, and justly praised Browder's
commitment and courage in seeking a measure of justice for the brutal treatment, leading to
death, of Sergei Magnitsky. My comment will focus on a disquieting subtext babout browder's
activities in setting up and running his hedge fund.
Browder's rise to prominence with his Hermitage Fund followed the classic MBA playbook:
find and exploit undervaluation. Fair enough in a financial world of transparency and
disclosure where "consenting adults" can presumably fend for themselves. But this was not
exactly the environment in Russia in the early 1990s. In its attempted transition from
communism to some form of capitalism, the Russian government granted "privatization
certificates" to the people - one certificate per citizen, about 150 million in total.
Browder found that these certificates, in the aggregate, were exchangeable for about a 30
percent interest in newly privatized Russian companies.
In theory, this should have been a promising financial arrangement for the impoverished
Russian people, particularly given the country's wealth of natural resources and the
p[otential of its energy sector. But after decades of communism, capitalism was a largely
unknown concept in day-to-day practice. Controlling interests were diverted to a
well-connected oligarchical minority, who saw the companies more as ATMs rather than what we
in the West would call modern corporations with appropriate disclosure and governance
standards. Companies were valued at a tiny fraction of comparable Western entities, and the
Russian stock market, such as it was, had little volume and virtually no transparency.
Browder had the insight to realize that the participation certificates were ludicrously
undervalued in relation to the potential net worth of Russian companies. By purchasing large
numbers of these certificates from the essentially clueless Russian citizenry for the
functional equivalent of pennies on the dollar in relation to underlying value, Browder was
able to position his Hermitage Fund to get in on the ground floor of a stock market that was
virtually certain to rise dramatically as the potential of the Russian economy came to be
understood in the Western world.
Depending on one's perspective, this is either an instance of brilliant, if amoral,
take-the-world-as-it-is MBA-ism, or a classic example of a city slicker fleecing the rubes in
a manner that would be much more difficult to pull off in a more sophisticated financial
environment. I lean toward the latter position, and surely am not the only one dazed by the
irony of Browder, grandson of a one-time head of the U.S. Communist Party, so
unapologetically exploiting the ignorance of the Russian populace for capitalist gain.
Browder deserves all the kudos he's received for his work on the Magnitsky matter. But his
Hermitage Fund (and its progeny and imitators) helped give visibility (though not
transparency) and liquidity, as well as an aura of respectability, to the previously
"undernourished" Russian stock market. Browder's investors did well, as did numbers of
average Russians (though not necessarily those who sold the participation certificates).
Principal beneficiaries, however, were the oligarchs and the well-connected favored few, the
value of whose controlling interests soared greatly. In part, Browder was an enabler of the
system he came (rightly) to despise and fight against.
It seems Browder is trying to whitewash his own reputation and the part he played in the
disasterous privitazation of Russian businesses after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He
was an active and avid participant in buying up shares of companies for pennies on the dollar
which helped to impoverish Russians for a generation. In addition his part in the death of
Sergei Magnitsky was shameful. Yes Browder and Magnitsky uncoverd massive fraud but
ultimately Browder decided that the money was more important than his "friend's" life.
Passige of the Magnitsky Law slightly punished the perpetrators but he didn't need to die and
Browder should be ashamed of himself as well.
A must read, regardless of political party of choice. A book that could save America,
literaly
Well written, stringently researched and truly shines a light on the dark dealings of Bill
Browder. Seamlessly disects the chapters of Bill browders book red notice bit by bit.
Everyone should read this book.
Russian
businessman Aleksandr Perepelichny, a key witness in the Sergey Magnitsky case who died in
southern England in November 2012, may have been poisoned, British media reported. Perepelichny
allegedly cooperated with Swiss investigators looking into the death of Sergey Magnitsky and a
$240 million money laundering case, involving Russian officials and organized crime.
Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer, who was held in pre-trial detention in connection with tax
fraud, and died in 2009 due to being denied crucial medical treatment by prison officials.
His death caused an international outcry and led to the passing of the so-called Magnitsky
Act by the US Congress in 2012, which punished a group of Russian state officials and law
enforcers with a US asset freeze and a visa ban over alleged human rights violations.
Shortly before testifying in the Magnitsky case, Perepelichny collapsed and died while jogging near
his home near in Surrey, south of London.
The Surrey police initially found nothing suspicious about the 44-year-old man's death,
saying that there was "no third-party involvement."
However, a pre-inquest hearing Monday has shed light on new facts in the case, which
contradicted the initial conclusions by the police.
A top poisons expert examined a sample of Perepilichny's stomach contents last year and
discovered the presence of a chemical strongly associated with a lethal plant toxin, the
Independent newspaper reported.
Professor Monique Simmonds from Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, told the court that
the substance was extremely rare in nature and could only be obtained from gelsemium, a
poisonous plant also known as "heartbreak grass."
The plant only grows in remote areas in Russia and China, and became known as a poison used
by assassins in the two countries.
However, it isn't used very often. The most recent known use of gelsemium as a poison was
the assassination of Chinese billionaire Huang Guang in 2011.
Lawyers representing the police at Surrey Coroner's Court in Woking acknowledged that the
presence of the chemical "ion" in Perepilichny's system was a "cause for very
serious concern," the Independent reported.
The new finding prompted the judge to reschedule a hearing in Perepilichny's case, due to
begin Monday, until September as to allow more tests to be performed.
According to the Independent, the Surrey police may find themselves in hot water for
negligence if Perepilichny's poisoning is confirmed, as the case would resemble the
high-profile murder of Aleksandr Litvinenko in London in 2006.
Litvinenko, a former Russian security officer, died in hospital after being poisoned with
radioactive Polonium 210, with his death acting as a stumbling block in relations between
Russia and the UK.
A
documentary screening of Andrei Nekrasov's investigation comes to a halt due to
behind-the-scenes schemes of an American billionaire.
Nekrasov (c) in a scene from his new film (Photo: greens-efa.eu)
Originally appeared at Rusplt , translated by
Mona Lita exclusively for SouthFront
Seems like the world has turned upside down. After decades of living under the conditions of
censorship, Russia has generated an unprecedented desire for freedom. Europe, by contrast, is
increasingly resorting to banning facts that are inconvenient for her. Myths that benefit
politicians of the Old World are claimed as truth, while all the rest is, for example, Russian
"propaganda". On this basis the obstacles to Mass Media activities are being fixed, while
access to individual documentaries is being cut off from the viewer. One of these types of
works is a film "the Magnitsky Act – behind the scenes", made by a Russian director
Andrei Nekrasov, which is dedicated to a famous story about tax evasion, which later becomes
the reason for the adoption of the American law with the same name.
Another screening of Nekrasov's film was to be held today, on May 27th as one of the short
films at a festival in Grimstad, Norway [ SF editor: It wasn't screened]. Whether it will
happen or not is not yet clear. The fact is that the film's authors now have a powerful
opponent, an American billionaire and CEO of Hermitage Capital – William Browder, an
author of the Sergei Magnitsky myth and his self-proclaimed political executor. Unhappy with
Nekrasov's investigation, in which a version of an innocent businessman is being refuted,
Browder launched an opposition campaign. He is not hesitating to use a whole arsenal of tools
for this: direct political pressure, defender assaults and prosecution. A Norwegian publication
Dagbladet writes about this.
According to the publication, for the sake of counteracting the film's circulation Browden
held separate meetings with the Storting parliament members – Ingerd Skou from the
"Høyre" Party and Morten Wold from the Progress Party. Both of them are also members of
the Storting delegation in PACE, and this means they have European-scale influence. Moreover,
Browder met with the leader of the Norwegian Party Venstre, Trine Skei Grande. In respect to
Nekrasov's film the policy is set to be very critical, calling it propaganda. "Everyone knows
that Russia is a master at conducting such campaigns", a publication quotes her words. It turns
out she has not seen the film itself but believes in Browder's version.
In addition to politicians' support, Browder – an American with a British passport,
enlisted the sympathy of human rights activists. The Norwegian Helsinki Committee is entirely
on his side. A corresponding meeting took place during the visit of this country's
businessman.
A sacrifice is required for human rights activists to exist. Magnitsky is the suitable
candidate. Death in a Russian prison makes him a desirable target to human rights fanatics. In
case this resource is not enough, Browder prepared a court appeal. "I have hired Norwegian
attorneys. They have been ordered to take up the case", he explained to Dagbladet. Browder
wants to sue not only the film director but also the film festival in Grimstad, if he did not
remove the film from screening.
Right now, the festival organizers are resisting. According to the Executive Director Anita
Svingen, they will refuse the showing of Nekrasov investigation only if the creators themselves
will withdraw the film for legal reasons. Despite Browder's threats to sue the festival, its
organizers invited him to a discussion that will take place after the viewing. They recalled
that it was a Norwegian company that created the film, which guarantees him a sufficient level
of confidence.
It should be noted that funding for Nekrasov's work is also European. The film received
millions of krones from the Nordic Film and TV Fond, the Norwegian Film Institute (NFI), Norsk
Film Institute and the Foundation Fritt Ord ("Free Word"). If those politicians who oppose the
showing are outraged by this circumstance, then the Representative of NFI Mette Taraldsen
reasonably noted that the very "form and task of documentaries is to raise critical questions
and to cover the case from different angles". At the same time he also reminded that Andrei
Nekrasov is one of the most experienced documentarians, and it makes no sense not to trust
him.
Europe is afraid of free speech?
In fact, the Russian director is considered one of the masters in European documentary
films. A partnership with Andrei Tarkovsky, training in Bristol and work on the British
television network allowed him to sustain a professional status. His work has received numerous
awards, including one at the Cannes Film Festival. An important factor in Nekrasov's reputation
is that he is the current Russian president's enemy. Accusations that he "sold out" to the
Kremlin obviously have no ground to stand on. "I used to make films that were quite critical of
Putin, and such allegations hurt me deeply", he said.
When Nekrasov first began shooting the film, he implicitly believed in Browder's version.
After all, all the major Western media consistently wrote and spoke about it with one voice.
The adaptation of the story "about the conspiracy of Russian policemen killing the fighter of
Magnitsky corruption" was assumed. It was only during the process of filming, when the director
was introduced to the documents that he realized he was filming a lie. The version of the story
that Browder circulated has little to do with reality, but rather serves the businessman's
personal interests. This explains the powerful complex program to counter the film's showing
and threats with multi-million dollar lawsuits to anyone involved in its spread. It's just that
Browder's pride was hurt.
The first documents Nekrasov learned of were from Browder's famous site "the Untouchables",
where Magnitsky exposes the corruption of investigators Karpov and Kuznetsov. As it turns out,
there was no exposure. "There was an interrogation, and there was protocol, which shows that
Magnitsky is in the midst of a heavy defensive struggle with the investigation. And he is not
blaming any MIA officers, and doesn't even mention them", writes Nekrasov in his blog on the
website "Echo of Moscow". "Since then (Fall of 2014) my "based on a true story" film began
ripping at the seams. Each day I was more certain that it was based on a lie".
As a result, the director developed his own version of events that was built as a result of
personally studying all sources. According to Nekrasov, Magnitsky was not an auditor but an
accountant who was arrested for tax fraud. He died in prison not because of beatings or other
illegal pressures but as a result of a fatal deterioration of health caused by being confined.
Browder, as a political attack on Russia used his tragic death in retaliation for his expulsion
from the country in 2005 and termination of business. And this is how his interests coincided
the U.S. foreign policy objectives: it is how the "Magnitsky Act" was born, the effect of which
has recently spread globally. The main thing that Nekrasov understood was that Magnitsky was
not murdered and has not pressed charges against the investigators.
It is not surprising that Browder was so ready to actively oppose the showing of Nekrasov's
film. Forces all too powerful are drawn into the story. The previous film showing in the
European Parliament that was scheduled for April 27th, and it too met resistance and was
cancelled. The organizers received a letter with threats from Browder and were unable to
withstand pressure. A member of the European Parliament Heidi Hautala particularly mentioned
this. She called the pressure "sudden and strong". The fact that the premier of this film was
so easily removed from a scheduled screening in the European Parliament shows that the right to
the freedom of speech is offered only to one side", said the film's screening organizer Natalia
Veselnitskaya.
A near future will show how another attack of this unscrupulous billionaire will end. Nekrasov
himself seems to hope for the best, and that the Europeans will still see his honest
investigation and will draw conclusions. "An 'Oscar' is not necessary. But we will see the
idols fall", said the director.
This documentary caused an uproar in Russia when it appeared in April of 2016.
This film was made by the main Russian government news broadcasting company, Rossiya 1.
It alleges that Bill Browder, the legendary American hedge fund manager who from 1995 - 2005
was the largest foreign investor in Russia, controlling billions of $ and a significant share
of Russia's leading companies, was in fact a CIA front.
At one point his funds owned 7% of Gazprom, using what the film argues were illegal schemes
to acquire shares
The film argues that Browder's whole involvement with Russia was a CIA operation to disrupt
Russia politically and economically
It alleges that in 2006, Browder was instructed by the CIA to provide financial support to the
rising opposition politician, Alexei Navalny, and that the two then closely cooperated for the
next 5 years.
As evidence, the film cites hacked CIA email and skype correspondence which it claims fell
into Russian hands during the government upheaval in Kiev in 2014.
When the film appeared, Browder and Navalny charged that the evidence was faked, and Navalny
sued Rossiya 1 for libel. As of the translation of this video, (July 2016), the suit has not
been concluded.
Browder was expelled from Russia in 2006, after which he led a highly successful public
campaign criticizing Russia and Putin. The film argues that the campaign was financed by the
CIA.
The campaign demanded sanctions against Russia for what Browder alleged was the murder of
one of his employees, Sergei Magnitsky, and theft from his companies, by corrupt Russian
officials.
His campaign resulted in the famous "Magnitsky Act" sanctions against Russia, passed by
Congress in 2012.
The film alleges that this cynically misrepresents the facts. It alleges that Magnitsky
ended up in jail for carrying out major fraud for Browder, and that he was on the verge of
testifying against Browder when he died. It cites the hacked CIA mail as evidence that the CIA
managed to orchestrate Magnitsky's death in prison.
The film argues that the only people with a motive for Magnitsky's death were Browder and
the CIA, because his testimony about the tax fraud would have been devastating.
The film includes embarrassing details of tax avoidance schemes used by Browder and
Magnitsky, including hiring barely literate invalids in remote corners of Russia as fake
executives in order to receive tax breaks amounting to 100s of millions of $.
The film then alleges, again citing the hacked CIA correspondence, that in 2010 Browder paid
Navalny $300,000 to conduct a PR campaign in Russia in support of the Magnitsky Act.
This documentary was never aired separately, rather appeared as a segment within the April
13, 2016 episode of the popular Russian political talk show "Spetsialnii Korrespondent"
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAkt...
The episode consisted of an emotional 1.5 hour discussion of the film, with several people
who appeared in the film present https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37GZ3...
(only in Russian)
Of the 10-plus guests, all but one, an American journalist, argued heatedly that Browder had
clearly committed gross financial crimes and agreed with the film.
The comment leading into the beginning of the film is typical of the tone of the talk show,
where the Deputy Chairman of Russia's parliament compares Browder to an "intestinal
tapeworm".
At the conclusion of the film, the talk show guests discussed the film for a further 1.5
hours. About half of the guests were also featured in the film, and they were able to go into
much more detail about their knowledge of the Browder case.
The discussion became very emotional, with some guests shouting about what they alleged are
Browder's crimes.
In April 2016, the head of Russia's powerful Investigative Committee instructed his
subordinates to examine the potential " complicity " of U.S.-born British businessman William
Browder -- once Russia's largest portfolio investor -- in the "murder" of his former employee,
Sergei Magnitsky.
It was a bizarre twist in the saga of Magnitsky, whose 2009 death in a Moscow jail resulted
in a 2012 U.S. law bearing his name that slaps sanctions on Russians deemed to be human rights
abusers. Browder vigorously lobbied for the law, arguing that Magnitsky was tortured and denied
medical treatment for blowing the whistle on a massive tax fraud allegedly involving Russian
law enforcement and tax officials.
Russia, which says Magnitsky's death was a tragedy but denies allegations that he was abused
while in custody, has undertaken an aggressive, multipronged effort in recent years aimed at
discrediting Browder and the narrative underpinning the U.S. Magnitsky Act.
The law was said to be at the
center of a meeting between a Russian lawyer, Donald Trump Jr., and other confidants of
U.S. President Donald Trump at a controversial meeting in New York in June 2016.
Investigative Committee chief Aleksander Bastrykin's call last year to probe allegations of
Browder's possible role in Magnitsky's death was explicitly linked to a documentary on Russian
state TV that alleged a byzantine conspiracy between Browder, British intelligence, and Russian
opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.
But for 18 months, it was unclear if this probe had gone anywhere.
According to an October
22 report by The New York Times, however, Russian authorities are indeed pursuing a
possible murder charge against Browder -- and citing evidence that parrots widely mocked claims
presented in the documentary broadcast on Rossia-1 television a day prior to the Investigative
Committee's announcement.
Citing documents obtained from a court docket by a lawyer for Magnitsky's family, the Times
reported that Russian prosecutors allege Browder colluded with a representative of Britain's
MI6 to convince doctors to withhold medical care to "cause the death of S.L. Magnitsky" while
he was in custody.
RFE/RL reached out to Browder, who said he was not immediately able to provide a copy of the
documents in question.
Prosecutors, according to the Times report, also cite alleged intercepts of intelligence
communications and suggest the goal of the purported plot was to start "a significant news
trigger to discredit" Russia.
They also cite claims made in the Rossia-1 documentary, including that Browder was in
cahoots with Navalny in a purported secret operation titled "Quake" -- with Browder supposedly
using the code name "Solomon" and Navalny using the moniker "Freedom."
Clumsy Fakes
The documentary featured scans of alleged secret U.S. and British documents concerning
Browder, Navalny, and Magnitsky that were widely ridiculed as crude fakes based on their clumsy
syntax and grammatical mistakes -- including improper use of English indefinite and definite
articles that often stymie native Russian speakers.
The claims by Russian prosecutors, as reported by the Times, echo one alleged CIA document
from 2009 shown in the Rossia-1 program with the awkward subject line: "Report on the health
status of a Sergei Magnitsky."
The document purports that Browder ("Agent Solomon") "was offered by proxies in the Russian
Federal Penitentiary Service to arrange the termination of any medical services for
Magnitsky...which could lead to his death."
That document is signed by "V. Plame" -- an apparent reference to former CIA covert officer
Valerie Plame, who was exposed by officials in the administration of President Georgia W. Bush
after her husband criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Plame on Twitter called the document, purportedly from 2009, " such nonsense " and noted that
she left the CIA in 2007.
The Russian Investigative Committee did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment on The New
York Times report, and officials there could not immediately be reached by telephone.
The report was published just days after Canada on October 19 passed its version of the
Magnitsky Act, a move that Russian President Vladimir Putin called " unconstructive
political games ."
Browder U.S. Travel Blocked?
Browder, meanwhile, is claiming that Russia has placed him on an Interpol list, and that his
U.S. "global entry status" -- which can expedite entry to the
United States -- has been revoked by U.S. officials, The Guardian reported.
Interpol has previously refused to place the investor, whom Russia convicted in absentia on
tax-evasion charges in 2013, on an international wanted list at Moscow's request.
The Guardian reported over the weekend that
Russia had used a loophole allowing governments to place individuals on the Interpol
database unilaterally.
A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in an e-mailed statement that
Browder's visa waiver had been "manually approved" on October 18, though Browder told the
Associated Press that he had been informed by U.S. authorities of his rejection on October
19.
Browder said on Twitter late on October 23 that his waiver had been " restored " and that he has
"successfully checked into a U.S. flight."
It took place in New York on Feb 3, 2015, when marshals from the U.S. District Court in
Manhattan tried to serve him a subpoena to give evidence as part of the only trial thus far on
US soil proceeding from the Magnitsky Act. (The details of that case can be found
here .) The reason for Mr. Browder's nervous behavior is obvious: his arguments served only
political aims and were intended for cases in which the verdict is known from the beginning.
But none of his claims could stand up to scrutiny by any experienced lawyer once real business
interests were at stake, and this is exactly what happened with Mark Cymrot from BakerHostetler
during Browder's court deposition on Apr 15,
2015.
Returning to Perepelichny, we have to acknowledge that he was a key witness who could
potentially destroy the high-political-stakes scam being conducted with the Magnitsky dossier.
As Browder was responding with " I do not recall " and " I do not know " to
any real question asked him in court, the US judiciary system might have been very interested
in hearing from Perepelichny. This menace to the Magnitsky Act was eliminated one week before
the bill passed the US House: on Nov. 10, 2012 Alexander Perepelichny was found dead outside
his mansion in London. The police investigation did not yield any tangible results, but the
theory of "Russian mafia" involvement was
implanted in the international media at the proper time. One month later the Magnitsky Act
was signed by President Obama
"... When some Washington (politician) was asked why he opposed Trump - He is not part of the Security establishment. "Security establishment" = insider ..."
The common conclusion of my two encounters with Bill Browder was that his intensity and the time he was devoting
now to putting in place anti-Russian sanctions in Europe was in no way comparable to the behavior of a top level
international businessman. It was clear to me that some other game was in play.
One of the clear missions of Russian state television in 2016, the year of elections to the State Duma has been to
discredit Alexei Navalny, the long established blogger, wily critic of the Kremlin and leader of the new
generation 'non-systemic' opposition by exposing him as a fraud in the pay of Russia's Western rivals and
ill-wishers.
Several weeks ago Russian state television broadcast hidden camera recordings of Navalny's first meeting with Carl Bildt, former Swedish premier and foreign minister, best known in this part of the world for leading the Eastern Partnership program aimed at removing former Soviet republics, notably Ukraine, from the Russian sphere of influence.
A
screen shot from the documentary, with what is allegedly a conversation between Browder and Navalny
This past Sunday, the
Vesti nedeli
program, a prime time Sunday evening wrap-up of the week's news
presented by the senior journalist and manager of Russia's informational broadcasting resources, Dmitry Kiselyov,
showed excerpts from a documentary film about Navalny and his mentor, or handler, William F. Browder. (Video
below - in Russian only)
The film, entitled "The Browder Effect," was assembled by the channel's investigative reporter and presenter in his
own right, Yevgeni Popov. The full version of "The Browder Effect" will be aired on Wednesday evening, 13 April on
Russia's flagship network, Pervyi Kanal. However, from the lengthy segments shown on Sunday it is possible to draw
some conclusions about the sensational material it sets out.
Both Vesti 24 and Pervyi Kanal are Russian language stations directed at the domestic audience.
From the standpoint of their management, whatever is sensational about the film has to do with the way it
conclusively details Navalny's recruitment by Bill Browder in 2007 for a program run by Britain's Secret Intelligence
Service, also known as Military Intelligence (MI6), intended to destabilize the Russian government. Navalny came to
the attention of MI6 because Browder determined he was "the most suitable candidate for future political leader"
given his creativity, new media mastery and speaking skills on politics, law and economics.
We then follow Navalny's progress as a foreign-paid trouble-maker engaged in standing up for minority shareholders and exposing corruption in major Russian, partly state-owned companies, meaning that he was busily attacking Vladimir Putin's direct appointees. We are told Navalny was next a useful aid to U.S. authorities in compiling a list of high Russian judicial and penal administrative officials for inclusion in the Magnitsky List on the basis of their alleged involvement in the torture and murder in detention of Browder's erstwhile accountant, Sergei Magnitsky. One document from 2010 indicates Navalny received large sums of money, at one point a $300,000 payment, from his overseas handlers to apply his skills with social media and disseminate a positive spin on American sanctions to Russia's liberals and creative classes. The objective was to undermine popular trust in the courts.
The last documents involving Navalny shown on the Vesti nedeli
program Sunday date from just before
the State Duma elections on 4 December 2011, which were followed by massive street demonstrations against what was
called electoral fraud perpetrated by the ruling party. Notwithstanding the advice from his mentor, Browder, to
stick with his economic warfare on Russian big business and stay out of politics, this was the point when Navalny
went on to emerge as a key leader in the new generation of forces opposed to the Kremlin.
For Western observers, there is nothing sensational in the exposé of Navalny as a paid agent of British intelligence operating under the code name "Freedom." He is a remote personality, has been denounced by some in the West as a Russian nationalist and he is at liberty, not a prisoner of conscience. The truly sensational nature of Yevgeny Popov's film lies elsewhere, in its material on Browder. If Navalny was recruited by Browder, then Popov was obliged to show how it was that the billionaire co-founder and owner of Hermitage Capital, which was at one point the largest foreign portfolio investment company in Russia, could be an agent, code named "Solomon," in the MI6 documents presented on screen.
To answer this question, the film flashes back to 1995, and a Memorandum for the Chief of Secret Intelligence dated 12 July describing the attraction of Browder for his new bosses:
"he is an important figure in
integration of financial structures into the Russian economy. [He] has extensive contacts with [sic] international
banking community and has [sic] wide range of relations with representatives of business communities in the UK,
the USA, Europe, China and India."
This was about the time when Browder was making a transition from highly paid employee heading up the section of private investing in Russia at Salomon Brothers (hence the coy code name, a corruption of Salomon) to setting up his own investment company with seed capital from the elderly Syrian-Jewish-Brazilian banker and entrepreneur Edmond Safra. It was also the time when Browder, a US citizen became a British subject.
And so that we may understand why such talents and contacts could be useful to British (and by extension to American) intelligence, a further flashback to 28 August 1986 shows us a CIA document entitled "Change the Constitutional and Political System in Eastern Europe and the USSR" signed by the agency director Wiliam Casey. Among the specific actions within the scope of this program would be "getting control over financial flows and removing assets from the economies of developed countries."
The narrator explains that even more than 25 years after the disappearance of the USSR, this CIA policy, known as "The Quake" (Drozh', in Russian) remains in effect.
Not content with proving that a billionaire investment fund owner could also be an MI6 operative, the film's producer also saw fit to demolish via documentary proof the entire Browder story about the reasons for his being declared persona non grata in Russia in 2006 as a threat to national security and about the persecution of his loyal retainer Magnitsky at the hands of rapacious Moscow officials plundering the remains of his company.
It emerges from a memorandum to the Director of Central intelligence written on CIA letterhead and dated 20 September 2009 that Browder had discussed with MI6 the deteriorating health of Magnitsky in detention and that he was involved in plans to have the penitentiary service arrange the termination of medical services. The report went on to say that this 'medical error' could lead to Magnitsky's death.
A follow-on interview with one political analyst explains that Browder was the only one who could profit from Magnitsky's demise. We are told his former protégé was about to start talking to prosecution against his employers. Then his death provided the material for the cause célčbre that Browder would ride to nation-wide prominence in the USA and in Europe with the eventual passage of the sanctions on Russia he promoted as the just punishment for corrupt and murderous officials of the Putin regime.
Thus, the collateral damage resulting from Yevgeni Popov's exposé amounts to a devastating attack on the political situation in the United States, where the CIA is shown to have been complicit in setting up the case used to move the American political mood and legislation in a harshly anti-Russian direction via the Magnitsky Act sanctions. Here is a smoking gun of great potential importance for those who care about who is actually controlling the US government if not our elected leaders.
Part of the documentary rests on expert testimony of Russian political analysts. Part rests on skype texts and on telephone conversations intercepted by the Russian intelligence agencies. But the most important material, including the aforementioned 'smoking gun' come from documents in a cache prepared by Kremlin-nemesis Boris Berezovsky in London as he tried to negotiate with Vladimir Putin a possible return to his motherland that would land him in good graces and not in a prison cell.
One sequence in the documentary introduces us to Sergei Sokolov, the former chief of security for Berezovsky who, at his boss's instructions, hid copies of this cache of documents in several locations and eventually brought a set with him to Moscow, where we may assume Russian intelligence officers pored over them. Sokolov is not a new face to viewers of Russian state television. Several months ago he was shown in a documentary examining the death of Berezovsky in one of his London properties. The cache of documents was mentioned then but not described.
This peculiar provenance of the documents means that they should have been subjected to special scrutiny by Mr. Popov's team before presentation to the general public. Considering the possible impact of the content of these documents on US-Russian relations, such caution would be doubly recommended. Regrettably, that appears not to have been the case.
In the information war that has been ongoing and escalating to fever pitch ever since Vladimir Putin made his famous accusatory speech directed against the United States at the Munich Security Conference in February 2007, I have examined closely a succession of key documents produced by the American side and its close allies and discovered patent fraud and forgeries.
In
my essay on the article "Containing Russia"
signed but not written by Yulia Tymoshenko and published in
Foreign Affairs magazine in the spring of 2007, I demonstrated how textual analysis could turn up inconsistencies
that give the lie to official attribution.
The same essay pointed out the fraud perpetrated by the German Marshall Fund in the summer of 2008 when it commissioned an open letter denouncing Barack Obama's recently launched policy of re-set which was distributed to and published by The New York Times and other mainstream media as a cri de coeur from Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and other Cold War heroes in the struggle against Soviet domination.
Still another essay of mine devoted to the launch of the EU's Eastern Partnership Program at a summit in Prague in May 2009 pointed to the American spelling used in the Southern Corridor papers presented in the concurrent summit on the New Silk Road for energy. While interference by MS Word spellcheck cannot be totally eliminated as an explanation, the greater likelihood was that these ostensibly European documents on a new, anti-Russian energy policy were written in Washington, D.C. See my book Stepping Out of Line, pp. 315 ff.
It is with this background of interest in textual analysis that I have approached the documents presented by the film "The Browder Effect" and at once serious questions arose. In one or two documents, my reservations are at the level of tell-tale signs of Russian speakers' intervention: namely absence of or poor control over the use of articles. In the one memo where this occurs most, it could be just telegraphic style, but it stands out and differs from the other texts. Another document has one specifically Russian turn of speech. More generally, it is disconcerting that memorandums from the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the one memorandum on CIA letterhead are formatted identically. The most recent document, from MI6, the "Report on performing duties under special operation 'Magnitsky list'" is dated 'Jan 23, 2010,' American style; it has the American spelling of "program" and British punctuation. Such mongrel style does not usually exist in nature.
It is impossible to say what is the source of the problems cited. One possibility is that the documents, which are said to have come from the US embassy in London, were copied out by hand and mistakes were made in the transcription. Then they were retyped in a single style. Another possibility is that they are forgeries, pure and simple.
Having called attention to these issues, I hasten to add that the content of the documents as they concern Bill Browder ring true to my understanding of his possible role in the entire Magnitsky case. I say this on the basis of my personal reading of Browder during his two visits to Brussels in 2013 when I saw him and his road show exhibits up close.
In his first visit, at a public seminar on Russian political prisoners held in the European Parliament building on 5 June 2013, Browder brought a collection of spiteful witnesses intent on blackening the reputation of Vladimir Putin and his 'regime.' The seminar, which was sponsored by the neo-Liberal ALDE faction in the Parliament, was scheduled to take place one day after the publication of an Address to Foreign and Interior Ministers of the EU signed by 47 European Parliamentarians pressing on the EU executive the adoption of a law similar to the so-called Magnitsky Act.
Notwithstanding the various particular messages and particular concerns of the diverse panel, united only in its opposition to the Putin regime, the event was called to promote such a Magnitsky bill and those on the podium spoke in unison in its favor, disseminating the (manifestly false) idea that the bill enjoyed broad support within Russia and was only opposed by the regime itself. The entire proceedings were video recorded, presumably for future use in the halls of power by the event's sponsors.
At that event, Browder spoke very little. His task as master of ceremonies was to introduce his assembled witnesses. These included Mikhail Kasyanov, former prime minister and leader of the Parnas Party, together with Boris Nemtsov, the allied party to ALDE in the Russian Federation. A tearful speech was delivered by Pavel Khodorkovsky, son of the then still imprisoned oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. But perhaps the most passionate speech was by the iconic freedom fighter Ludmila Alexeeva, former leading personality in the Moscow Helsinki Group. In her mid-80s but still very active, Alexeeva likened the environment in Russia to 1937, year of the Great Purge.
I wrote up my impressions of Browder's second visit to Brussels that year,
in a November essay
. On that occasion, which was nominally to present a book he financed promoting a Magnitsky
Act for Europe at the Brussels Press Club, Browder once again presented assorted witnesses, including the
particularly odious Vladimir Kara Murza, an unrestrained propagandist against the Putin regime and fellow-traveler
of the Parnas group. What was most revealing was the Q&A session in which Browder dropped his genial mask and
spoke openly about the need to punish by sanctions the million thieves and murderers who run Russia. His stated
objective was regime change.
The common conclusion of my two encounters with Bill Browder was that his intensity and the time he was devoting now to putting in place anti-Russian sanctions in Europe was in no way comparable to the behavior of a top level international businessman. It was clear to me that some other game was in play. But at the time, Browder was enjoying vast popularity in the USA, was not doing badly in Europe and no one could stand up and suggest the man was a fraud, an operative of the intelligence agencies.
Whatever the final verdict may be on the documents presented by the film "The Browder Effect," it raises questions about Browder that should have been asked years ago in mainstream Western media if journalists were paying attention. Yevgeni Popov deserves credit for highlighting those questions, even if his documents demand further investigation before we come to definitive answers.
The author is the European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord Ltd. His most recent
book, "Does Russia Have a Future", was published in August 2015.
This post first appeared on Russia Insider
I never liked Browder. His background reminds me too much of Armand Hammer (named after Arm &
Hammer). He had relatives that were jailed in the US as Stalin-era NKVD spies. He renounced his US
citizenship in part, for what the US did to them and the persecution of his father. The apple never
falls far from the tree. Another Berezovsky-type.
After what has happened in Ukraine, regardless of this programme; the Parnas party are going
nowhere, this just adds to the commonly held negative views of people like Navalny and his liberal
gang
Apart from preparing the ground for destabilizing Russia from within, the US is already planning
other Ukraine-like destabilisation of Latvia, in order to further promote a further escalation
of the NATO-Russian relationship up to the moment they want to enforce a Russian response to
violence against the Latvian Russian minority with the use of tactile nuclear weapons which
would then allow a full war-response by NATO. The want to incite a rebellion of that minority,
to which the Latvian government, after first attempts to reconcile, is pressed by Poles and
Ukrainians to react toughly, so that step for step the situation becomes worse – up to the
moment of physical violence against the Russian minority which then would provoke a Russian
reaction for their support.
The plan was figured out by a thinktank for a US-conference
entitled "Rethinking Amageddon – Planning Scenarios for the Second Nuclear Age" on the 12th
February 2016.
According to the plans, worked out their by US-thinktanks, they have sketched their an
elaborate path to a full scale war in scripts available in the net.
While they know that unwilling and (in their eyes) too compromising and de-escalting EU
countries like Germany, Italy, Austria, the Chechs and the Greeks, could be an obstacle, they
have as well started various taskforce for the "information warfare". One which is directed to
make Europe's population swallow the idea of NATO airstrikes against Russia held a conference in
Novermber 2015 in Essen, Germany. Their strategic report can as well be found in the internet.
It shows the direction of NATO propaganda and the determination to abuse all our media for that
purpose:
It's all quite obvious, they do not even hide it. They are so damn sure that the public might
be distracted to the degree of complete disregard to all these plans – although they are
publicly available.
What can we do to prevent their scenario of a full scale Amageddon of Europe?
with all due consideration to potential and likely inevitable LOSSES ..
the RUSSIANS - EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM - no matter how remotely russian MUST BEGIN PREPARATIONS TO LEAVE -- and start transferring assets, however that goes n the
procedures...
i am talking about REAL ''PICK UP AND START LIFE" AGAIN..it is going to be a painful
process and they will have to sacrifice much of what they have established for generations in
the baltics...IT SHOULD ALSO be noted that the DUMA is about to approve the 1 hectare free ,
no tax for ''every russian citizen and foreigner that wants to establish in Russia for any
business or personal reasons -- EXCEPT to sell to foreigners" anyway.. And at least whatever
the limitations of that -- they DO have something to ''go home to" ..
a dacha, a new house, to build on free land, something...
RATHER THAN WAIT for their possessions to be confiscated, burned, and their lives
miserable BECAUSE they are russian in latvia, and baltics as will SURELY COME because they
are going to be used as ''BAIT" BY NATO/USA BALTICS to provoke russia.
but it is ALSO CLEAR that WORSE will come unless they already do it now. it is better that
whatever 'losses" they have to make for picking up - houses to sell, even at lower prices,
etc...are NOTHING COMPARED to if the USA/NATO/BALTICS
EVENTUALLY will provoke something like what happened in UKRAINE. AND BY LEAVING THEY
REMOVE A VERY, VERY LARGE part of national assets with them TO their true homeland in russia.
and at least -- literally -- BE SAFE.
IT HAS come to that point and the lessons of Ukraine, etc...have already shown they are
RUNNING OUT OF TME and can not rely on HOPE that things will be better and the worst can be
avoided. NOT AT ALL - THE USA ANGLO-AMERICAN regme changers through the baltics are INTENT on
creating a 'vietnam" RIGHT IN THAT AREA.
AND THE RUSSIAN ETHNICS better make their preparations now . bank accounts,
etc...businesses to liquidate -- invest again in russia, simply MAKE their chilldren
understand the critical importance that their very LIVES are at stake FOR BEING RUSSIANS.
AND it partly removes the EXCUSE by the USA/NATO/BALTICS. ''the russians left -- all of them" WHERE IS THIS RUSSIAN EXPANSION YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT? "IF you cross even an inch of russian borders -- your shps SINK, PERIOD".
it HAS TO be that kind of ''red line" now. as the LUNATICS OF the west and baltcs can't
and WON'T stop their lunacy. it is really time for KREMLIN RUSSIA - FORTRESS russia to make
the decisions without further delay , imo. and it has to now include the russian ethnics - they MUST FLEE - just like CRIMEA AND EAST
UKRAINE HAVE DONE -- FROM WESTERN FASCISTS that are impending in descending upon them.
- Apart from preparing the ground for destabilizing Russia from within, the US is already
planning
I haven't gone through the sources yet. But are you telling the sources tells "US"
wants to destabilize Russia, and also start a WW? US is a superpower in decline -> US has
more important problems to worry about
US think tank - does not have to mean the client is US
A Russian think tank may be pro-Putin or anti-Putin. In last case that is not a "Russian"
think tank, more an Oligarch think tank
The US either wants to topple an independent Russian government or to go step for step up
a pre-planned escalation ladder. The fictitious scenario in the script, composed by a
thinktank for that conference, shows something like a chess arrangement: We will make move
x1, then they either will have to surrender or they will go step y1. Secondly we make move
x2, then they will either have to.... and so on.
In this scenario (which really names
the dates of the described chain of events, supposed to start next year) they really think
through any use of the weapons they have at their disposal.
And a second aspect becomes obvious: They are determined never to allow any of their
"allies" turning out to be a possible game-changer. They take into consideration that they
may always use Poland and Lithuania for the next step of escalation, if it's convenient,
and the German government to slow things down, if they need it. But that any other country
could persuade them to alter any of their steps or even the general course is definitely
outruled.
Nuclear war is not at all a no-go for the US, while I am absolutely sure that the
Russians would only make use of it under the inescapble threat of physical extinction -
following the clear message: "If you decide, we have to die, we won't go alone."
This is as well Ron Paul's view, that of Clinton's defense secretary William Perry and
Andre Damon's interpretation of John Kerry's current message to Japan.
Your source (1) is Washington DC / Pentagon related
http://csbaonline.org/publi...
We may equal that with Hillary in US. Your source (2) "FutureWorld Fundation"
My source (1) is from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment. The persons
who sign responsible are all US congressmen. They have as well produced the script I
have linked (even if the link was as well given on the sites of Future World.)
Wikipedia says about the CSB:
"The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) is an independent,
non-profit, Washington, D.C.-based think tank specializing in US defense policy,
force planning, and budgets. It is headed by Andrew Krepinevich, a West Point
graduate. According to its website, CSBA's mission is "to promote innovative
thinking and debate about national security strategy, defense planning and military
investment options [and] to enable policymakers to make informed decisions in
matters of strategy, security policy and resource allocation."[1] CSBA emphasizes
initiatives the United States and its allies can take to wisely invest in the
future, even during periods of fiscal austerity and uncertainty. CSBA evaluates its
policy proposals through the net assessment methodology, wargaming, and by estimated
impact on the Department of Defense budget over multiple Future Years Defense
Programs."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...
How can you claim it has nothing to do with the US-administration?
the destabilizing of Russia project goes apace, even accelerating - it is what the USA
has to do in order to preserve its primacy - that's the whole point. it knows it is a
vicious rabid dog cornered in its exposed brutality so now -- it is lashing out in all
directions -- it's an all-out war, . that has actually been going from the USA FOR A LONG
TIME NOW. it can't help itself -- it's what the USA IS AND DOES.
Not very plausible, as Navalny spend time int he USA in YYale, so if he was recruted it is
probably during his stay in the USA, but connection of Bill Browder and MI6 is plausible
According to MI6 and CIA internal documents, Alexei Navalny had been recruited to work for
MI6 by UK hedge fund manager Bill Browder. His task is to carry out operation "Quake" which
aims to undermine the existing constitutional order of the Russian Federation. He is being paid
handsomely for his services via the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) human rights organisation.
Russia has claimed Magnitsky died of natural causes and, in a new twist, is now accusing
Browder of colluding with a British spy in 2009 "to cause the death of S. L. Magnitsky by
persuading Russian prison doctors to withhold care," according
to The New York Times .
From Vimeo site comment section: "Cynthia Buckner, 22 hours ago What a detective story, I watched it two times. This is what
making a documentary is all about, uncovering truth under layers of lies. This is why today's News Media is nothing but "Fake
News".
It's no longer available on Bitchute site. In any case, the two I have downloaded have
been dubbed in Russian. I was hoping to watch it later, but it's going take me awhile to
learn the language.
Amazing story of lies and deceit on the part of Browder seems like. I don't judge people
by the way they look, but just looking and listening to this guy makes me believe he is one
BIG slimey fellow, even without watching the movie.
I'd turn him over to the Russians for questioning. After all, he has nothing to worry
about if he has nothing to hide.
Not only "An economic system that rewards psychopathic personality traits has changed our
ethics and our personalities", it crushes the will to resist presenting psychopathic dictate in
forms that make it difficult. Such as performance reviews waterboarding or putting individual in
the way too complex and self-contradictory Web of regulations.
Notable quotes:
"... An economic system that rewards psychopathic personality traits has changed our ethics and our personalities. ..."
"... Bullying used to be confined to schools; now it is a common feature of the workplace. This is a typical symptom of the impotent venting their frustration on the weak – in psychology it's known as displaced aggression. There is a buried sense of fear, ranging from performance anxiety to a broader social fear of the threatening other. ..."
"... Constant evaluations at work cause a decline in autonomy and a growing dependence on external, often shifting, norms. This results in what the sociologist Richard Sennett has aptly described as the "infantilisation of the workers". Adults display childish outbursts of temper and are jealous about trivialities ("She got a new office chair and I didn't"), tell white lies, resort to deceit, delight in the downfall of others and cherish petty feelings of revenge. This is the consequence of a system that prevents people from thinking independently and that fails to treat employees as adults. ..."
"... Our society constantly proclaims that anyone can make it if they just try hard enough, all the while reinforcing privilege and putting increasing pressure on its overstretched and exhausted citizens. An increasing number of people fail, feeling humiliated, guilty and ashamed. We are forever told that we are freer to choose the course of our lives than ever before, but the freedom to choose outside the success narrative is limited. Furthermore, those who fail are deemed to be losers or scroungers, taking advantage of our social security system. ..."
"... The current economic system is bringing out the worst in us. ..."
An economic system that rewards psychopathic personality traits has changed our ethics
and our personalities.
Thirty years of neoliberalism, free-market forces and
privatisation have taken their toll, as relentless pressure to achieve has become normative. If
you're reading this sceptically, I put this simple statement to you: meritocratic neoliberalism
favours certain personality traits and penalises others.
There are certain ideal characteristics needed to make a career today. The first is
articulateness, the aim being to win over as many people as possible. Contact can be
superficial, but since this applies to most human interaction nowadays, this won't really be
noticed.
It's important to be able to talk up your own capacities as much as you can – you know
a lot of people, you've got plenty of experience under your belt and you recently completed a
major project. Later, people will find out that this was mostly hot air, but the fact that they
were initially fooled is down to another personality trait: you can lie convincingly and feel
little guilt. That's why you never take responsibility for your own behaviour.
On top of all this, you are flexible and impulsive, always on the lookout for new stimuli
and challenges. In practice, this leads to risky behaviour, but never mind, it won't be you who
has to pick up the pieces. The source of inspiration for this list? The psychopathy checklist
by Robert Hare , the best-known specialist
on psychopathy today.
This description is, of course, a caricature taken to extremes. Nevertheless, the financial
crisis illustrated at a macro-social level (for example, in the conflicts between eurozone
countries) what a neoliberal meritocracy does to people. Solidarity becomes an expensive luxury
and makes way for temporary alliances, the main preoccupation always being to extract more
profit from the situation than your competition. Social ties with colleagues weaken, as does
emotional commitment to the enterprise or organisation.
Bullying used to be confined to schools; now it is a common feature of the workplace.
This is a typical symptom of the impotent venting their frustration on the weak – in
psychology it's known as displaced aggression. There is a buried sense of fear, ranging from
performance anxiety to a broader social fear of the threatening other.
Constant evaluations at work cause a decline in autonomy and a growing dependence on
external, often shifting, norms. This results in what the sociologist Richard Sennett has
aptly described as the "infantilisation of the workers". Adults display childish outbursts of
temper and are jealous about trivialities ("She got a new office chair and I didn't"), tell
white lies, resort to deceit, delight in the downfall of others and cherish petty feelings of
revenge. This is the consequence of a system that prevents people from thinking independently
and that fails to treat employees as adults.
More important, though, is the serious damage to people's self-respect. Self-respect largely
depends on the recognition that we receive from the other, as thinkers from Hegel to Lacan have shown. Sennett comes
to a similar conclusion when he sees the main question for employees these days as being "Who
needs me?" For a growing group of people, the answer is: no one.
Our society constantly proclaims that anyone can make it if they just try hard enough,
all the while reinforcing privilege and putting increasing pressure on its overstretched and
exhausted citizens. An increasing number of people fail, feeling humiliated, guilty and
ashamed. We are forever told that we are freer to choose the course of our lives than ever
before, but the freedom to choose outside the success narrative is limited. Furthermore, those
who fail are deemed to be losers or scroungers, taking advantage of our social security
system.
A neoliberal meritocracy would have us believe that success depends on individual effort and
talents, meaning responsibility lies entirely with the individual and authorities should give
people as much freedom as possible to achieve this goal. For those who believe in the fairytale
of unrestricted choice, self-government and self-management are the pre-eminent political
messages, especially if they appear to promise freedom. Along with the idea of the perfectible
individual, the freedom we perceive ourselves as having in the west is the greatest untruth of
this day and age.
The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman neatly summarised the paradox
of our era as: "Never have we been so free. Never have we felt so powerless." We are indeed
freer than before, in the sense that we can criticise religion, take advantage of the new
laissez-faire attitude to sex and support any political movement we like. We can do all these
things because they no longer have any significance – freedom of this kind is prompted by
indifference. Yet, on the other hand, our daily lives have become a constant battle against a
bureaucracy that would make Kafka weak at the knees. There are regulations about everything,
from the salt content of bread to urban poultry-keeping.
Our presumed freedom is tied to one central condition: we must be successful – that
is, "make" something of ourselves. You don't need to look far for examples. A highly skilled
individual who puts parenting before their career comes in for criticism. A person with a good
job who turns down a promotion to invest more time in other things is seen as crazy –
unless those other things ensure success. A young woman who wants to become a primary school
teacher is told by her parents that she should start off by getting a master's degree in
economics – a primary school teacher, whatever can she be thinking of?
There are constant laments about the so-called loss of norms and values in our culture. Yet
our norms and values make up an integral and essential part of our identity. So they cannot be
lost, only changed. And that is precisely what has happened: a changed economy reflects changed
ethics and brings about changed identity. The current economic system is bringing out the
worst in us.
Panic attacks, anxiety attacks, nervous breakdowns, depression, suicidal thoughts alienation,
cancers, withdrawal are all symptoms of the de-humanizing aspects of a market-driven life. In
its worst forms it manifests periodically in mass shootings at strangers. So what do people
do to cope? Drugs, pain killers, shrinks, alcohol, potato chips and soda. They then develop
obesity, diabetes and heart diseases and cancers. How to save a human species terminally
intoxicated with technology and enslaved by the market while the inner spirit is running
empty may not be possible given the advanced nature of the disease.
...what?
You fail to really acknowledge that time and again we've failed to exercise constrain within
the capitalist models. The the meritorious are often inadequately rewarded - when any person
in work cannot afford to home and feed themselves and their family then a reasonable balance
has not been struck - in that sense at no time in history has capitalism functioned
adequately.
To suggest that socialism is anti-human is to ignore how and why as a species we formed
societies at all, we come together precisely because there is a mutual benefit in so doing;
to help another is to help oneself - the model itself fails to operate in practice for the
same reason that capitalism does - the greed of the power holder.
You reserve your sharpest barbs for socialism, but at least within the socialist agenda
there is a commitment to the protection of the citizen, whoever they are, even the
'unmerited' as you describe them - a capitalist's paraphrase for 'those that create no
value'.
The socialist at least recognises that whilst the parent may be 'unmerited' their
dependants should be entitled to receive equality of opportunity and protection from the
'law-of-the-jungle' i.e., the greed of others.
The ability to generate wealth, simply by already having wealth and therefore being able
to thrive off the labour of others carries little merit as far as I can tell and does indeed
create the soul-crushing command-and-control empires of the capitalism that millions around
the world experience daily.
Neoliberalism is indeed a huge self-serving con and ironically the Thatcher/Regan doctrine
which set out to break the status quo and free the economy from the old elitist guard has had
exactly the opposite effect.
Capitalism cannot differentiate between honest competition and cheating. Since humans will
cheat to win, capitalism has become survival of the worst not the best.
The bottom line is the basic human condition prizes food, shelter, sex, and then goes
directly to greed in most modern societies. It was not always that way, and is not that way
in ever fewer societies. As it is, greed makes the world go around.
In capitalistic societies greed has been fed by business and commerce; in communist
societies it has been "some pigs are more equal then others"; and in dictatorships or true
monarchies (or the Australian Liberal Party) there is the born to rule mentality where there
are rulers and serfs.
Nobody ever seems to address the paradox of the notion of an absolute free market: that
within a free market, those who can have the freedom to exploit do exploit, thereby thus
eliminating the freedom of the exploited, which thence paradoxically negates the absoluteness
of the free market. No absolute freedom truly exist in a free market.
As such, the free market is pipe dream - a con - to eliminate regulations and create
economic freedoms only where they benefit the elite. The free market does not exist, is
impossible, and therefore should cease to be held as the harbinger of a progressive socio
economic reality.
If we are to accept the Christian assumption that we, humans, are all self-serving and
acquisitive, then we must, therefore, negate the possibility of an absolutely "free" market,
since exploitation is a naturally occurring byproduct of weak-strong interactions.
Exploitation negates freedom, and therefore, it must be our reality, as it is in all peoples'
best interests, to accept directly democratic regulations as the keystone to any market.
It sounds very like the Marxist critique of capital. And similarly, points to real problems,
but doesn't seek evidence for why such a sick situation not only persists, but is so popular
- except by denigrating 'the masses'.
Surely what is particular about our time, about industrialisation generally, is the
fragmenting of long term social structures, and orientation around the individual alone. It
seems to me the problem of our times is redeveloping social structures which balance the
individual and the socials selves, as all not merely stable but thriving happy creative
societies, have always done.
Their propaganda is the same- an obsessive hatred of the state in any form, a semi-religious
belief in the power of the individual operating in the free-market to solve humanity's ills.
Granted, they aren't social libertarians, but then, in the US, libertarians don't seem to
be either.
Pretty typical that the assumption is the Marx "nailed it" and any dissenters are
just "scared".
I'm scared by it too, as I said, it's a sensible fear of change. The question remains. What
if Marx's analysis, just the analysis, is broadly correct? What if markets really are the
road to ruination of our planet, morality and collective welfare in roughly the way that he
explained?
It's not a trivial question, and clearly the current economic orthodoxy has failed to
explain some recent little problems we've been having, while Marx explains how these problems
are structurally embedded and only to be expected. It is intellectual cowardice to
compulsively avoid this, in my view. Better minds than ours have struggled with it.
So beware of the fallacious argument from authority - 'You are stupid while I am
axiomatically very clever, because I say so, hence I must be correct and you must shut it.'
It goes nowhere useful, though we are all prone to employing it.
But it is not 'sixth form' thinking, surely, to consider these problems as being worth
thinking about in a modern context. It is a plain fact that Stalinism didn't work as planned.
We know it, but it doesn't make the problems it was intended to solve disappear to say
so.
If you believe human nature can be changed by enforcing your interpretation of Marx's
road to human freedom (a quasi-religious goal) you condemn millions to starvation,
slaughter, gulags, misery etc.
Please read what I actually wrote about that. I'm not remotely quasi-religious, nor do I seek
to enforce anything. My intention is only to expose a particularly damaging mythology. The
extent of my crimes is persuasion as a prelude to consensual change before necessity really
bites us all.
Markets conjure up the exact forms of misery you describe. Totalitarians of the right are
highly undesirable too. I am against totalitarians, as are you, but an admirer of Marx's
work. Do I fit into your simplistic categories? Does anyone? The freedoms we are permitted
serve the market before they serve people. Markets are a social construct, as is capital,
that we can choose to modify or squash. A child starving in a slum for lack of
competitiveness, for its inability to serve the interests of capital, is less abstract
perhaps.
The thing about selfishness and a brutal form of dog eat dog capitalism.
You see, it is a truth axiomatic that we human beings, as all living beings, are
fundamentally selfish. We have to be in order to survive, and excel, and advance and
perpetuate.
It is not theory but hard biology. You breathe for yourself, eat for yourself, love for
yourself, have a family for yourself and so on. People are most affected and hurt if
something happens to something or someone who means something to them personally. This is why
concepts such as religion and nationality have worked so well, and will continue to even if
they evolve in different ways, for they tap into a person's conception of theirself. Of their
identity, of their self-definition. People tend to feel worse if something bad happens to
someone they know than to a stranger; people tend to feel less bad when something happens to
a cockroach than to a dog, simply because we relate better to dogs than to insects...So even
our compassion is selfish after a fashion.
Capitalism and Socialism are two ends of the the same human spectrum of innate and
hardwired selfishness. One stresses on the individual and the other on the larger group. It's
always going to be hard to find the right balance because when you vest excessive power in
any selfish ideology, it will begin to eat into the other type of selfishness..
The world revolves around competing selfishnesses...
The global economy is based upon wasting lives and material resources.
Designer landfill is no longer an option and neo-liberalism, which places importance of
the invention called money over that of people (which is a dehumanising process), was never
an option.
It is time for the neo-liberal fake politicians (that is 99.99% of them) to take up
politics.
It really is, as ever since it is only another word for change, time for revolution.
By extension, moving away from a system the shuns those who 'fail' people would be
emotionally better off, and with the removal of the constant assessment and individualistic
competition, people may feel better able to relate to one another. This would imply that
healthy communities would be more likely to flourish, as people would be less likely to
ignore those on lower income or of 'lower status'.
Move to what system? What system would achieve this?
Whether you agree or not, it is pretty clear what was being said.
Of course it's clear. George and his followers dislike market based systems. It couldn't
be clearer. Even when the subject has little to do with the market, George and his followers
always blame it for everything that is wrong with this world. That's pretty much the whole
point of this article.
What's never clear is what alternative George and his followers propose that wouldn't
result in all of the same flaws that accompany market driven systems. How can they be so sure
some of those problems won't be worse? They always seem a bit sketchy, which is remarkable
given the furor with which they relentlessly critique the market. We are told of alternatives
concepts painted in the broadest of brushes, rich with abstract intangible idealism, but
lacking in any pragmatism. We are invited to consider the whole exercise simply as
academically self-indulgent navel gazing by the priviledged overeducated minority that
comprise much of the Guardian's readership. It's quite disappointing. This article correctly
details much of the discontent in the world. But this isn't a revelation. Where are the
concrete ideas that can actualy be implemented now? frontalcortexes at least makes a stab at something a bit more practicle than a 17
paragraph esoteric essay citing ancient Greek.
One of the worst thing is that the winners in the market race are showered with things which
are fundamentally valueless and far in excess of what they could consume if they weren't,
while bare necessities are withheld from the losers.
"... The workplace has been overwhelmed by a mad, Kafkaesque infrastructure of assessments, monitoring, measuring, surveillance
and audits, centrally directed and rigidly planned, whose purpose is to reward the winners and punish the losers ..."
"... The same forces afflict those who can't find work. They must now contend, alongside the other humiliations of unemployment,
with a whole new level of snooping and monitoring. All this, Verhaeghe points out, is fundamental to the neoliberal model, which everywhere
insists on comparison, evaluation and quantification. We find ourselves technically free but powerless. Whether in work or out of work,
we must live by the same rules or perish. All the major political parties promote them, so we have no political power either. In the
name of autonomy and freedom we have ended up controlled by a grinding, faceless bureaucracy. ..."
I was prompted to write it by a remarkable book, just published in English, by a Belgian professor of psychoanalysis, Paul Verhaeghe.
What About Me? The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based
Society is one of those books that, by making connections between apparently distinct phenomena, permits sudden new insights
into what is happening to us and why.
We are social animals, Verhaeghe argues, and our identities are shaped by the norms and values we absorb from other people. Every
society defines and shapes its own normality – and its own abnormality – according to dominant narratives, and seeks either to make
people comply or to exclude them if they don't.
Today the dominant narrative is that of market fundamentalism, widely known in Europe as neoliberalism. The story it tells is
that the market can resolve almost all social, economic and political problems. The less the state regulates and taxes us, the better
off we will be. Public services should be privatised, public spending should be cut, and business should be freed from social control.
In countries such as the UK and the US, this story has shaped our norms and values for around 35 years: since Thatcher and Reagan
came to power. It is rapidly colonising the rest of the world.
Verhaeghe points out that neoliberalism draws on the ancient Greek idea that our ethics are innate (and governed by a state of
nature it calls the market) and on the Christian idea that humankind is inherently selfish and acquisitive. Rather than seeking to
suppress these characteristics, neoliberalism celebrates them: it claims that unrestricted competition, driven by self-interest,
leads to innovation and economic growth, enhancing the welfare of all.
At the heart of this story is the notion of merit. Untrammelled competition rewards people who have talent, work hard, and innovate.
It breaks down hierarchies and creates a world of opportunity and mobility.
The reality is rather different. Even at the beginning of the process, when markets are first deregulated, we do not start with
equal opportunities. Some people are a long way down the track before the starting gun is fired. This is how the Russian oligarchs
managed to acquire such wealth when the Soviet Union broke up. They weren't, on the whole, the most talented, hardworking or innovative
people, but those with the fewest scruples, the most thugs, and the best contacts – often in the KGB.
Even when outcomes are based on talent and hard work, they don't stay that way for long. Once the first generation of liberated
entrepreneurs has made its money, the initial meritocracy is replaced by a new elite, which insulates its children from competition
by inheritance and the best education money can buy. Where market fundamentalism has been most fiercely applied – in countries like
the US and UK – social
mobility has greatly declined .
If neoliberalism was anything other than a self-serving con, whose gurus and
thinktanks were financed
from the beginning by some of the world's richest people (the US multimillionaires Coors, Olin, Scaife, Pew and others), its
apostles would have demanded, as a precondition for a society based on merit, that no one should start life with the unfair advantage
of inherited wealth or economically determined education. But they never believed in their own doctrine. Enterprise, as a result,
quickly gave way to rent.
All this is ignored, and success or failure in the market economy are ascribed solely to the efforts of the individual. The rich
are the new righteous; the poor are the new deviants, who have failed both economically and morally and are now classified as social
parasites.
The market was meant to emancipate us, offering autonomy and freedom. Instead it has delivered atomisation and loneliness.
The workplace has been overwhelmed by a mad, Kafkaesque infrastructure of assessments, monitoring, measuring, surveillance
and audits, centrally directed and rigidly planned, whose purpose is to reward the winners and punish the losers . It destroys
autonomy, enterprise, innovation and loyalty, and breeds frustration, envy and fear. Through a magnificent paradox, it has led to
the revival of a grand old Soviet tradition known in Russian as tufta . It means falsification of statistics to meet the
diktats of unaccountable power.
The same forces afflict those who can't find work. They must now contend, alongside the other humiliations of unemployment,
with a whole new level of snooping and monitoring. All this, Verhaeghe points out, is fundamental to the neoliberal model, which
everywhere insists on comparison, evaluation and quantification. We find ourselves technically free but powerless. Whether in work
or out of work, we must live by the same rules or perish. All the major political parties promote them, so we have no political power
either. In the name of autonomy and freedom we have ended up controlled by a grinding, faceless bureaucracy.
These shifts have been accompanied, Verhaeghe writes, by a spectacular rise in certain psychiatric conditions: self-harm, eating
disorders, depression and personality disorders.
Of the personality disorders, the most common are performance anxiety and social phobia: both of which reflect a fear of other
people, who are perceived as both evaluators and competitors – the only roles for society that market fundamentalism admits. Depression
and loneliness plague us.
The infantilising diktats of the workplace destroy our self-respect. Those who end up at the bottom of the pile are assailed by
guilt and shame. The self-attribution fallacy cuts both ways: just as we congratulate ourselves for our success, we blame ourselves
for our failure, even
if we have little to do with it .
So, if you don't fit in, if you feel at odds with the world, if your identity is troubled and frayed, if you feel lost and ashamed
– it could be because you have retained the human values you were supposed to have discarded. You are a deviant. Be proud.
"... Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the market" delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning. ..."
"... We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances. ..."
Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It
redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and
selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the market"
delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should
be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective
bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a
natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility
and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more
equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that
everyone gets what they deserve.
We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired
their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and
class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their
failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.
Never mind structural unemployment: if you don't have a job it's because you are
unenterprising. Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is maxed out,
you're feckless and improvident. Never mind that your children no longer have a school playing
field: if they get fat, it's your fault. In a world governed by competition, those who fall
behind become defined and self-defined as losers.
Among the results, as Paul Verhaeghe documents in his book What About Me? are epidemics of
self-harm, eating disorders, depression, loneliness, performance anxiety and social phobia.
Perhaps it's unsurprising that Britain, in which neoliberal ideology has been most rigorously
applied, is the loneliness capital of Europe. We are all neoliberals now.
The crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response should be a wholesale
reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created and distributed around the
globe
he International Monetary Fund has admitted that some of the decisions it made
in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis were wrong, and that the €130bn first
bailout of Greece was "bungled". Well, yes. If it hadn't been a mistake, then it would have
been the only bailout and everyone in Greece would have lived happily ever after.
Actually, the IMF hasn't quite admitted that it messed things up. It has said instead that
it went along with its partners in "the Troika" – the European Commission and the
European Central Bank – when it shouldn't have. The EC and the ECB, says the IMF, put the
interests of the eurozone before the interests of Greece. The EC and the ECB, in turn, clutch
their pearls and splutter with horror that they could be accused of something so petty as
self-preservation.
The IMF also admits that it "underestimated" the effect austerity would have on Greece.
Obviously, the rest of the Troika takes no issue with that. Even those who substitute "kick up
the arse to all the lazy scroungers" whenever they encounter the word "austerity", have
cottoned on to the fact that the word can only be intoned with facial features locked into a
suitably tragic mask.
Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign that
financial institutions may slowly be coming round to the idea that they are the problem. They
know the crash was a debt-bubble that burst. What they don't seem to acknowledge is that the
merry days of reckless lending are never going to return; even if they do, the same thing will
happen again, but more quickly and more savagely. The thing is this: the crash was a write-off,
not a repair job. The response from the start should have been a wholesale reevaluation of the
way in which wealth is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment", as
the philosopher John Gray has said all along.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at
governments that run up debt. And, of course, its loans famously come with strings attached:
adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye to the Big State.
Yet, the irony is painful. Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome,
too centralised and faceless, to be efficient and responsive. I agree. The problem is that the
ruthless sentimentalists of neoliberalism like to tell themselves – and anyone else who
will listen – that removing the dead hand of state control frees the individual citizen
to be entrepreneurial and productive. Instead, it places the financially powerful beyond any
state, in an international elite that makes its own rules, and holds governments to ransom.
That's what the financial crisis was all about. The ransom was paid, and as a result,
governments have been obliged to limit their activities yet further – some setting about
the task with greater relish than others. Now the task, supposedly, is to get the free market
up and running again.
But the basic problem is this: it costs a lot of money to cultivate a market – a group
of consumers – and the more sophisticated the market is, the more expensive it is to
cultivate them. A developed market needs to be populated with educated, healthy, cultured,
law-abiding and financially secure people – people who expect to be well paid themselves,
having been brought up believing in material aspiration, as consumers need to be.
So why, exactly, given the huge amount of investment needed to create such a market, should
access to it then be "free"? The neoliberal idea is that the cultivation itself should be
conducted privately as well. They see "austerity" as a way of forcing that agenda. But how can
the privatisation of societal welfare possibly happen when unemployment is already high,
working people are turning to food banks to survive and the debt industry, far from being sorry
that it brought the global economy to its knees, is snapping up bargains in the form of busted
high-street businesses to establish shops with nothing to sell but high-interest debt? Why, you
have to ask yourself, is this vast implausibility, this sheer unsustainability, not blindingly
obvious to all?
Markets cannot be free. Markets have to be nurtured. They have to be invested in. Markets
have to be grown. Google, Amazon and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But
even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they avoid their taxes, because
they can, because they are more powerful than governments.
And further, those who invest in these companies, and insist that taxes should be low to
encourage private profit and shareholder value, then lend governments the money they need to
create these populations of sophisticated producers and consumers, berating them for their
profligacy as they do so. It's all utterly, completely, crazy.
The other day a health minister, Anna
Soubry , suggested that female GPs who worked part-time so that they could bring up
families were putting the NHS under strain. The compartmentalised thinking is quite
breathtaking. What on earth does she imagine? That it would be better for the economy if they
all left school at 16? On the contrary, the more people who are earning good money while
working part-time – thus having the leisure to consume – the better. No doubt these
female GPs are sustaining both the pharmaceutical industry and the arts and media, both sectors
that Britain does well in.
As for their prioritising of family life over career – that's just another of the
myriad ways in which Conservative neoliberalism is entirely without logic. Its prophets and its
disciples will happily – ecstatically – tell you that there's nothing more
important than family, unless you're a family doctor spending some of your time caring for your
own. You couldn't make these characters up. It is certainly true that women with children find
it more easy to find part-time employment in the public sector. But that's a prima facie
example of how unresponsive the private sector is to human and societal need, not – as it
is so often presented – evidence that the public sector is congenitally disabled.
Much of the healthy economic growth – as opposed to the smoke and mirrors of many
aspects of financial services – that Britain enjoyed during the second half of the 20th
century was due to women swelling the educated workforce. Soubry and her ilk, above all else,
forget that people have multiple roles, as consumers, as producers, as citizens and as family
members. All of those things have to be nurtured and invested in to make a market.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists
that the provision of work alone is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market. Yet even
Adam Smith, the economist who came up with that theory ,
did not agree that economic activity alone was enough to keep humans decent and civilised.
Governments are left with the bill when neoliberals demand access to markets that they
refuse to invest in making. Their refusal allows them to rail against the Big State while
producing the conditions that make it necessary. And even as the results of their folly become
ever more plain to see, they are grudging in their admittance of the slightest blame, bickering
with their allies instead of waking up, smelling the coffee and realising that far too much of
it is sold through Starbucks.
So British were involved in fabricating of 'Guccifer 2.0' persona. Nice...
Notable quotes:
"... It was Matt Tait who, using the 'Twitter' handle @pwnallthethings, identified the name and patronymic of Dzerzhinsky in the 'metadata' of the 'Guccifer 2.0' material on 15 June 2016, the day after Ellen Nakashima first disseminated the BS from 'CrowdStrike' in the 'WP.' ..."
"... 'Matt Tait is a senior cybersecurity fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously he was CEO of Capital Alpha Security, a consultancy in the UK, worked at Google Project Zero, was a principal security consultant for iSEC Partners, and NGS Secure, and worked as an information security specialist for GCHQ.' ..."
"... As I have noted before on SST, a cursory examination of records at 'Companies House' establishes that 'Capital Alpha Security', which was supposed to have provided Tait with an – independent – source of income at the time he unearthed this 'smoking gun' incriminating the GRU, never did any business at all. So, a question arises: how was Tait making ends meet at that time: busking on the London underground, perhaps? ..."
"... The document, when available, may clarify a few loose ends, but the general picture seems clear. Last November, Tait filed 'dormant company accounts' for the company's first year in existence, up until February 2017. One can only do this if one has absolutely no revenue, and absolutely no expenditure. Not even the smallest contract to sort out malware on someone's computer, or to buy equipment for the office. ..."
"... He then failed to file the 'Confirmation statement', which every company must is legally obliged to produce annually, if it is not to be struck off. This failure led to a 'First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off' in May. ..."
"... However, Tait may well anticipate that there is there will never be any call for him to go back into the big wide world, as the large organisation in which he has now found employment is part of a 'Borgist' network. So much is evident from another entry on the 'Lawfare' site: ..."
"... Also relevant here is the fact that, rather transparently, this placing of the GRU centre stage is bound up with the attempt to suggest that there is some kind of 'Gerasimov doctrine', designed to undermine the West by 'hybrid warfare.' Unfortunately, the original author of this claptrap, Mark Galeotti, who, I regret to say, is, like Tait, British, has now recanted and confessed. In March, he published a piece on the 'Foreign Policy' site, under the title: 'I'm Sorry for Creating the 'Gerasimov Doctrine'; I was the first to write about Russia's infamous high-tech military strategy. One small problem: it doesn't exist.' ..."
"... Quite clearly, the 'Guccifer 2.0' persona is a crude fabrication by someone who has absolutely no understanding of, or indeed interest in, the bitter complexities of both of the history of Russia and of the 'borderlands', not only in the Soviet period but before and after. ..."
"... Jeffrey Carr is one of the latter, and his familiarity with intelligence matters is clear from his organization of the annual "Suits and Spooks" Conference. I believe he was the first to raise questions about the DNC hack which didn't pass his smell test. ..."
"... One quick way to know their bias is the AC test. Google their name plus "Atlantic Council". Ridd fails badly. ..."
"... The Comey, Brennan, Mueller claim - indeed a central one upon which the recent indictment rests- that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian State agent that hacked the DNC- was discredited and put to rest last year by the forensics conducted by Bill Binney and his colleagues. The Guccifer 2.0 metadata was analyzed for its transmission speed, and based on the internet speeds to and from numerous test locations abroad and in the U.S., it was determined to have been impossible for the so-called Guccifer 2.0 to have hacked the DNC computers over the internet. The transmission speed however did correspond to the speed of the transfer to a thumb drive. Additionally, it was found that the data had been manipulated and split into two parts to simulate a July and a September transfer, when in fact the parts merge perfectly as single file, and where, according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence would be 100 to the 50th power. ..."
"... There is a pattern of abuse of formerly well regarded institutions to achieve the propaganda aims of the Deep State establishment. The depths that were plumbed to push the Iraq WMD falsehoods are well known. Yet no one was held to account nor was there any honest accounting of the abuse. There have been pretenses like the Owen inquiry that you note. ..."
"... It seems that we are marching towards a credibility crisis similar to what was experienced in the Soviet Union when no one trusted the contents in Pravda. ..."
"... What is to be gained by the leadership in Britain in promoting these biological weapons cases since Litvinenko? In the US it is quite apparent that the Deep State have become extremely powerful and the likelihood that Trump recognizes that resistance is futile is very high. Schumer may be proven right that they have six ways from Sunday to make you kowtow to their dictats. ..."
"... I agree that taken by itself, the Dzerzinsky thing would be an anomaly only and could be dismissed as "black humor" of a kind often found in hackers. However, taken with all the other evidence produced by Adam Carter, it becomes much more obviously an attempt to support a false flag "Russian hacker" narrative that otherwise is porous. ..."
"... You want us to believe that the GRU are so sloppy and so inexperienced that they would launch a hack on the DNC and not take every measure to ensure there was no link whatsoever to anything Russian? Any former intel officer worth a damn knows that an operation to disrupt the election in a country the size of the United States would start with a risk/reward assessment, would require a team of at least 100 persons and would not be writing any code that could in any way be traced to Russia. ..."
"... Doctrine-mongering and repeating birth of new faux-academic "entities", such as a "hybrid war" (any war is hybrid by definition), is a distinct feature of the Western "political science-military history" establishment. Galeotti, who for some strange reason passes as Russia "expert" is a perfect example of such "expertise" and doctrine-mongering. Military professionals largely met this "hybrid warfare" BS with disdain. ..."
"... I have to say that the more I look into this whole Russiagate affair, which is mostly in the minds of democrats (and a few republicans) and the MSM, the more it seems that there is indeed a foreign conspiracy to meddle in the internal affairs of the US (and in the presidential elections) but the meddling entity is not Russia. It is the British! ..."
"... So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don't question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven't been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax. ..."
As some commenters on SST seem still to have difficulty grasping that the presence of 'metadata' alluding to 'Iron Felix' in the
'Guccifer 2.0' material is strong evidence that the GRU were being framed over a leak, rather than that they were responsible for
a hack, an update on the British end of the conspiracy seems in order.
If you look at the 'Lawfare' blog, in which a key figure is James Comey's crony Benjamin Wittes, you will find a long piece published
last Friday, entitled 'Russia Indictment 2.0: What to Make of Mueller's Hacking Indictment.'
Among the authors, in addition to Wittes himself, is the sometime GCHQ employee Matt Tait. It appears that the former head of
that organisation, the Blairite 'trusty' Robert Hannigan, who must know where a good few skeletons are buried, is a figure of some
moment in the conspiracy.
It was Matt Tait who, using the 'Twitter' handle @pwnallthethings, identified the name and patronymic of Dzerzhinsky in the 'metadata'
of the 'Guccifer 2.0' material on 15 June 2016, the day after Ellen Nakashima first disseminated the BS from 'CrowdStrike' in the
'WP.'
The story was picked up the following day in a report on the 'Ars Technica' site, and Tait's own account appeared on the 'Lawfare'
site, to which he has been a regular contributor, on 28 July.
According to the CV provided in conjunction with the new article:
'Matt Tait is a senior cybersecurity fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University
of Texas at Austin. Previously he was CEO of Capital Alpha Security, a consultancy in the UK, worked at Google Project Zero, was
a principal security consultant for iSEC Partners, and NGS Secure, and worked as an information security specialist for GCHQ.'
As I have noted before on SST, a cursory examination of records at 'Companies House' establishes that 'Capital Alpha Security',
which was supposed to have provided Tait with an – independent – source of income at the time he unearthed this 'smoking gun' incriminating
the GRU, never did any business at all. So, a question arises: how was Tait making ends meet at that time: busking on the London
underground, perhaps?
Actually, there has been a recent update in the records. Somewhat prematurely perhaps, there is an entry dated 24 July 2018, entitled
'Final Gazette dissolved via compulsory strike-off. This document is being processed and will be available in 5 days.'
The document, when available, may clarify a few loose ends, but the general picture seems clear. Last November, Tait filed 'dormant
company accounts' for the company's first year in existence, up until February 2017. One can only do this if one has absolutely no
revenue, and absolutely no expenditure. Not even the smallest contract to sort out malware on someone's computer, or to buy equipment
for the office.
He then failed to file the 'Confirmation statement', which every company must is legally obliged to produce annually, if it is
not to be struck off. This failure led to a 'First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off' in May.
It is, of course, possible that at the time Tait set up the company he was genuinely intending to try to make a go of a consultancy,
and simply got sidetracked by other opportunities.
However – speaking from experience – people who have set up small 'one man band' companies to market skills learnt in large organisations,
and then go back into such organisations, commonly think it worth their while to spend the minimal amount of time required to file
the documentation required to keep the company alive.
If one sees any realistic prospect that one may either want to or need to go back into the big wide world again, this is the sensible
course of action: particularly now when, with the internet, filing the relevant documentation takes about half an hour a year, and
costs a trivial sum.
However, Tait may well anticipate that there is there will never be any call for him to go back into the big wide world, as the
large organisation in which he has now found employment is part of a 'Borgist' network. So much is evident from another entry on
the 'Lawfare' site:
'Bobby Chesney is the Charles I. Francis Professor in Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas School
of Law. He also serves as the Director of UT-Austin's interdisciplinary research center the Robert S. Strauss Center for International
Security and Law. His scholarship encompasses a wide range of issues relating to national security and the law, including detention,
targeting, prosecution, covert action, and the state secrets privilege; most of it is posted here. Along with Ben Wittes and Jack
Goldsmith, he is one of the co-founders of the blog.'
Also relevant here is the fact that, rather transparently, this placing of the GRU centre stage is bound up with the attempt to
suggest that there is some kind of 'Gerasimov doctrine', designed to undermine the West by 'hybrid warfare.' Unfortunately, the original author of this claptrap, Mark Galeotti, who, I regret to say, is, like Tait, British, has now recanted
and confessed. In March, he published a piece on the 'Foreign Policy' site, under the title: 'I'm Sorry for Creating the 'Gerasimov
Doctrine'; I was the first to write about Russia's infamous high-tech military strategy. One small problem: it doesn't exist.'
If anyone wants to grasp what the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, General Valery Gerasimov,
was actually saying in the crucial February 2013 article which Galeotti was discussing, and how his thinking has developed subsequently,
the place to look is, as so often, the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth.
In relation to the ongoing attempt to frame the GRU, it is material that, in his 2013 piece, Gerasimov harks back to two pivotal
figures in the arguments of the interwar years. Of these, Georgy Isserson, the Jewish doctor's son from Kaunas who became a Civil
War 'political commissar' and then a key associate of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, was the great pioneer theorist of 'deep operations.'
The ideas of the other, Aleksandr Svechin, the former Tsarist 'genstabist', born in Odessa into an ethnically Russian military
family, who was the key opponent of Tukhachevky and Isserson in the arguments of the 'Twenties, provided key parts of the intellectual
basis of the Gorbachev-era 'new thinking.'
The 'Ars Technica' article in which Tait's claims were initially disseminated opened:
'We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 – the nom
de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove
it – left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.'
In his 2013 article, Gerasimov harks back to the catastrophe which overcame the Red Army in June 1941. Ironically, this was the
product of the Stalinist leadership's disregard of the cautions produced not only by Svechin, but by Isserson. In regard to the latter,
the article remarks that:
'The fate of this "prophet of the Fatherland" unfolded tragically. Our country paid in great quantities of blood for not listening
to the conclusions of this professor of the General Staff Academy.'
As it happens, while both Svechin and Tukhachevsky were shot by the heirs of 'Felix Edmundovich', the sentence of death on Isserson
was commuted, and he spent the war in prison and labour camps, while others used his ideas to devastating effect against the Germans.
Quite clearly, the 'Guccifer 2.0' persona is a crude fabrication by someone who has absolutely no understanding of, or indeed
interest in, the bitter complexities of both of the history of Russia and of the 'borderlands', not only in the Soviet period but
before and after.
Using this criterion as a 'filter', the obvious candidates are traditional Anglo-Saxon 'Russophobes', like Sir Richard Dearlove
and Christopher Steele, or the 'insulted and injured' of the erstwhile Russian and Soviet empires, so many of them from the 'borderlands',
of the type of Victoria Nuland, or the various Poles, Ukrainians and Balts and Jews who have had so much influence on American policy.
(I should note that other Jews, not only in Russia, but outside, including in Israel, think quite differently, in particular as
they are very well aware, as Isserson would have been, of the extent to which 'borderlands' nationalists were enthusiastic collaborators
with the Germans in the 'Final Solution'. On this, there is a large and growing academic literature.)
It is not particularly surprising that many of the victims of the Russian and Soviet empires have enjoyed seeing the tables turned,
and getting their own back. But it is rather far from clear that this makes for good intelligence or sound policy. We were unable
to load Disqus. If you are a moderator please see our troubleshooting
guide .
How does the objective truth get disclosed in an environment of extreme deceit by so many parties?
How to trust western intelligence when they have such a long and sordid track record of deceit, lies and propaganda? At the
same time there is such a long history of Russian and Chinese intelligence and information operations against the west.
Then there is the nexus among the highest levels of US law enforcement and intelligence as well as political elites in both
parties and key individuals in the media complex.
We are living in a hall of mirrors and it seems the trend is towards confirmation bias in information consumption.
Excellent post, especially the debunking of the 'Gerasimov doctrine' which I always thought was more hand-waving and Russian mind-reading.
It's important to realize that there are a number of people in the infosec community who have biases against Russia, just as
there are in the general population. Then there are more cautious people, who recognize the difficulty in attributing a hack to
any specific person absent solid, incontrovertible, non-circumstantial and non-spoofable (and preferably offline) evidence.
Tait doesn't appear to be one of the latter. Thomas Rid would be another. There are others.
Jeffrey Carr is one of the latter, and his familiarity with intelligence matters is clear from his organization of the annual
"Suits and Spooks" Conference. I believe he was the first to raise questions about the DNC hack which didn't pass his smell test.
There are also a number of companies in infosec who rely on latching onto a particular strain of hacker, the more publicly
exploitable for PR purposes the better, as a means of keeping the company name in front of potential high-profile and highly billable
clients. CrowdStrike and its Russia obsession isn't the only one that's been tagged with that propensity.
Mandiant could be referred to as the "Chinese, all the time" company, for example. Richard Bejtlich was at Fireeye and the
became Chief Security Officer when they acquired Mandiant. He spent quite a bit of effort on his blog warning about the Chinese
military buildup as a huge threat to the US. He's former USAF so perhaps that's not surprising.
Glad David's comment has been reproduced as a post in its own right, this is a critically important topic. IMO Matt Tait plays
the role of midwife in this conspiracy. His
Twitter thread
The Comey, Brennan, Mueller claim - indeed a central one upon which the recent indictment rests- that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian
State agent that hacked the DNC- was discredited and put to rest last year by the forensics conducted by Bill Binney and his colleagues.
The Guccifer 2.0 metadata was analyzed for its transmission speed, and based on the internet speeds to and from numerous test
locations abroad and in the U.S., it was determined to have been impossible for the so-called Guccifer 2.0 to have hacked the
DNC computers over the internet. The transmission speed however did correspond to the speed of the transfer to a thumb drive.
Additionally, it was found that the data had been manipulated and split into two parts to simulate a July and a September transfer,
when in fact the parts merge perfectly as single file, and where, according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence
would be 100 to the 50th power.
As for the crude trace fingerprints (e.g. the referencing of Dzerzinsky), one of the Wikileaks data dumps (Vault 7 Marble)
during a period when Assange was negotiating with the Administration - there were two at the time (Vault 7 Marble and Vault 7
Grasshopper), the release of which apparently enraged Mike Pompeo- was designed to obfuscate, fabricate and frame countries such
as Russia, Iran or North Korea by pretending to be the target country, including in the use of target's alphabet and language.
VIPs has written numerous articles on this in Consortium News. See also the report by Patrick Lawrence Smith in The Nation
at:
https://www.thenation.com/a... . (It was apparently so hot at the time- and disputed by several other VIPs members- that The
Nation sought an independent assessment by third party, though those comments were easily addressed and dismissed in seriatim
by Binney in an annex to the article.)
Binney has explained his forensic analysis and conclusions at numerous forums, and in a sit-down with Secretary Pompeo in October,
2017- though Mueller, the FBI, and mainstream and some of the alternative press seem either deaf, dumb and blind to it all, or
interested in discrediting the study. The irony is, I'd venture to guess, that Binney, with his 40 years of experience, including
as Technical Director and technical guru at the NSA, is, even in retirement, more sophisticated in these matters than any one
at the Agency, or the FBI, or CIA, or certainly, the Congressional Intelligence Committees. So, it is astounding that any or all
of them could have, but did not, invite him to testify as an expert.
Moreover, the NSA has a record of every transmission, and also would have it on backup files. And, the FBI has been sitting
on Seth Rich's computer and his communications with Wikileaks, and presumably has a report that it has not released. And of course,
as Trump asked in his press conference, where's the DNC server, any or all of which would put this question to rest.
The last clause of the first paragraph should have said: "according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence
would be one over 100 to the 50th power
There is a pattern of abuse of formerly well regarded institutions to achieve the propaganda aims of the Deep State establishment.
The depths that were plumbed to push the Iraq WMD falsehoods are well known. Yet no one was held to account nor was there any
honest accounting of the abuse. There have been pretenses like the Owen inquiry that you note.
We see the same situation of sweeping under the rug malfeasance and even outright criminality through obfuscation and obstruction
in the case of the meddling in the 2016 election by top officials in intelligence and law enforcement. Clearly less and less people
are buying what the Deep State sells despite their overwhelming control of the media channels.
It seems that we are marching towards a credibility crisis similar to what was experienced in the Soviet Union when no
one trusted the contents in Pravda.
What is to be gained by the leadership in Britain in promoting these biological weapons cases since Litvinenko? In the
US it is quite apparent that the Deep State have become extremely powerful and the likelihood that Trump recognizes that resistance
is futile is very high. Schumer may be proven right that they have six ways from Sunday to make you kowtow to their dictats.
That was one of the changes being hoped for when Obama was first elected. Instead we got little, except for things such as
bailed out bankers and the IRS scandal which lasted until the end of his 2nd term. The panic from the left over the 2016 election
issues the are still going on is that the expected candidate isn't in office and they are being exposed. Whether they get prosecuted
is another story.
I think Matt Tait, David Habakkuk and many others are reading far more into this Dzerzinsky thing than what it warrants. The government
dependent ID cards used by my family while I was working as a clandestine case officer overseas were signed by Robert Ludlum.
Intelligence officers often have an odd sense of humor.
On a different note, I fully endorse David Habakkuk's recommendation of the writings of Bartles, McDermott and many others
at the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth. They are top notch. I learned a lot from Tim Thomas many years ago.
I agree that taken by itself, the Dzerzinsky thing would be an anomaly only and could be dismissed as "black humor" of a kind
often found in hackers. However, taken with all the other evidence produced by Adam Carter, it becomes much more obviously an
attempt to support a false flag "Russian hacker" narrative that otherwise is porous.
I believe there is a phrase going something like "an attempt to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."
You want us to believe that the GRU are so sloppy and so inexperienced that they would launch a hack on the DNC and not
take every measure to ensure there was no link whatsoever to anything Russian? Any former intel officer worth a damn knows that
an operation to disrupt the election in a country the size of the United States would start with a risk/reward assessment, would
require a team of at least 100 persons and would not be writing any code that could in any way be traced to Russia.
Unfortunately, the original author of this claptrap, Mark Galeotti, who, I regret to say, is, like Tait, British, has now recanted
and confessed.
Doctrine-mongering and repeating birth of new faux-academic "entities", such as a "hybrid war" (any war is hybrid by definition),
is a distinct feature of the Western "political science-military history" establishment. Galeotti, who for some strange reason
passes as Russia "expert" is a perfect example of such "expertise" and doctrine-mongering. Military professionals largely met
this "hybrid warfare" BS with disdain.
I have to say that the more I look into this whole Russiagate affair, which is mostly in the minds of democrats (and a few
republicans) and the MSM, the more it seems that there is indeed a foreign conspiracy to meddle in the internal affairs of the
US (and in the presidential elections) but the meddling entity is not Russia. It is the British!
So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don't question
the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven't been laggards in adding fuel to the fire
by the whole novichok hoax.
This needs to be looked at in more detail by the alternative media and well informed commentators like the host of this site.
I was drafting a response to the comment by 'Barbara Ann' – thanks for the link to
the recent posts by Adam Carter – before going out. Returning and reading some very
interesting comments, I think what I wanted to say has more general relevance.
One reason I am reading so much into 'this Dzerzhinsky thing' is the body of accumulating
evidence that people like Tait are part of a system of networks which combine
sanctimoniousness, corruption and stupidity in about equal measures. So some more examples
may be to the point.
Different cases in which I have taken an interest come together in a post by Tait on the
'Lawfare' site on 13 March, entitled 'U.K. Prime Minister's Speech on the Russian Poisoning
of Sergei Skripal: Decoding the Signals.'
In support of the claim that in accusing Russia of a pioneering act of chemical terrorism
Theresa May was relying upon accurate analysis from the 'U.K. intelligence community', Tait
wrote that:
'May then explained that Skripal was poisoned by a "military-grade nerve agent of a type
developed by Russia one of a group of nerve agents known as 'Novichok.'" She is laying out
the basic groundwork for the government's attribution to a nation state and, more
specifically, Russia. At Porton Down, the U.K. has one of the world's best forensic labs for
analyzing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. With the poisoning of Alexander
Litvinenko in 2006, this lab not only established that Polonium-210 was used but also which
reactor in Russia it came from.'
In the event, as is by now well know, Boris Johnson's claim that Porton Down scientists
had told him that the agent which poisoned the Skripals came from Russia was specifically
repudiated by the head of that organisation, Gary Aitkenhead, on 3 April. Our Foreign
Secretary told a flagrant lie, and was exposed.
As I have shown in previous posts on this site, the 'Inquiry' conducted by Sir Robert Owen
into the death of Litvinenko was patently corrupt. Moreover, it seems highly likely that, in
fabricating 'evidence' to cover up what actually happened, Christopher Steele was doing a
'dry-run' for the fabrication of material in the dossier published by 'BuzzFeed.'
In fact, however, Owen's report made quite clear that the role of Porton Down was
marginal. Furthermore, 'Scientist A1' from the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston
quite specifically rejected the claim that 'impurity profiling' made it possible to establish
that the source of the polonium was the Avangard facility at Sarov, her arguments being
accepted by Owen. Either Tait has not bothered to read the report or very much of the
coverage, or he is lying.
What Porton Down did do was to use 'impurity profiling', which can produce 'spectra'
identifying even the tiniest traces of substances, to frustrate the attempt to use the 'false
flag' attack at Ghouta on 21 August 2013 to inveigle the American and British governments
into destroying the Assad 'régime' and handing the country over to jihadists.
It may well be that this display of competence and integrity led to a 'clampdown' at the
organisation, which encouraged Boris Johnson to believe he could get away with lying about
what its scientists told him.
A general pattern which emerges is that the same small group of 'disinformation peddlers'
resurfaces in different contexts – and the pattern whereby 'private security companies'
are used to create a spurious impression of independence also recurs.
As I bring out in my piece on Ghouta, two figures who were critical in shaping the
'narrative' acccording to which Syrian government responsibility for the atrocity had been
conclusively proved, were Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, formerly the former commanding
officer of the UK Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, and also NATO's
Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion, and Dan Kaszeta.
Immediately after the story of the poisoning of the Skripals on 4 March broke, the same
duo reappeared, and have been as critical to shaping the 'narrative' about the later incident
as they were to that about the former.
(For the piece by Kaszeta on 'Bellingcat' which introduced the 'Novichok' theme four days
later, see
https://www.bellingcat.com/... .)
This makes it particular interesting to look at the website of Kaszeta's consultancy,
'Strongpoint Security Limited', in conjunction with the 'Companies House' documentation on
the company.
One would have thought from the website that his company was a small, but hardly
insignificant, player, in the field of 'physical and operational security.' As it happens,
having filed 'Total exemption small company accounts' since its incorporation in May 2011,
last December it filed 'Micro company accounts' for the year to 31 May 2017.
With a turnover of £20,000, staff costs of a bit more than half of that, and a
profit of £394, we can see that although unlike Matt Tait's, Kaszeta's company did
trade, if indeed it was his sole source of income, this pivotal figure in Anglo-American
'disinformation operations' was living on something less than $15,000 a year, at current
exchange rates. (Pull the other one, as we say in Britain.)
This is all the more ironic, as the website brings out quite how critical a figure Kaszeta
has been in obscuring the truth. From the bio he gives, we learn that having started as a
Chemical Officer in the U.S. Army, he worked for 12 years in the White House, dealing with
CBRN matters, before moving to Britain in 2008.
Among the articles to which he links on the site, we see his response in 'NOW Lebanon' in
December 2013 to Hersh's original 'Whose sarin?' piece on Ghouta, -- in which Kaszeta first
introduced the famous 'hexamine hypothesis.'
This – patently preposterous – suggestion that the presence of a single
'impurity' is a 'smoking gun' incriminating the Syrian government has echoed on into the
clearly corrupt OPCW documents purporting to demonstrate that it was responsible for the 4
April 2017 Khan Sheikhoun attack.
Of some interest in understanding where Kaszeta he is coming from is what he describes as
his 'oldest (and most footnoted on Wikipedia)' piece, which is an article published in 1988
on a site called 'Lituanus', on 'Lithuanian Resistance to Foreign Occupation 1940-52.'
As to Colonel de Bretton-Gordon, it is of interest to look at the attempt to 'finger' the
GRU over the Skripal poisoning published under the title 'UK Poisoning Inquiry turns to
Russian Agency in Mueller Indictments' in the 'New York Times' last Sunday, and the response
by the Russian Embassy in London to a question about it.
The response objects that 'while the British authorities keep concealing all information
concerning the investigation into the Salisbury incident, the newspaper has quoted "one
former US official familiar with the inquiry".'
It also asserts that that crucial evidence which has not been made available to the
Russians – and here, as with Ghouta and Khan Sheikhoun, the results of 'impurity
profiling' are critical – appears to have been shared not just with inappropriate
Americans, but with all kinds of others.
And indeed, the Embassy is quite right in suggesting that the claim made by the supposed
creator of 'Novichok', Vladimir Uglev, to the BBC in April about 'all the spectrum data I was
sent recently' has neither been confirmed nor denied. This seems a general pattern –
the 'spectra' which may actually be able to provide definitive answers to questions of
responsibility are only provided to people who can be relied upon to give the 'right'
answers.
The Embassy response also quite fairly refers to a report in the 'Times' also in April,
about the 'intelligence' which had been 'used to persuade world leaders that Moscow was
behind the poisoning' and that the 'Novichok' had been manufactured at the Shikhany facility
at in southwest Russia, which stated that de Bretton-Gordon, 'who had seen the intelligence,
called it very compelling.' He has a long history of lying about CW in Syria – so is
obviously the right person to lie about them in the UK.
It thus becomes interesting to probe into what lies behind the opening of de
Bretton-Gordon's entry on the 'Military Speakers' website ('Real Heroes; Real Stories.')
According to this, he is 'Chief Operating Office of SecureBio Ltd a commercial company
offering CBRN Resilience, consultancy and deployable capabilities.'
From 'Companies House', we learn that the liquidation of 'Secure Bio', which started in in
June 2015, was concluded in August last year. The really interesting thing about the records,
however, is that at the time of the liquidation the company had very large debts, which were
written off, of a kind and in a manner which suggested that de Bretton-Gordon's activities
may have been largely funded by loans from untraceable sources which were not meant to be
repaid.
Actually, with the 'NYT' report we come full circle. Among those quoted is Mark Galeotti
– apparently his admission that he had totally misrepresented the thinking of the
Russian General Staff has not him made more cautious about making extravagant claims about
its Main Intelligence Directorate (misreported as Main Directorate by the 'NYT.')
Also quoted are two figures who play key roles in Owen's Report – the Soviet era-GRU
defector 'Viktor Suvorov' (real name 'Vladimir Rezun') and the former KGB operative Yuri
Shvets. Both of these feature prominently in the posts on the Litvinenko affair to which I
have linked, and both were key members of the 'information operations' network centred around
the late Boris Berezovsky. This now seems to have taken control of American policy, as of
British.
The role of 'Suvorov'/Rezun in attempting to defend the interpretations of Stalin's policy
put forward by MI6 in the run-up to the Second World War, and those asserted later by General
Keitel, and the way he was demolished by the leading American historian of the War in the
East, Colonel David Glantz, and the Israeli historian Gabriel Gorodetsky, is too large a
subject to go into here.
However, it provides further reason to wonder whether the misreadings of Stalin's policy
which caused MI6 to give advice to Chamberlain which helped destroy the last chances of
preventing the Nazi-Soviet Pact, may still be the 'house view' of that organisation. It was,
obviously, the Pact which spelled 'curtains' both for Poland and the Baltics.
More evidence for the at least passive complicity of GCHQ – for which Matt Tait used
to work, and which Robert Hannigan used to run – in corrupt 'information operations'
comes in a report yesterday on CNN.
'Police have identified two suspects in the poisoning of former Russian double agent
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN
on Thursday.
'The pair left the UK in the wake of the attack on what is believed to have been a
commercial flight, the source added.
'Their departure was revealed in a coded Russian message to Moscow sent after the attack,
which was intercepted by a British base in Cyprus, the source said. The British government
blames the Skripals' poisoning on Russia.'
The base in question is high up in the Troodos mountains, and is formally run by the RAF
but actually a key resource for both GCHQ and NSA in monitoring communications over a wide
area. According to an internal document from the former organisation, it has 'long been
regarded as a 'Jewel in the Crown' by NSA as it offers unique access to the Levant, North
Africa, and Turkey'.
That the quote comes a report in 'The Intercept' in January 2016 revealing that one of the
uses of the Troodos facility is to intercept live video feeds from Israeli drones and fighter
jets brings out how paradoxical the world is. For it also appears to have emerged as an
important resource in 'information operations' in support of 'Borgist' agendas.
The claim about intercepts incriminating the Russians over the Salisbury incident was
first made in a piece by Marco Giannangeli in the Daily Express on 9 April, which followed up
the claims which Colonel de Bretton-Gordon had been instrumental in disseminating, and was
then widely picked up by the MSM.
It was headlined: 'REVEALED: The bombshell Russian message intercepted on DAY of Skripal
poisonings,' and opened: 'AN ELECTRONIC message to Moscow sent on the day former Russian spy
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury included
the phrase "the package has been delivered".'
Supposedly, this 'prompted a young Flight Lieutenant to recall a separate message that had
been intercepted and discounted on the previous day.' The messages were 'understood to have
formed "just one part" of the intelligence packet which later allowed Prime Minister Theresa
May to state it was "highly likely" that Russia was behind the attacks.'
As it happens, the same writer – Marco Giannangeli – had disseminated a
parallel piece of palpable fiction on 1 September 2013, in the 'Sunday Express', in relation
to the Ghouta 'false flag.'
This one was headlined, even more melodramatically, 'Senior Syrian military chiefs tell
captain: fire chemicals or be shot; BRITISH intelligence chiefs have intercepted radio
messages in which senior Syrian military chiefs are heard ordering the use of chemical
weapons.'
Part of the story of how bogus claims about 'smoking gun' evidence from 'SIGINT' were used
to support the attempt to use the Ghouta 'false flag' to inveigle the British and Americans
into destroying the Syrian government was told in my SST post on the incident. However, to
mix metaphors, I only scratched the surface of a can of worms.
In a report on the 'Daily Caller' site on 29 August 2013, Kenneth Timmerman claimed that
the sequence had started with an actual intercept by Unit 8200 – the Israeli equivalent
of GCHQ and NSA.
Claiming to base his account on Western intelligence sources, he suggested that:
'According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain,
France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian military communication intercepted by Israel's famed
Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads a reader to just
the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.'
While I am not in a position to establish whether his claim is or is not accurate, an AP
report on the same day quoted 'U.S. intelligence officials' explaining that 'an intercept of
Syrian military officials discussing the strike was among low-level staff, with no direct
evidence tying the attack back to an Assad insider or even a senior Syrian commander'.
Meanwhile, Timmerman's claim that 'The doctored report was picked up on Israel's Channel 2
TV on Aug. 24, then by Focus magazine in Germany, the Times of Israel, and eventually by The
Cable in Washington, DC' is supported by links to the relevant stories, which say what he
claims they say.
Moreover, it seems clear that the 1 September 2013 report was an attempt to counter a
– somewhat devastating – critique made in a 31 August post entitled 'The Troodos
Conundrum' by the former British Ambassador Craig Murray, who had been closely involved with
the facility during his time at the Foreign Office (and has written invaluable material on
the Salisbury incident.)
Precisely because of the closeness of the GCHQ/NSA collaboration, Murray brought out,
there was indeed a major problem explaining why claims about 'SIGINT' had been central to the
case made in the 'Government Assessment' released by the White House on 30 August 2013, but
not even mentioned in the Joint Intelligence Community 'Assessment' produced two days
before.
The answer, Murray suggested, was that the 'intelligence' came from Mossad, and so would
not have been automatically shared with the British. But, given the superior capabilities of
Troodos, if Mossad had it, the British should have also. So his claims 'meshed' with those by
Timmerman and the AP, and the 'Express' report looks like a lame attempt at a cover-up.
Again however, one finds the world is a paradoxical place. As I noted in my SST post,
detailed demolitions of the claims about 'SIGINT' in relation to Ghouta were provided both
Seymour Hersh, in the 'Whose sarin?' article, and also on the 'Who Attacked Ghouta?' site
masterminded by one 'sasa wawa.'
Later, it became clear that this was likely to be the Israeli technology entrepreneur Saar
Wilf, a former employee of Unit 8200. So this may – or may not – be an indication
of deep divisions within Israeli intelligence.
Between 18 March and 31 April, a fascinating series of posts on the Salisbury incident
appeared on the 'Vineyard of the Saker' blog. The author, who used the name 'sushi', was a
self-professed IT professsional, who had however obviously acquired an extensive familiarity
with 'chemical forensics' and appeared to have some experience of 'SIGINT.'
In a 14 April post, 'sushi' produced a dismissal of the claims about 'SIGINT' implicating
the Russians over the Salisbury incident quite as contemptuous as that which 'sasa wawa' had
produced in relation to the claims about it incriminating the Syrian government over
Ghouta.
Pointing to the implausibility of the story disseminated by the 'Express', he remarked
that:
'It is doubted that any message traffic is processed on Cyprus. It is more likely that the
entire take is transmitted back to GCHQ in Cheltenham via a fibre optic link. There exabytes
of take are processed, not by a bored flight lieutenant, but by banks of high speed
computers.
'Clearly someone in Cheltenham has committed a programming error. Anyone with any
knowledge of secret communications knows that the code phrase used to confirm a murder in
Salisbury is "small pizza, no anchovies." '
Interestingly, another paper in the 'Express' group made a parallel claim in relation to
the Khan Sheikhoun incident to that about the Ghouta incident, but the story was not picked
up and may indeed have been suppressed.
On 9 April, the paper published a report headlined 'Brit spies' lead role in Syrian air
strikes; RAF BASE IS 'WEAPON.' This claimed that 'within an hour of the airstrike', Troodos
had intercepted communications revealing that nerve gas had been used, and had been delivered
by jets from the Syrian Arab Air Force's Shayrat Air Base.
After another week saw leading Republicans accosted in public places, many on the left are
arguing that harassment is legitimate
The day after Sarah Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant in Virginia, Maxine
Waters, the representative for the California 43rd who has become a leader of the anti-Trump
resistance within Congress, addressed a rally in Los Angeles. Up until that point, national
Democratic leaders had mostly urged respectful protest in response to the Trump
administration.
"Let's make sure we show up wherever we have to show up," she said to cheers from the crowd.
"And if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline
station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them
they're not welcome any more, anywhere."
In the days that followed, other leading Democrats, among them Nancy Pelosi and David
Axelrod, distanced themselves from the comments and called for civility. Trump personally
attacked Waters, calling her an "extraordinarily low IQ person". But Waters gave voice, and
perhaps legitimacy, to what has become a prominent form of activism since Trump took office:
accosting members of his team in public places.
Over the weekend, Steve Bannon was called "a piece of trash" by a heckler at a bookstore; a
bartender gave Stephen Miller the middle finger, apparently causing Miller to throw away $80 of
sushi he'd just bought in disgust; and Mitch McConnell was chased out of a restaurant in
Kentucky by protesters, who followed him to this car yelling "turtle head" and "we know where
you live".
These follow similar encounters for other members of Trump's top team. The homeland security
secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, was confronted by protesters chanting "shame" while she ate at a
Mexican restaurant. Last week, Scott Pruitt was accosted by Kristin Mink while he was eating
lunch. Mink, a teacher, held her two-year-old child as she asked him to resign "before your
scandals push you out". Days later, Pruitt did resign, and although he was probably asked to do
so by Trump, in his letter he cited "the unrelenting attacks on me" as his reason for
leaving.
After each case, the merits of such an approach have been debated – many have called
for civility or argued that protesters leave themselves open to attack if they pursue
Trump-like techniques. There has been some consensus that encounters like Mink's, which are
eloquent and non-aggressive, are more acceptable than when protesters chant personal attacks or
use threatening language
... you don't stand with most of C99 and most of progressive society. He is wrong, on this
and many other things. Where was his (and your) outrage when Obama was droning American
citizens, destroying Libya and creating Europe's current refugee crisis, and helping Saudi
Arabia wreak havoc on Houthi civilians? How many pies did he throw then? How many Obama
administration officials did he publicly shame?
administration too? He did many of the same things that Trump is doing to immigrants. He
deported more of them then any president including 56% of them who hadn't committed any crimes.
How about shaming them for his drone policies, killing 3 Americans without due process, bombing
wedding parties and then the people who came to their rescue? Or the many, many other things he
and his admin members did that were absolutely heinous?
Should we have done that to the people in the Bush administration too or how far back should
we have been shaming people who worked in a president's administration?
Maybe we should be shaming the democrats who have been voting with the republicans to pass
Trump's legislation, cabinet picks and justices? Where would it stop?
Submitted by thanatokephaloides on Thu, 07/19/2018 - 5:49pm
Maybe we should be shaming the democrats who have been voting with the republicans to
pass Trump's legislation, cabinet picks and justices? Where would it stop?
Where it should -- with the non-voluntarily-complicit.
the publicly harassing, embarrssing, and running off the oposition then we're really fucked.
Or do you seriousy think those tactics won't be repaid in kind?
on public shaming.
#7
Especially in public restaurants.
There is no better way to protest this admin than to shame them in a public place, confront
them while they attempt to swallow a bite of pork chop.
up 0 users have voted. --
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes,
okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa Submitted by gulfgal98 on
Thu, 07/19/2018 - 12:00pmCritical thinking skills seem
to be non-existent over there.
Again, Markos and his staff refuse to discuss policy from a positive perspective. Instead,
they focus their readers on the outrage de jour and tribalism. The entire purpose of that site is
a massive propaganda push designed to keep us divided. And the narrative they keep pushing are
not only divisive, but extremely dangerous.
I rarely go there any more, mostly because I would like to keep as many of my remaining brain
cells intact. But when I have visited that place, it is a very frightening place to see how
Markos (post purge) has herded the remaining members into a small corral, all of them nodding in
agreement with whatever gruel Markos and his front pagers are serving up. Submitted by
snoopydawg on Thu, 07/19/2018 - 6:29pmDaily Kos should change its name
to
@gulfgal98
BAR Book Forum: Jeremy Kuzmarov's and John Marciano's "The Russians are Coming, Again"
"The American people have been constantly manipulated and made to fear the Russian threat when
it is the United States that has been the aggressive power."
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This
week's featured authors are Jeremy Kuzmarov and John Marciano . Kuzmarov is Jay P. Walker
Assistant Professor of American History, University of Tulsa. Marciano is Professor Emeritus at
SUNY Cortland. Their book is The Russians Are Coming, Again: The First Cold War as Tragedy,
the Second as Farce.
Roberto Sirvent: How can your book help BAR readers understand the current political and social
climate?
Jeremy Kuzmarov and John Marciano: Our book provides a historical perspective on
contemporary affairs by showing how the Russo-phobia that has been prevalent in our political
discourse over the last four to five years has deep and long historical roots, and has often
been used by government leaders to turn public attention away from domestic inequalities by
channeling societal resources towards the military sector. During the early Cold War, a period
of labor militancy and momentum for the expansion of the New Deal was destroyed by McCarthyism
and the Cold War.The Korean War brought on huge military budgets that have never left us and an
expansion of the U.S. overseas military base network. These policies were underlain by
exaggerated views about the Soviet Union which were stoked by political elites, who had worked
for companies that reaped enormous profit from the permanent warfare state. The same forces are
behind the renewed efforts to demonize Russian President Vladimir Putin and exaggerate the
Russian threat, with serious adverse consequences for society that have already been evident.
The consequences include a revitalization of the arms race, waging of proxy wars, and a further
poisoning of the domestic political culture through the reinvigoration of a McCarthyist
discourse and tactics.
"During the early Cold War, a period of labor militancy and momentum for the expansion of
the New Deal was destroyed by McCarthyism and the Cold War."
"... Repeated requests by Russia to obtain a sample of the alleged nerve agent for testing were rejected by the British government in spite of the fact that a military grade nerve agent would have surely killed both the Skripals as well as anyone else within 100 yards. As the latest British account of the location of the alleged poison places it on the door handle of the Scripals' residence, the timetable element was also unconvincing. That meant that the two would have spent three hours, including a stop at a pub and lunch, before succumbing on a park bench. Military grade nerve agents kill instantly. ..."
"... Nevertheless, the politically weak May government, desperately seeking a formidable foreign enemy to rally around against, insisted that Russia, almost certainly acting under orders from Vladimir Putin himself, carried out the killing of a former British double agent who had been released from a Kremlin prison in a spy swap and who was no longer capable of doing any damage to Russia. Putin apparently did all that in spite of the fact that he had an election coming up and would be the host of the World Cup in the summer, an event that would be an absolute top priority to have go smoothly. ..."
Poisoning enemies has a long history with Augustus Caesar's wife Livia allegedly a master of the art, as were the Borgias in Renaissance
Italy. Lately there has been a resurgence in allegations regarding the use of poisons of various types by several governments. The
claims are particularly damaging both morally and legally as international conventions regard the use of poisonous chemical compounds
as particularly heinous, condemning their use because they, when employed in quantity, become "weapons of mass destruction," killing
indiscriminately and horribly, making no distinction between combatants and civilians. Their use is considered to be a "war crime"
and the government officials who ordered their deployment are "war criminals," subject to prosecution by the International Criminal
Court in The Hague.
There are two important poisoning stories that have made the news recently. Both are follow-ups to reporting that has appeared
in the news over the past few months and both are particularly interesting because they tend to repudiate earlier coverage that had
been largely accepted by several governments as well as the media and the chattering class of paid experts that appears on television.
The first story relates to the poisoning of former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March.
There was quite a bit that was odd about the Skripal case, which
relied from the start " on circumstantial evidence and secret intelligence." And there was inevitably a rush to judgment. British
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson blamed Russia less than forty-eight hours after the Skripals were found unconscious on a bench in
Salisbury England, too soon for any chemical analysis of the alleged poisoning to have taken place.
British Prime Minister Theresa May threw gasoline on the fire when she addressed Parliament shortly thereafter to blame the Kremlin
and demand a Russian official response to the event in 36 hours, declaring that the apparent poisoning was "very likely" caused by
a made-in-Russia nerve agent referred to by its generic name novichok. The British media was soon on board with a vengeance, spreading
the government line that such a highly sensitive operation would require the approval of President Vladimir Putin himself. The expulsion
of Russian diplomats soon followed with the United States and other countries following suit.
Repeated requests by Russia to obtain a sample of the alleged nerve agent for testing were rejected by the British government
in spite of the fact that a military grade nerve agent would have surely killed both the Skripals as well as anyone else within 100
yards. As the latest British account of the location of the alleged poison places it on the door handle of the Scripals' residence,
the timetable element was also unconvincing. That meant that the two would have spent three hours, including a stop at a pub and
lunch, before succumbing on a park bench. Military grade nerve agents kill instantly.
The head of Britain's own chemical weapons facility Porton Down
even contradicted claims made by May, Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, and British Ambassador in Moscow Laurie Bristow. The lab's
Chief Executive Gary Aitkenhead testified that he did not know if the nerve agent was actually produced in Russia, a not surprising
observation as the chemical formula was revealed to the public in a scientific paper in 1992 and there are an estimated twenty countries
capable of producing it. There are also presumed stocks of novichok remaining in independent countries that once were part of the
Soviet Union, to include Russia's enemy du jour Ukraine, while a false flag operation by the British themselves, the CIA
or Mossad, is not unthinkable.
Nevertheless, the politically weak May government, desperately seeking a formidable foreign enemy to rally around against,
insisted that Russia, almost certainly acting under orders from Vladimir Putin himself, carried out the killing of a former British
double agent who had been released from a Kremlin prison in a spy swap and who was no longer capable of doing any damage to Russia.
Putin apparently did all that in spite of the fact that he had an election coming up and would be the host of the World Cup in the
summer, an event that would be an absolute top priority to have go smoothly.
Now there has been an actual death in Amesbury near Salisbury that has been attributed to novichok. On June 30 th ,
Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess were admitted to hospital after being found unconscious. Sturgess died eight days later. The May
government has not yet blamed it on Putin or even on a clumsy Russian operative that might have
inadvertently left behind a vial of poison or a used syringe,
though Home Secretary Sajid Javid came close to that when he suggested
that Russia was using Britain as a "dumping ground for poisons." Police suggestions that the poisoned couple appear to have handled
novichok infused material of some kind before succumbing appears to be contradicted by inability to find the actual source of the
alleged exposure.
British government dancing around the issue notwithstanding, there have been suggestions that the closest source of more novichok
might well be the U.K. government labs at nearby Porton Down, only seven miles from Salisbury and Amesbury, which increases suspicion
about the original story promulgated by Downing Street. Would the British government actually poison an expendable ex-Russian spy
and his daughter to divert attention from a domestic political problem at home? It's worth considering as the "blame it all on Putin
narrative" becomes even less credible.
The second story comes from Syria, where there is also a Russian hand as Moscow is aiding the government of Bashar al-Assad. The
by now notorious April 7, 2018 alleged chemical attack on the rebel-held Syrian city of Douma was widely blamed by Western countries
and the mainstream media on Assad's forces. This resulted in a decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to order massive U.S.-led
retaliatory airstrikes against targets reportedly involved in chemical production in and around Damascus.
Trump blamed
"animal Assad" for
"using nerve agents" and both the media and most European governments followed that line, concluding that Damascus had ordered
the chemical attacks a mere moments after videos purporting to show scores of chemical attack victims first surfaced from rebel sources,
long before U.S. intelligence could have made its own assessment. A 5-page
White House assessment released on April 13th, just days after the alleged attack
asserted that sarin was used at Douma , claiming that "A significant body of information points to the regime using chlorine
in its bombardment of Duma, while some additional information points to the regime also using the nerve agent sarin."
Independent sources warned at the time that
not a single neutral observer was on the ground to confirm that chemical agents launched by the Syrian government had, in fact,
been used, but were ignored. All of the sources reporting the attack were either affiliated with the rebels who occupied the area
or were not physically present in Douma.
Now, finally, three months later, there has been a credible independent report on what was determined about the attack through
chemical analysis of traces recovered in Douma. A preliminary report published last Friday by the Organization for the Prohibition
of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found no traces of any nerve agent like sarin at the site. The OPCW report
states this clearly : "No organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples
or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties."
This means that the Trump Administration claimed to have details relating to an event in a foreign country that it did not know
and could not actually confirm to be true. And it used that as a justification for ordering an airstrike that killed people and destroyed
targets in Syria. Will the White House respond to the OPCW report and apologize, possibly to include reparations for an unjustified
attack on another sovereign nation? Don't hold your breath.
The Salisbury and Douma attacks are illustrative of just what happens when a government is prepared to dissimulate or even lie
to go the extra mile to make a case to justify preemptive action that otherwise might be challenged. Theresa May is, unfortunately,
still in power and so is Donald Trump. In a better world an outraged public would demand that they be thrown out of office and even
possibly subjected to the tender ministrations of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. With power comes accountability,
or at least that should be the rule, but it is a dictum that has for some time been ignored. Even given that, one might hope that
the blunders will not be repeated, but there is not even any assurance that either May or Trump is much given to "lessons learned"
or that a Mike Pence or Boris Johnson would be any better. That is our tragedy.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational
foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134
and its email is [email protected].
Putin apparently did all that in spite of the fact that he had an election coming up and would be the host of the World
Cup in the summer, an event that would be an absolute top priority to have go smoothly.
[...]
Would the British government actually poison an expendable ex-Russian spy and his daughter to divert attention from a domestic
political problem at home? It's worth considering as the "blame it all on Putin narrative" becomes even less credible.
Mr. Giraldi,
these were my thoughts at first too, but I looked into the case quite extensively over the last several weeks and came to the
conclusion that Putin actually had more of a motive than the British government, et al.
This is my evolution on the Skripals' case:
On Skripal I'm not entirely certain, since I haven't really looked into the case. Also the timing of the incident seems
to be not what Putin would have chosen, in my opinion, since it was too close to the soccer World Cup events/celebrations in
Russia, and Putin usually tries to be conciliatory with the West before big sporting events like that in Russia, e.g. when
he released Khodorkovsky early before the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, for example.
As I said before, I was agnostic about the Skripal case and tried to keep an open mind about it and not reflexively blame
it on (the) Russians (government), but you providing me with this additional information makes me actually more of a believer
in the official Western narrative now.
Repeated requests by Russia to obtain a sample of the alleged nerve agent for testing were rejected by the British government
in spite of the fact that a military grade nerve agent would have surely killed both the Skripals as well as anyone else within
100 yards.
It was hilarious to watch yesterday evening, as the presidential plane had been underway for two and a half hours, the consternation
on CNN.
As I expected, the vague accusations about Russian meddling in the elections continued this morning, on CNN.
I remember an interview on CNN before the elections, someoen said 'if Trump wins', the two of CNN burst into laughter.
I do hope Trump survives, politically and fysically.
Luckily is it not very ease to murder a president these days.
On top of that, Sept 11 made many all over the world quite suspicious.
I for one never believed that Russia would be so stupid as to try to murder two former spies in such a stupid way, and without
any motive.
MH17 is a similar case.
Assad also is not stupid, he had no interest whatsoever to use poison gas in Syria.
How Arafat died we still do not know, that was done professionally, or maybe not, if I had to kill him I would try to make his
death look natural, a clear cause.
Who had a motive is quite clear.
Until the unhinged May lets Yulia go free–if she's still alive–and go back to Russia and tell her side of the story, nothing will
change.
The so-called Deep State and its willing toady, the corrupt, lying MSM are accomplices in this False Flag and they are the
ones that should be in the dock at the ICC. But since the ICC is part of the Deep State, don't expect this to happen.
This Russian bashing has gotten completely out of hand. And now that Putin has stated that the sleazy Russian thief oligarch
Browder helped launder 400 million to the DNC-Clinton Mob, it's going to get very interesting, if not dangerous for humanity.
They need a BIG distraction to get the sheeple's thought off the truth that there is NOTHING to the Putin-Trump election meddling,
anything might happen, even a repeat of the Israeli masterminded 9/11 False Flag.
Does 'Lucky Larry' own anymore asbestos-laden skyscrapers?
i would love to make a formal complaint about conspiracies because there are people who will and do make trouble for others. it
has taken me a long time to come to that place – but it is no joke as dr. geraldi no doubt knows.
however, one needs the evidence and what has been lacking in all these accusations whether its russia and us elections, chemical
weapons in syria, or supposed poisoning of three people formerly associated with russia, there is suspicion, and there is narrative,
but little in the way of facts. and if any of these accusations were concerning single individual battling mere gossip and innuendo
or other nefarious behaviors, i have learned to discount nothing. look if you can't bring a coupon into a store, wait for coffee
without people launching into fits of fear of life . . . then who knows what triggers people's self defense. it apparently dos
not take much for the supposed superior people to make their inferiors look off kilt. i just take it granted that when i leave
my house, on occasion, i have visitors – as "nutty" as that sounds.
but these cases have multiple researchers and resources to bar on the matter and yet, the evidence is either mere narrative,
contradicted or has a variety of explanations just as reasonable or more reasonable. but what we have is an entire population
engaged in manufacturing not one but several cases in which the president of the us actually engaged in treason based on sketchy
financial dealings with russian banks and financial elites.
and i think this article makes the case that people with power who engage in wielding accusations should be held to the standard
of providing evidence. and while i am a little uncomfortable with our president engaging in open debate with our intel community
from overseas, his objection is well put. the process of evidence collection and by independent objective observers is unreasonable.
yet he found it quite convenient to buy the argument by the same intel agencies for said use in syria. the election is over, but
the war about the election, the level of dislike of the elected , i think it is fair to say has never been so widespread and deep
such that members of the government or government agencies would sign up to press the matter.
and quip reflctions about the damage being done and "it's all in one's head" just are insufficient to address the issues.
frankly, i think the country's not outraged because they are "drama fatigued" last week in attempting to capture a stray kitten
who disappearance has me overly stretched – i never used to like cats – bells rang and doors closed indicating that she had in
fact been enclosed on the patio – around two am or so – only to discover a cute little skunk was the detainee. whose release required
navigating around the house twice because the door locked actually worked. sometimes the evidence doesn't doesn't reveal what
was expected.
as for the kitten, evidence suggests she managed to punch her way through a steel mesh garage vent. now i suspect that someone
recently punched a hole in those mesh barriers, but that is speculation on my part, even likely speculation. however, minus the
proof that is all it is. a mysterious frustrating event.
With the sad demise of the woman of the couple, the continuing make-up story in MSM makes the twist that the nerve agent was found
in a perfume bottle. While of these two non-Russian people (who allegedly were former drug-addicts) one may suspect that they
pick up any strange bottle from the ground and have a sniff at it, this is completely surrealistic in the case of the Skripals.
The difference couldn't be bigger between these two couples. Anyhow, the clue that brings them four together is the vicinity of
Porton Down, where chemical weapons are stored & tested.
If I had to guess at what's been going on in Salisbury I'd wonder if a lunatic/evil employee at Porton Down has smuggled out something
nasty and is amusing himself with it.
The author laments that May and Trump are still in office.
She will last longer than he will. Trump will be out in three months either by impeachment and conviction or by other means. None
of this clandestine stuff like poisoning but by a military coup. I remember the era of 7 Days in May but that was not serious
just a storey teller weaving a good yarn. Today, we have members of Congress and large numbers of the media(probably over 50 percent)
calling for a Armed Forces take over.
The probable stumbling block is how to skip Pense and go directly to Speaker Paul Ryan. Or how to dispense with the chain of succession
entirely and enshrine Hilary or recall Obama until the emergency is over.
Is Mad Dog the man or will McMaster lead the coup? Remember, anyone wearing more than one star made the elite grade during the
Obama regime and some of the one stars had formative years as O-6 and O-5 while Obama ruled supreme.
Quickly, not instantly. If you had an atropine pen handy, you might survive, though it would leave you immobilised and dazed.
If the Skripals were dosed, it would likely have been at or near the bench where they were found. Residue on their clothing might
be weak enough to not kill the constable.
The only thing the Salisbury incidents provide evidence for is that our culture is prone to hysterical outrage over anything
relating to Russia or Putin.
And that's true even if it were rogue elements in the Russian security services.
What I really loved about the coverage of the Skripal "poisoning" were the pictures of the cops wearing hazmat suits to clean
up the park bench. In the same shot birds were hopping around apparently unaffected by the deadly nerve gas. So we're to believe
that this stuff could kill a big cop but not a 2 pound pigeon .
British secret service and its 3 main children – CIA, Mossad, Saudi General Intelligence Agency – are morally capable of committing
any horror imaginable against civilians, even their own.
The Anglo-Zionist Empire is desperate to find the One Ring That Rules Them All.
That's so naďve. When you commit a crime and have witnesses in your custody, you make sure they never talk. "Elementary, Watson",
as Holmes used to say.
That's why we have "journalists" and "historians," mass media and skoolink (yooniversities included), and I find it amazing
that the stories change as fast as the agendas.
Oh "These Kids today" that old refrain again, and it's getting old too, all the emphasis on kids anyway, from concerns about
posterity, to the unending posturing about faux parent related concerns sublimated in one way or another to the other mantra:
" oh the Children" thing that phony liberal types do.
But to the point:
What a pity Western "Intelligence" seems to have never heard the story of The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf'.
When do these little monsters ever get a chance to hear childhood stories nowadays glued to their carry style devices, wearable
devices, soon inserted devices , to hear any of the old wisdom? It now isn't all that likely. It is more the kids teaching
the kids in a modern high tech reality version of Lord of the Flies scenario.
When they are inevitably inducted into the professions as they will, replacing remnants of earlier generations that maybe still
had been somewhat exposed to folk tales and stories, or better TV of earlier times, well, don't be surprised that the rank and
file of the intelligence industry, like elsewhere is unable personally to easily navigate anything, much less possessing inborn
sensibility gained from age old culture and all that. Could it be in the whole Fake News genre too, it seems to indicate
some dialectic flaw in thinking, (a priori as it were.) I feel like it's coming from youngsters lacking any frame of reference/experience
blundering, not being held to account!
The Brat Pack was given free reign and away they go arrogant to a fault
What was folk knowledge is a cumbersome, anachronistic, vestigial relic of another era, sought to be replaced soon, by robots.
None of this clandestine stuff like poisoning but by a military coup. I remember the era of 7 Days in May but that was not
serious just a storey teller weaving a good yarn. Today, we have members of Congress and large numbers of the media(probably
over 50 percent) calling for a Armed Forces take over.
Watching too many old movies now , haven't we? LOL!!
The probable stumbling block is how to skip Pense and go directly to Speaker Paul Ryan. Or how to dispense with the chain
of succession entirely and enshrine Hilary or recall Obama until the emergency is over.
Ok, now you need to be put down or at least committed. LOL
I'm glad Litvinenko Sr. is taken care of in his old age by the Russian state:
BAD CHEMISTRY? Ft. Walter Litvinenko, Father of Alexander Litvinenko
Although he chose to leave Russian of his own will, the authorities were unlikely to welcome him back and his dramatic u-turn
looks like a calculated attempt to smooth the way for his return to the country of his birth.
Clearly relishing Mr Litvinenko senior's propaganda gift in the run-up to a presidential election expected to be won by
Vladimir Putin next month, Russian state TV said the unhappy exile had run out of money and that electricity and gas had been
cut off to his tiny Italian flat for non-payment of bills.
[...]
Alexander Goldfarb, the co-author of a book about the murder and a friend of the late Litvinenko, accused Russian TV of acting
in an irresponsible and inhumane manner, saying the Kremlin's propaganda chiefs had exploited his grief and troubled psychological
condition.
"They used the troubled psychological state of an elderly man for propaganda purposes in order to whitewash Alexander's
killers," he said.
"Walter is going through a really tough time in connection with his wife's death a few months ago and feels lonely. It happens
with old people."
Skripals 'were under Russian surveillance' – BBC Newsnight
Newsnight's Diplomatic and Defence Editor, Mark Urban, reveals that the Skripals 'were under Russian surveillance' and that
he personally had several meetings with Sergei Skripal last year.
I am very embarrassed for the GRU , they are even more incompetent than the French Secret Service combat swimmers who blew
up the that Greenpeace ship. Russia should have sent a Spetsnaz veteran with his trusty entrenching tool to deal with Skripal.
Or maybe one of their Kamikazi exploding dogs.
Maybe Putin did have them killed or poisoned because Russian intelligence had uncovered their plot to explode a dirty
bomb in London which had been set up so as to implicate the Russians. The plotters were foiled and hoist by their own petard.
I tell you a secret. GRU agents, on direct orders from Putin, killed JFK, burnt Giordano Bruno, crucified Christ, and poisoned
Socrates. What's more, they are also responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. Didn't you suspect that?
I did not even know those you named had ever been in the GRU, let alone they were British moles.
If you wake up and there is snow all over the ground, that is circumstantial evidence that it snowed in the night. When a Russian
poisons Russians there is not all this Technical Tom sophistry, and motive is important especially when it supports the circumstantial
evidence.
' Theresa May is, unfortunately, still in power and so is Donald Trump. In a better world an outraged public would demand that
they be thrown out of office '
At least in the case of Trump, the problem with rejecting him is, as it always has been, the alternative.
It's literally oppressive that to date, no superior alternative to Trump has emerged. However, like it or not, one hasn't.
Is there a superior alternative to May? If there is, why didn't Brits get rid of that embarrassment? Next to her even John
Major looks like an outstanding statesman.
Every time I think about it, I do find it truly astonishing that we (the USA) launched a missile salvo into Syria based on an
obvious and now proven false flag, and very few people seem to care. This is one of those glaring, "hidden in plain sight"
contradictions to the narrative which tells me that, while the Deep State is finally losing some ground, its liquidation is far,
far from over and all kinds of things are going to fall apart as this thrashing monster slowly sinks beneath the waves.
Yes, interesting that PG has only now brought to a UR article that rather obvious possible connection between Porton Down and
the nearby poisonings.
I don't think it is one of his major areas of attention. Why else would he include with Trump the unfortunate May as someone
he would like to see people rise up against and throw out of office for offences unstated?
Her performance on Skripal right or wrong is hardly worth mentioning when deciding whether and when she has to go. Compared
to Brexit give it a 2 per cent weighting.
My guess is that we haven't heard the last of Ms. Hyphen-Cortez.
"Ocasio-Cortez hedges criticisms of Israel– 'I may not use the right words'
US Politics Philip Weiss on July 15, 2018
Rising Democratic star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex, soon to go to Congress from NY, all but apologized for using words "massacre"
and "occupation" about Israel, saying she spoke as an "activist," and she is no expert on the Middle East and is willing to "learn
and evolve." '
Her performance has included telling bald-faced lies, lies that are easily exposed as lies too. This is rarely if ever going
to add weight to any personal brand, let alone that of a political leader. She's toast!
ill-gotten goods are undeserving of protection of law. The DNC and Podesta had no legitimate
expectation of privacy in their combinations to defraud the public and steal elections.
It's been imputed that the Russians did this to damage the reputation of Hillary Clinton. To
take the alleged damage to reputation angle to its conclusion, truth is an entirely sufficient
defense to any charge of libel. What was revealed by an alleged hack was the truth, something
that is entirely lacking in the rest of this affair.
As for the alleged theft and public release of email, ill-gotten goods are undeserving of
protection of law. The DNC and Podesta had no legitimate expectation of privacy in their
combinations to defraud the public and steal elections.
The Russian GRU is accused of revealing that the people who run the DNC and Clinton campaign
committee colluded with each other to steal the nomination. The allegedly hacked emails show
what they really did and thought during the fraudulent nomination of Hillary Clinton. It might
be argued, that whomever revealed the truth actually did a public service for the American
people. An odd sort of "act of war," that.
Finally, individual officials and military officers have a limited immunity and are not
normally indicted by foreign states for intelligence activities such as electronic surveillance
and hacking across borders. That is where the element of harm comes in. The only real precedent
for this is the Rainbow Warrior case. In 1985, French intelligence officers blew up and sank a
Greenpeace ship by that name anchored in Auckland, NZ harbour, killing a passenger, a Dutch
photographer. A UN arbitrator held in that case the French agents were not immune under
customary international law to prosecution in a New Zealand court and could be individually
tried and jailed, but only because of the death of the victim as part of "a criminal act of
violence against property in New Zealand . . . done without regard for innocent civilians."
Greenpeace was additionally awarded damages in the UK under international Maritime Law because
the vessel was a British-flagged ship.
Also bear in mind, the US and UK both provide immunity to their own intelligence officers
and law enforcement officers for hacking and related computer crimes committed against foreign
powers. The UK takes that a step further and exempts police officers for domestic hacking:
This is a dangerous precedent, and the likely result is to ignite retaliation and further
exacerbate U.S.-Russian tensions. The entire staffs of the NSA, GCHQ and GRU could be similarly
"prosecuted," but what will that accomplish? Even if every word of the indictment is fact, the
indictment itself violates the norms of international law and this latest "Russiagate"
escalation by Mueller seems intended to ratchet up the New Cold War.
That is why "Russiagate" is a legal sham, in my opinion. Even if the alleged Russian hack of
the DNC email actually happened as claimed, and even if the hack was with bad intent, there was
no real crime or harm in the release of that information. That information was no more the
private property of the DNC and Clinton Campaign than a plan to rob a bank belongs to the
robbers. Isn't that so, Mr. Mueller?
"... In my last post I set out the official Government account of the events in the Skripal Case. Here I examine the credibility of this story. Next week I shall look at alternative explanations. ..."
In my last post I set out the official Government account of the events in the Skripal
Case. Here I examine the credibility of this story. Next week I shall look at alternative
explanations.
Russia has a decade long secret programme of producing and stockpiling novichok nerve
agents. It also has been training agents in secret assassination techniques, and British
intelligence has a copy of the Russian training manual, which includes instruction on painting
nerve agent on doorknobs.
The only backing for this statement by Boris Johnson is alleged "intelligence", and
unfortunately the "intelligence" about Russia's secret novichok programme comes from exactly
the same people who brought you the intelligence about Saddam Hussein's WMD programme, proven
liars. Furthermore, the question arises why Britain has been sitting on this intelligence for a
decade and doing nothing about it, including not telling the OPCW inspectors who certified
Russia's chemical weapons stocks as dismantled.
If Russia really has a professional novichok assassin training programme, why was the
assassination so badly botched? Surely in a decade of development they would have discovered
that the alleged method of gel on doorknob did not work? And where is the training manual which
Boris Johnson claimed to possess? Having told the world – including Russia -the UK has
it, what is stopping the UK from producing it, with marks that could identify the specific copy
erased?
The Russians chose to use this assassination programme to target Sergei Skripal, a double
agent who had been released from jail in Russia some eight years previously.
It seems remarkable that the chosen target of an attempt that would blow the existence of a
secret weapon and end the cover of a decade long programme, should be nobody more prominent
than a middle ranking double agent who the Russians let out of jail years ago. If they wanted
him dead they could have killed him then. Furthermore the attack on him would undermine all
future possible spy swaps. Putin therefore, on this reading, was willing to sacrifice both the
secrecy of the novichok programme and the spy swap card just to attack Sergei Skripal . That
seems highly improbable.
Only the Russians can make novichok and only the Russians had a motive to attack the
Skripals.
The nub of the British government's approach has been the shocking willingness of the
corporate and state media to parrot repeatedly the lie that the nerve agent was Russian made,
even after Porton Down said they could not tell where it was made and the OPCW confirmed that
finding. In fact, while the Soviet Union did develop the "novichok" class of nerve agents, the
programme involved scientists from all over the Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, Armenia and
Georgia, as I myself learnt when I visited the newly decommissioned Nukus testing facility in
Uzbekistan in 2002.
Furthermore, it was the USA who decommissioned the facility and removed equipment back to
the United States. At least two key scientists from the programme moved to the United States.
Formulae for several novichok have been published for over a decade. The USA, UK and Iran have
definitely synthesised a number of novichok formulae and almost certainly others have done so
too. Dozens of states have the ability to produce novichok, as do many sophisticated non-state
actors.
As for motive, the Russian motive might be revenge, but whether that really outweighs the
international opprobrium incurred just ahead of the World Cup, in which so much prestige has
been invested, is unclear.
What is certainly untrue is that only Russia has a motive. The obvious motive is to attempt
to blame and discredit Russia. Those who might wish to do this include Ukraine and Georgia,
with both of which Russia is in territorial dispute, and those states and jihadist groups with
which Russia is in conflict in Syria. The NATO military industrial complex also obviously has a
plain motive for fueling tension with Russia.
There is of course the possibility that Skripal was attacked by a private gangster interest
with which he was in conflict, or that the attack was linked to Skripal's MI6 handler Pablo
Miller' s work on the Orbis/Steele Russiagate dossier on Donald Trump.
Plainly, the British governments statements that only Russia had the means and only Russia
had the motive, are massive lies on both counts.
The Russians had been tapping the phone of Yulia Skripal. They decided to attack Sergei
Skripal while his daughter was visiting from Moscow.
In an effort to shore up the government narrative, at the time of the Amesbury attack the
security services put out through Pablo Miller's long term friend, the BBC's Mark Urban , that
the Russians "may have been" tapping Yulia Skripal's phone, and the claim that this was strong
evidence that the Russians had indeed been behind the attack.
But think this through. If that were true, then the Russians deliberately attacked at a time
when Yulia was in the UK rather than when Sergei was alone. Yet no motive has been adduced for
an attack on Yulia or why they would attack while Yulia was visiting – they could have
painted his doorknob with less fear of discovery anytime he was alone. Furthermore, it is
pretty natural that Russian intelligence would tap the phone of Yulia, and of Sergei if they
could. The family of double agents are normal targets. I have no doubt in the least, from
decades of experience as a British diplomat, that GCHQ have been tapping Yulia's phone. Indeed,
if tapping of phones is seriously put forward as evidence of intent to murder, the British
government must be very murderous indeed.
Their trained assassin(s) painted a novichok on the doorknob of the Skripal house in the
suburbs of Salisbury. Either before or after the attack, they entered a public place in the
centre of Salisbury and left a sealed container of the novichok there.
The incompetence of the assassination beggars belief when compared to British claims of a
long term production and training programme. The Russians built the heart of the International
Space Station. They can kill an old bloke in Salisbury. Why did the Russians not know that the
dose from the door handle was not fatal? Why would trained assassins leave crucial evidence
lying around in a public place in Salisbury? Why would they be conducting any part of the
operation with the novichok in a public area in central Salisbury?
Why did nobody see them painting the doorknob? This must have involved wearing protective
gear, which would look out of place in a Salisbury suburb. With Skripal being resettled by MI6,
and a former intelligence officer himself, it beggars belief that MI6 did not fit, as standard,
some basic security including a security camera on his house.
The Skripals both touched the doorknob and both functioned perfectly normally for at least
five hours, even able to eat and drink heartily. Then they were simultaneously and
instantaneously struck down by the nerve agent, at a spot in the city centre coincidentally
close to where the assassins left a sealed container of the novichok lying around. Even though
the nerve agent was eight times more deadly than Sarin or VX, it did not kill the Skripals
because it had been on the doorknob and affected by rain.
Why did they both touch the outside doorknob in exiting and closing the door? Why did the
novichok act so very slowly, with evidently no feeling of ill health for at least five hours,
and then how did it strike both down absolutely simultaneously, so that neither can call for
help, despite their being different sexes, weights, ages, metabolisms and receiving random
completely uncontrolled doses. The odds of that happening are virtually nil. And why was the
nerve agent ultimately ineffective?
Detective Sergeant Bailey attended the Skripal house and was also poisoned by the doorknob,
but more lightly. None of the other police who attended the house were affected.
Why was the Detective Sergeant affected and nobody else who attended the house, or the scene
where the Skripals were found? Why was Bailey only lightly affected by this extremely deadly
substance, of which a tiny amount can kill?
Four months later, Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess were rooting about in public parks,
possibly looking for cigarette butts, and accidentally came into contact with the sealed
container of a novichok. They were poisoned and Dawn Sturgess subsequently died.
If the nerve agent had survived four months because it was in a sealed container, why has
this sealed container now mysteriously disappeared again? If Rowley and Sturgess had direct
contact straight from the container, why did they not both die quickly? Why had four months
searching of Salisbury and a massive police, security service and military operation not found
this container, if Rowley and Sturgess could?
I am, with a few simple questions, demolishing what is the most ludicrous conspiracy theory
I have ever heard – the Salisbury conspiracy theory being put forward by the British
government and its corporate lackies.
My next post will consider some more plausible explanations of this affair.
China will never be able to initiate a land invasion against the Western Hemisphere.
Period; and when the US fleet leaves the South China Sea it will be a cold day in hell. Now
which member of MI6 leaked that damn memo? Trump's overture to the Russians is really making
them dig.
"Almost all the Syrians who fled to the border with Jordan from an army offensive have
now returned to their homes, a top UN official says."
Just days ago they reported that "The offensive in Syria's south-west had earlier forced
more than 320,000 people to flee," and were bleating that Jordan should open their border
and let them all in.
Today "Anders Pedersen, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Jordan, said that "around
150 to 200 people (are) right now at the border".
320,000 became <200 in a matter of days. LOL
So, once again we see that the civilians were fleeing the fighting, NOT the Syrian
government. And once the SAR regains control of an area, almost everyone returns.
In the July 07, 2018 edition of Moon of Alabama, I asked everyone for links and alt-media
websites to go to. The way I did it seemed to be disruptive, given the reactions that I got.
I wanted to apologize for that. I simply wanted to learn more about alt-media websites, not
to troll, but I could have done it in a better way.
Anyway, let's share some alt-media websites that we know of.
Got a host of leftwing websites and rightwing websites and alt-media websites that I don't
think are either leftwing or rightwing, so if you want anymore, just ask me.
Anyway, please, if you've got any alt-media websites you'd like to share, I think that the
Open Thread is the best place to do it. I'm always on the look-out for any alt-media
websites, so if you've got any, please tell me. The reason why I ask is because it's going to
get harder and harder to find these websites, I think. So with that in mind, I'd like to
learn more about what's out there in terms of the alt-media.
You got any alt-media websites to share, please do.
And thanks to anyone that have already shared what they knew in yesterday's thread.
Glad to be here by the way. I've known about Moon of Alabama for some time and I've
decided to drop into the comments. I didn't really keep track of all the links that you guys
posted, but I will now. Thank you.
From comment of chet380, Jul 7, 2018 7:03:08 PM (19): "Notwithstanding the counter-evidence and the strong counter-arguments, the decision by the OPCW to include references to 'chlorinated
chemical compounds' guaranteed that the 'attack' scenario would continue to be advanced.Is it possible that the UK, US and/or France
put pressure on the OPCW to make the inclusion so they would not have to admit they were wrong and that they were fooled? The fraud
of the White Helmets should have been exposed by the OPCW inspection, but this interim report will give them continued life."
Notable quotes:
"... Interestingly the MI6 outlet in Coventry, the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights (SOHR), does not confirm a 'gas' incident. ..."
"... The "Sarin" organophosphate use the 'rebels' claimed is thereby debunked. No degradation products of such chemicals were found. The "various chlorinated organic chemicals" are unsurprising. Chlorine is widely used for water purification and cleaning and "chlorinated organic chemicals" will be found in any household. ..."
"... The preliminary OPCW report says nothing about the concentrations in which these substances were found. Without knowing the concentrations, which may may be extremely low, one can not come to further conclusion. The report includes none of the witness statements the fact finding mission took. In various TV reports the medical personal of the one hospital involved in the stunt said that none of their patients were affected by chlorine or chemical weapons. ..."
"... After the 'rebels' claimed the 'chemical attack' and published their staged videos of stacked bodies U.S. President Trump tweeted that he would retaliate for the strike. Politically he could not pull back from that even when Secretary of Defense Mattis voiced his doubts about the 'rebel' claims. Trump attacked Syria with a series of cruise missiles most of which were shot down by the Syrian air defense. A civil chemical laboratory was destroyed during the attack but no one was hurt. ..."
"... They cannot admit everything was staged. And the report is not at all clear, so anyone can give it the desired spin. ..."
"... They didn't find anything relevant. See Appendix 3 of the report. There's no mention of traces of chlorine which I would find hard to believe anyway, they refer to chloride Cl- as in NaCl (table salt) or organic chlorides, of which they do name at least one. ..."
"... The Guardian employs Olivia Solon, a digital journalist (whose specialty is in writing about and recommending particular IT consumer hardware or software products) based in California, with no knowledge or access to knowledge about Syria, its politics or history, to write an article defending the White Helmets and defame the investigative journalists Eva Bartlett and Vanessa Beeley. That practice seems to be par for the course for The Guardian and other print and online newspapers. ..."
"... And yes, the corporate MSM is definitely profit-driven. When "news" was separate from "entertainment," there was some free press possible, but once they were combined, any imaginary wall between sponsors and newscasters was removed. ..."
"... Here in the US, CBS was founded by William Paley, who had been in charge of radio propaganda for the US Army Office of Psychological Warfare. CBS was owned by Westinghouse, which became the world's largest military contractor during WW II. ..."
"... Neither CBS and NBC ever generated even 5% of their parent companies revenues. The real profits were in consumer products and war. And so, not just their news, but all of their programming promoted world views that encouraged consumption and war. ..."
"... Almost all reporters covering international news are working for the various government and private intelligence agencies/think tanks and many domestic reporters as well. ..."
"... This has been the case for over 50 years if not a century. Many of the critical reports are likely written by the agencies/think tanks. Many CIA interns work at MSM for example and reporters are recruited as early as college if not high school through thr corporate government education system. ..."
"... Regarding comments of journalists, the problem may not always be with them. There have been countless discussions on the influence of intelligence agencies. Most people would choose to do the right thing when given the choice. However, if the choices are following orders or "suicide by nailgun", most people would choose to live another day. ..."
"... The British-created Anglo-American funded black propaganda organisation, the so-called White Helmets were the primary source for the claims of Sarin use by the SAG in Douma. In as just world, the White Helmets as proven liars would now become international pariahs. That they will still be hailed as heroes in the West and western MSM so just how sick the West and western MSM really are. Perhaps now that the OPCW is free to cast blame for "chemical weapons incidents", they should name and shame the United Kingdom for its black propaganda. ..."
"... Well, we all knew a false flag op was pending. So here it is. Also Trump is a POS. ..."
"... When the White Helmets and the rebels staged the 'Douma' chemical attack they were probably expecting that Douma would not be liberated and that no serious inspection would take place to debunk the 'fake' attack. That was bad luck for them. Contrary to the other chemical "attacks" locations, an inspection on location has taken place early enough and the masks may be falling. ..."
"... There are critically important information here from Vanessa Beelley False Flag Fail: How Syrian Civilians Derailed White Helmet 'Chemical' Stunt in Eastern Ghouta that Bernhardt has not mentioned. ..."
"... The White Helmets specifically stated that the protesters had ruined their chemical attack and ruined their communications with the UN, and that the Americans would not come to their assistance because of it. This incident explains important aspects of the false flag: ..."
"... 1) So close to impending defeat, the terrorists were really desperate to induce the Americans to save them, and really believed they would do so; ..."
"... the conflicting signals given out by the MI6 proxies SOHR I would read as a damage limitation act specifically in response to the civilian protest; ..."
"... It would appear that MI6 feared news of this protest would be spread, so that they needed to protect their proxies. ..."
"... Unfortunately, despite this information being published by Vanessa Beeley, I haven't seen any other mention of it. The protesters endangered their lives by this protest, at least one of them [or another hostage? - this is not clear] was shot dead for it, and all of them were sentenced to death. They deserve due publicity for it and it is really important to an understanding of the incident as a whole. ..."
"... Bernhardt, I am afraid I don't share your apparent confidence in this OPCW report. It is far too little and lopsided after months of investigation, and appears to be designed to test the waters for a decision confirming that chlorine was used as a weapon, and to coordinate with the MSM to prepare the ground for such a decision. In that case, the MSM reaction to the report is highly consistent with such an objective. ..."
"... Why did the the report make no caveats about the chlorine compounds, why did they include no data about concentrations, why did they emphasise the chain of custody of the (probably trivial) chrorine compound samples (and only those samples), why no information on witness testimony, why no mention of the witness testimony in the Hague, why mention (totally irrelevant) testimony of alleged witnesses in Turkey and biological samples taken in Turkey for which no plausible chain of custody exists? ..."
"... This report is a scandal, an outrage. This report itself is a false flag, it is designed to appease those observers who know the incident was a false flag by using carefully ambiguous wording, while preparing the ground for a full-blown 99% dishonest and 100% misleading report condemning the Syrian government. ..."
"... For Trump self inflicted ego wound somebody will pay. ..."
"... If the OPCW can no longer be trusted; then what? The U.S. has done an admirable job of destroying trust between countries. ..."
"... Nice article, however I tend to disagree partially on the last part, the US administration and the alleged rebels are two faces of the same coins, rebels are funded by the administration from various sources and they acr in response to commands from it, see the southern command operations where this approach of command was openly divulged by various reports and accounts. The reason for the Administration to get into Syria was to further weaken the middle eastern countries for a specific and obvious reason, and each strike and wall destroyed goes into this direction..the bigger picture explains it all.. ..."
"... So, as expected, this latest OPCW report will have no effect on the establishment narrative. The good guys vs bad guys scenario is the only approved version, and with no alternative versions being offered in the MSM, it is the one that the most people will believe. ..."
"... I suspect some of the stupidest staged events are just experiments to monitor how many people will simply buy anything. ..."
Syria - OPCW Issues First Report Of 'Chemical Weapon Attack' in Douma
On April 7 2018 Syrian 'rebels' claimed that the Syrian government used chlorine gas and Sarin in an attack on the besieged Douma
suburb near the Syrian capital Damascus. They published a series of videos which showed the dead bodies of mainly women and children.
During the night the incident allegedly happened Douma was hit with artillery and air strikes in retaliation for earlier deadly
attacks by some 'rebels' splinter groups on Damascus city. Jaish al-Islam, the main 'rebel' group in Douma, had already agreed to
leave towards Idleb governorate.
The claim of the 'chemical attack' was made shortly after U.S. President Trump had announced that he wanted U.S. troops to leave
Syria. It was designed to "pull him back in" which it indeed did.
Moon of Alabama published several pieces on the issue:
It seemed obvious from the very first claims of the 'gas attack' that it did not happen at all. The Syrian government had no motive
to use any chemical weapon or an irritant like chlorine in Douma. It had already won. The incident was obviously staged, like others
before it, to drag the U.S. into a new attack on Syria.
Even a prominent opposition outlet said that no 'chemical attack'
had taken place. As
noted on April
9:
Interestingly the MI6 outlet in Coventry, the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights (SOHR), does not confirm a 'gas' incident.
In its version of events some 40 people
died after their shelter collapsed:
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights issued a higher death toll, saying at least 80 people were killed in Douma, including
around 40 who died from suffocation. But it said the suffocations were the result of shelters collapsing on people inside them.
Main stream media, which have quoted SOHR for years, now ignore it and
report of a 'chemical
attack' as if it were a proven reality.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) send a Fact Finding Mission (FFM) to Douma and investigated the
incident. Today it
published an interim report and some technical results:
OPCW designated labs conducted analysis of prioritised samples. The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their
degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties. Along
with explosive residues, various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples from two sites, for which there is full chain
of custody. Work by the team to establish the significance of these results is on-going. The FFM team will continue its work to
draw final conclusions.
The "Sarin" organophosphate use the 'rebels' claimed is thereby debunked. No degradation products of such chemicals were found.
The "various chlorinated organic chemicals" are unsurprising. Chlorine is widely used for water purification and cleaning and "chlorinated
organic chemicals" will be found in any household.
In the technical notes of
the OPCW report note that one of its laboratory found "dichloroacetic acid", "trichloroacetic acid", "chloral hydrate", "trichlorophenol"
and "chlorphenol" in some of the samples its fact finding mission took at the claimed incident sites. These are all substances that
are no surprise in any upbuild environment and especially within any home.
Dichloroacetic acid" is for example "a trace product
of the chlorination of drinking water". Chloral hydrate
is likewise "a minor side-product of the chlorination of water when organic residues such as humic acids are present". The other
substances are also not uncommon and of various household uses.
The other OPCW laboratory found only "No CWC-scheduled chemicals" and "2,4,6-trinitrotoluene" residues in the samples. Trinitrotoluene,
also known as TNT, is an explosive widely used in military ammunition. The second laboratory does not report the chlorinated organic
chemicals the other laboratory found.
The preliminary OPCW report says nothing about the concentrations in which these substances were found. Without knowing the concentrations,
which may may be extremely low, one can not come to further conclusion. The report includes none of the witness statements the fact
finding mission took. In various TV reports the medical personal of the one hospital involved in the stunt said that none of their
patients were affected by chlorine or chemical weapons.
After the 'rebels' claimed the 'chemical attack' and published their staged videos of stacked bodies U.S. President Trump
tweeted that he would retaliate for the strike. Politically he could not pull back from that even when Secretary of Defense Mattis
voiced his doubts
about the 'rebel' claims. Trump attacked Syria with a series of cruise missiles most of which were shot down by the Syrian air defense.
A civil chemical laboratory was destroyed during the attack but no one was hurt.
The now published preliminary OPCW report reinforces the doubts about the 'rebel' claims. There was no 'chemical attack' in Douma.
The incident was staged.
One hopes that Trump has learned from this episode and will in future refrain from violent threats over incidents for which no
plausible and vetted evidence is provided.
Posted by b on July 6, 2018 at 03:23 PM |
Permalink
Thanks for this report, even though in my case you're "preaching to the choir".
I wish I could share your closing optimism: "One hopes that Trump has learned from this episode and will in future refrain
from violent threats over incidents for which no plausible and vetted evidence is provided."
Hope springs eternal. But even though I'm not rabidly anti-Trump, I think he will remain unwilling to refrain, or is incapable
of refraining, from impulsively responding with bluster, bombast, and chauvinistic bumptiousness when his buttons are pushed,
regardless of the validity of the stimulus.
Trump, whose narcissism is second to no one's, is devoid of the introspective humility contemplated by the axiom "Fool me once,
shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"; his ego will not process the possibility that he can ever be fooled.
Alas! Trump is definitely a "Threaten first and ask questions later" kind of guy.
Thanks for the report b. I was surfing the net as I prepared a meal and saw that the BBC is pushing this hard.
The BBC is even writing about the April chemical weapon scam as being added proof.....sad
The elite keep trying to start a war with anyone to keep the focus off their failure as the "leaders of the free world" BS.
When are the elite going to realize their temper tantrums aren't working?
I hope they don't get their shooting war and I hope their economic war provides their final undoing.....think of the waste
of human and other resources over the past 70 years.....let alone the centuries that the private finance/property scam has been
going on.
Still, Ard-Tagesschau says the following (originally in German): "In the battles for the Syrian rebel stronghold Duma, chlorine
gas was apparently used in April. The OPCW found traces of this in gas cylinder residues."
Sure enough I agree with you B, but
for the MSM the OPCW report reads different.
They cannot admit everything was staged. And the report is not at all clear,
so anyone can give it the desired spin.
"The OPCW found traces of this in gas cylinder residues." Claiming that the OPCW found "traces of chlorine" is like claiming one
found "traces of oxygen" or "traces of hydrogen" when one found water (H2O).
The occurrence of a basic element in a compound
is not a "trace" of the basic element. That's chemistry 001. Journalists nowadays seem to lack most basics of higher education.
They didn't find anything relevant. See Appendix 3 of the report. There's no mention of traces of chlorine which I would
find hard to believe anyway, they refer to chloride Cl- as in NaCl (table salt) or organic chlorides, of which they do name at
least one.
What to expect from the 'Tagesschau' - same old, same old. They're making stuff up again, almost certainly out of willful ignorance
and bias.
@6 b
I figure it's even worse than that. They're not even asking the most basic question: Am I a competent person?
My guess is a great many of these folks avoid asking that question on purpose.
It would seem that a common (and deliberate) ploy used by the MSM these days is to use journalists with no particular knowledge,
experience or insight in an area to write articles that need that knowledge or experience.
The Guardian employs Olivia Solon, a digital journalist (whose specialty is in writing about and recommending particular
IT consumer hardware or software products) based in California, with no knowledge or access to knowledge about Syria, its politics
or history, to write an article defending the White Helmets and defame the investigative journalists Eva Bartlett and Vanessa
Beeley. That practice seems to be par for the course for The Guardian and other print and online newspapers.
Plus The Guardian and others rely on dubious sources like Bellingcat and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, whose credentials
are laughable at best, as "experts" in their chosen areas of reporting.
All the Western MSM are now entirely driven by the pursuit of sales revenue and profit and are now no different from outlets
peddling entertainment. No surprise really when news media outlets are now owned by the same individuals or corporations that
own film studios, TV stations, online media and TV channels, book and comics publishers, and games publishers.
Jen @8. Great point on the strategy of using "journalists" with no background in the topic they're tasked to 'report."
And yes, the corporate MSM is definitely profit-driven. When "news" was separate from "entertainment," there was some free
press possible, but once they were combined, any imaginary wall between sponsors and newscasters was removed.
Still, considering who owns the MSM, I'd say their main purpose is not to sell commercials, but to sell the most profitable
"products" of their owners.
Here in the US, CBS was founded by William Paley, who had been in charge of radio propaganda for the US Army Office of
Psychological Warfare. CBS was owned by Westinghouse, which became the world's largest military contractor during WW II.
NBC was owned by GE, which was also one of the largest military contractors in the world.
Neither CBS and NBC ever generated even 5% of their parent companies revenues. The real profits were in consumer products
and war. And so, not just their news, but all of their programming promoted world views that encouraged consumption and war.
Almost all reporters covering international news are working for the various government and private intelligence agencies/think
tanks and many domestic reporters as well.
This has been the case for over 50 years if not a century. Many of the critical reports are likely written by the agencies/think
tanks. Many CIA interns work at MSM for example and reporters are recruited as early as college if not high school through thr
corporate government education system.
Everyone likes to supplement their income and many are convinced its their patriotic duty to disseminate propaganda. For some
its a chance to join the elite class, even at a low level. Obviously getting the 6-8 corporate entities that own 80% of the media
to go along is not difficult especially as those who go rogue will be punished by members of the business roundtable responsible
for most advertising , which would of course dry up as punishment
Now monitoring the internet and social media with big data analytics allows almost Total Information Awareness. They can see
in real time whats working and to what extent and what is not. They can then fill holes or modify the story as needed. They know
they dont need to get 100% believability. This is why they have not shut down dissenting comments. They are useful, for now.
I suspect some of the stupidest staged events are just experiments to monitor how many people will simply buy anything. At
some point they will feel confident enough to simulate an alien invasion of beings capable of taking human form. This will necessitate
martial law which thw fearful will gladly accept, and a global governement led by the countries with the largest space force.
Funny how the US still needs Russian Rockets to launch satellites so its Space Force has a way to go yet. I guess I wont be around
for the fun since time is not a friend of old men
Regarding comments of journalists, the problem may not always be with them. There have been countless discussions on the influence
of intelligence agencies. Most people would choose to do the right thing when given the choice. However, if the choices are following
orders or "suicide by nailgun", most people would choose to live another day.
Speaking of experiments to monitor how many people will believe anything, some good claims from the MSM come to mind: 40% of
North Koreans are on crystal meth, the Russians killed the last clown in Aleppo, and the Breatharians (people who purportedly
survive on only air and sunlight).
thanks b... unfortunately, i tend to see it much like what @8 jen says... these folks are unsure about their next pay check and
are happy to write with a chatham house /scl / cambridge analytica slant knowing what is expected of them.. they ask no questions
and are unwilling to articulate the false flags that have shaped all this discussion of opcw and chemical attacks in syria.. in
this respect i also agree with @5 pnyx... they are unwilling or unable to raise these questions for fear of dismissal.. more and
more people recognize what a poor state the msm is in today.. that is my hope anyway..
b said:"One hopes that Trump has learned from this episode and will in future refrain from violent threats over incidents for
which no plausible and vetted evidence is provided."
Unfortunately, probably no one here in the land of theater, will ever hear about this report. As to DJT, he'll do whatever
it takes to enhance his appearance with the morons. His learning curve only bends toward his own enhancement. To him and his minions,
truth doesn't matter...
There's unlikely to be any real investigative journalism regarding opcw reports, considering the papers in uk are owned by mega
millionaires who profit from war and the Middle East land grab.oil ect. Plus the owners featured largely in the off shore tax
haven leaks- relavent here not so much regarding tax, but what that hidden money is invested in, Gun running, slave labour, buying
rebels? It's a small world, media moguls own it.
The British-created Anglo-American funded black propaganda organisation, the so-called White Helmets were the primary source
for the claims of Sarin use by the SAG in Douma. In as just world, the White Helmets as proven liars would now become international
pariahs. That they will still be hailed as heroes in the West and western MSM so just how sick the West and western MSM really
are. Perhaps now that the OPCW is free to cast blame for "chemical weapons incidents", they should name and shame the United Kingdom
for its black propaganda.
Thanks Bevin @ 16
I do follow that site, but had'nt looked recently. Really Good, no doubt your aware of 'the canary ' good article on this subject!
Both sites I recommend to one and all.
When the White Helmets and the rebels staged the 'Douma' chemical attack they were probably expecting that Douma would not
be liberated and that no serious inspection would take place to debunk the 'fake' attack. That was bad luck for them. Contrary
to the other chemical "attacks" locations, an inspection on location has taken place early enough and the masks may be falling.
Your early call that the MSM would go with the chlorine findings to support the attack is proving true across the board --
there is not a chance that an admission of having been mistaken is going to happen.
james @13 I think it's clearly true, not just a hope, that fewer and fewer people take the media seriously. Those who still watch
mainstream and cable 'news' programs are a pretty small minority, and the MSNBC/FOX side of that is probably acknowledged even
by most of its consumers, as 'my side' comfort food rather than 'news' as we used to understand it.
The media's lock-step Western-Empire perspective _is_ frightening, but we also need to remember recent election results that
have gone against the empire's wishes. Just a couple days ago in Mexico, for example. Real alternative and real (whether socialist,
left, right, or libertarian) populist media is having an impact, I think, and we may be able to turn things around in the West
before the next world wars start.
Vanessa Beeley interviewed at least two witnesses who - seeing that the government forces were about to liberate Hamouriya
village in Douma from the terrorists under whose control they had suffered for 6 years and thereby feeling empowered - on 6th
March at 3pm decided to publicly protest against the terrorists by marching through Hamouriya carrying Syrian national flags.
They were met by members of the White Helmets and the terrorists, who blamed them explicitly for ruining their chemical weapons
false flag.
Critically importantly, the White Helmets had already released news for the claimed false flag that morning and the night before,
and they had already collected 30 dead bodies from all over Douma and brought them to the hospital, and had already started filming.
The protest critically negated the propaganda message of the false flag chemical attack - if the Syrian Army had really been
dropping chemical weapons on Hamouriya the night before with intent to kill civilian women and children, why would the civilians
immediately afterwards start marching through the city carrying Syrian national flags, and having raised the flag at key points
in the city? It makes the whole flase flag [even more] implausible. The White Helmets then wrapped one hostage in a Syrian flag
and shot him dead as a warning. Fortunately the two witnesses interviewed (and hopefully most of the protesters) were able to
escape soon afterwards with the help of the nearby Syrian Army.
The White Helmets specifically stated that the protesters had ruined their chemical attack and ruined their communications
with the UN, and that the Americans would not come to their assistance because of it. This incident explains important aspects
of the false flag:
1) So close to impending defeat, the terrorists were really desperate to induce the Americans to save them, and really
believed they would do so;
2) Having already announced the false flag the previous night and having collected so many dead bodies in preparation, the
existence of the protest creates a credibility problem for the terrorists and White Helmets, to which they seem to have responded
with various conflicting signals;
3) In particular, the conflicting signals given out by the MI6 proxies SOHR I would read as a damage limitation act specifically
in response to the civilian protest;
4) It would appear that MI6 feared news of this protest would be spread, so that they needed to protect their proxies.
Unfortunately, despite this information being published by Vanessa Beeley, I haven't seen any other mention of it. The
protesters endangered their lives by this protest, at least one of them [or another hostage? - this is not clear] was shot dead
for it, and all of them were sentenced to death. They deserve due publicity for it and it is really important to an understanding
of the incident as a whole.
Bernhardt, I hope you will update the article above to include some of Vanessa Beeley's reporting on this incident.
Bernhardt, I am afraid I don't share your apparent confidence in this OPCW report. It is far too little and lopsided after
months of investigation, and appears to be designed to test the waters for a decision confirming that chlorine was used as a weapon,
and to coordinate with the MSM to prepare the ground for such a decision. In that case, the MSM reaction to the report is highly
consistent with such an objective.
Why did the the report make no caveats about the chlorine compounds, why did they include no data about concentrations,
why did they emphasise the chain of custody of the (probably trivial) chrorine compound samples (and only those samples), why
no information on witness testimony, why no mention of the witness testimony in the Hague, why mention (totally irrelevant) testimony
of alleged witnesses in Turkey and biological samples taken in Turkey for which no plausible chain of custody exists?
Posted by: V | Jul 7, 2018 12:36:26 AM | 25 Finally, straight shooting from the OPCW.
About time...
This report is a scandal, an outrage. This report itself is a false flag, it is designed to appease those observers who
know the incident was a false flag by using carefully ambiguous wording, while preparing the ground for a full-blown 99% dishonest
and 100% misleading report condemning the Syrian government.
The correct response to this report is very loud and active and persistent protest against it.
The Russians should make very strongly worded complaints and criticisms about it both at the OPCW and at the UN (maybe they
have, I wouldn't know).
So, following your logic (which I mostly agree); what value/good are elections?
None, near as I can tell.
Time for something new?
But then I digress; what to do about false flag chemo attacks?
If the OPCW can no longer be trusted; then what? The U.S. has done an admirable job of destroying trust between countries.
żHas anyone here read Peter Ford's piece on OPCW? I believe it fits somewhere in the discussion. Unfortunate this choir is so
small. Keep writing and Protest Loudly!
Hi Nice article, however I tend to disagree partially on the last part, the US administration and the alleged rebels are two
faces of the same coins, rebels are funded by the administration from various sources and they acr in response to commands from
it, see the southern command operations where this approach of command was openly divulged by various reports and accounts. The
reason for the Administration to get into Syria was to further weaken the middle eastern countries for a specific and obvious
reason, and each strike and wall destroyed goes into this direction..the bigger picture explains it all..
... to clarify , every "regime" that threatens Israel openly is to be brought down ... Libya, Iraq,, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Iran
, Egypt's Nasser and the list goes on..
"Yesterday the OPCW reported that, contrary to US and UK assertions in the UN security council, there was no nerve agent attack
on jihadist-held Douma by the Syrian government, precisely as Robert Fisk was execrated by the entire media establishment for
pointing out. The OPCW did find some traces of chlorine compounds, but chlorine is a very commonly used element and you have traces
of it all over your house.
The US wants your chicken chlorinated. The OPCW said it was "Not clear" if the chlorine was weaponised, and it is plain to
me from a career in diplomacy that the almost incidental mention is a diplomatic sop to the UK, US and France, which are important
members of the OPCW.
"Trump's reaction to yet more lying claims by the UK government funded White Helmets and Syrian Observatory, a reaction of
missile strikes on alleged Syrian facilities producing the non-existent nerve agent, was foolish. May's leap for British participation
was unwise, and the usual queue of Blairites who stood up as always in Parliament to support any bombing action, stand yet again
exposed as evil tools of the military industrial complex.
"Hillary Clinton, true to form, wanted more aggressive military action than was undertaken by Trump. Hillary has been itching
to destroy Syria as she destroyed Libya. Libya was very much Hillary's war and – almost unreported by the mainstream media – NATO
bombers carried out almost 14,000 bombing sorties on Libya and devastated entire cities...."
If you put Murray, MoA, The Skwawkbox, Strategic Culture, Dissident Voice and a few of the better aggregators together you've
got a better Daily Newspaper than The Guardian or Le Monde ever was, far better.
By the way, unless I'm mistaken (it wouldn't be a first!) Ghandi was asked what he thought about Western Civilisation when
he replied that "It would be a good idea". It still is an idea worth looking into. It would look just like socialism.
@28 BM... i think it was daniel who left that link here at moa a few days ago.. i read it..
@29 BM.. i tend to agree with you, but see @6 b for more clarity...
@32 pft... it is my observation that the msm in the usa is so usa centric, they know shit about canada, or the rest of the
world.. i could be wrong, but that is my general view on what ''americans'' consume for news in the usa.. the indoctrination is
heavy.. i would like to think people like @33 V are the norm, but i mostly think people are tuned out of the news - excluding
the older generation - above 60 or 70 especially - who still consume the shit via the tv..
@41 mike.. in other words, the usa foreign policy is built around looking after israel.. most here at moa would agree with
that.. will the usa ever get it's head out of israels ass? one can hope, lol..
This one was real, but even the Aum Shinrikyo sect showed all those years ago how how difficult it is to pull off an effective
chemical weapons attack, requiring an enclosed space like the metro system. But that's never the point. Instilling mass fear and
panic, not to mention being 'news friendly' is what makes such attacks, sponsored proxy false-flag or not, so enduringly popular
. To borrow a well known ad phrase ' Once you pop, you can't stop '
Journalists nowadays seem to lack most basics of higher education. b.
Yes + they have zero comprehension of basic numbers. Amazing. (Nobody wants to read my exs..) Nowadays, they are not supposed
to have any knowledge whatsoever; they have become scribal hacks, merely write, film, show, expose, what they are told or do haphazard
copy-pasta.
They are bought servants, nah compradors, and their presence is completely useless (A.I. and some guidance, input from above
by 7 -say- very smart ppl would do the job faster and cheaper, for the whole W world) they are actors whose function is to pretend
that a 'fourth estate' is necessary to uncover facts, inform the populace, air dissenting points of view, have debates, and so
on Lies.
Aware they are past their sell-date, one can smell the desperation. The reaction is to become more subservient, toe the line,
preserve what can be, become more in-groupy and shaft colleagues who might stray away from the prescribed hyper-rigid guide-lines.
Collectively, they have fantastic potential power and means of control (network savvy, present at the switches, etc.) but they
are so dumbed down and terrified of status and monetary loss they are like deer caught in the headlights, to stay on track they
secretly pray at dawn, conjure the fates, or whatever. The mansion with pool, the ginormous mortgage, Junior, etc. in the US.
In France, the monetary aspect is less vital; being excluded from the movers and shakers, the in-ppl, the heady, sexy, wonderful
Parisian life.. no.. no.. help
Part of how a 'post-truth' environment comes about. The other driver is the underlying aim, i.e. the imposition of one narrative
over another, the Rovian creation of realities which can only be managed by wielding power violent enough to make the 'other
- the people - the adversary' accept and bow down to the proffered narrative, and never object, call out the lies. Using this
template requires careful calculations which, it appears, have gone off kilter in the US.
Maybe one should consider that there were never any Chem-WMD attacks in Syria at all (pace Seymour Hersh, heh, but that is
a personal beef of mine..) - there are always limited hangout ppl who try to cobble up one narrative with another and make a living
out o that.
So far, I'm seeing BBC (as above), al Jazeera, ABC, Reuters, Qatar Tribune twisting the report to say it was a Chlorine attack.
PressTV, RT, and Sputnik News say the report clears SAA.
The latter is an absurd "virtual crime scene" in which crack reporters claim to prove that the Syrian government used chemical
weapons on their own people.
So, as expected, this latest OPCW report will have no effect on the establishment narrative. The good guys vs bad guys
scenario is the only approved version, and with no alternative versions being offered in the MSM, it is the one that the most
people will believe.
O k see if I can help, kind of kill or cure! The shock to us all may be to much ! There is no squirrel !
They made it up, yes I know it's kind of tuff !we all looked for a squirrel they distracted us. There was no people poisoned by
Russians in Salisbury, Amesbury the chlorine attack in Syria yes made up.What the tv and papers said was a lie, to program us
all like a laptop !!!
Whilst we were out squirrel huntin, they got through half of world 3 we never noticed. They formed a dictatorship. Sold all
your urban buildings services and council houses to one an other. And devalued us all by about 60% But i'l go easy for now. Couse
from there on things went down hill !!! Warm regards
By the way, I read somewhere recently that Chlorine rapidly degrades Sarin and therefore no one would use them together. But I
can't find the reference now. Can anybody help?
47. hrc = Bloodthirsty killer; sociopath coming out the gate. Likewise. POS. Trump was not a mass murderer until a couple months
in. Didn't take him long to join the club.
It would seem that a common (and deliberate) ploy used by the MSM these days is to use journalists with no particular knowledge,
experience or insight in an area to write articles that need that knowledge or experience.
I wonder if these "news reporters" were not selected based upon their "sex appeal" to a superior?
Posted by: Pft | @10
I suspect some of the stupidest staged events are just experiments to monitor how many people will simply buy anything.
I agree. These zany false flag events might be designed to map the approach to an asymptote .
(In analytic geometry, an asymptote (/ˈćsɪmptoʊt/) of a curve is a line such that the distance between
the curve and the line approaches zero as one or both of the x or y coordinates tends to infinite stupidity)
It used to be that the only things one could depend on were "death & taxes." Now of
course we must add to that list the very dependable presence of CIA / State Dept lies
parroted by MSM all over the West. Lies which are endlessly repeated in defiance of all
physical reality and often in direct opposition to actual events in the actual world we live
in.
From the Ukraine coup, to Russia-gate, to the "Assad's gassing his own people" regime
change propaganda, to the totally surreal Alice in Wonderland Skripnal poisoning nonsense in
the U.K, the Western MSM have been as dependable as the rising sun.
They can and do provide
fact-free, evidence-free reporting directly from the bowels of the deep state in support of
the neocolonial West, including unending support for the never ending resort to mass violence
the West relies upon to keep the rest of the planet subjugated -- just as it has for the last
500+ years.
In this article, we have attempted to identify the most censored stories of modern times in
Britain. We have asked the opinions of one of the most famous and celebrated journalists and
documentary film-makers of our time, a high-profile former Mi5 intelligence officer, an
investigative journalist with one of the most well-known climate-change organisations, a
veteran journalist of the Iraq war, an ex-army officer, along with the head of one of the
worlds largest charities working against injustice.
One comment from our eclectic group of experts said; "the UK has the most legally protected
and least accountable intelligence agencies in the western world so even in just that field
competition is fierce, let alone all the other cover-ups."
So true have we found this statement to be that we've had to split this article into two
categories – military and non-military, with a view that we may well categorise
surveillance and privacy on its own another time.
Without further ado – here are the most non-military censored stories in Britain since
the 1980s, in no particular order. Do bear in mind that for those with inquisitive minds, some
of these stories you will have read something about somewhere – but to the majority of
citizens, these stories will read like conspiracy theories.
Consequences of American corporate influence over British welfare reforms
The demolition of the welfare state was first suggested in 1982 by the Conservative Prime
Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Using neoliberal politics, every UK government since 1982 has
covertly worked towards that goal. It is also the political thinking used as justification for
the welfare reforms of the New Labour government, which introduced the use of the Work
Capability Assessment (WCA) for all out-of-work disability benefit claimants. Neoliberal
politics also justified additional austerity measures introduced by the Coalition government
since 2010, and the Conservative government(s) since 2015, which were destined to cause
preventable harm when disregarding the human consequences. Much of this is known and in the
public domain.
However, what is less known is a story the government have tried
very hard to gag . The American healthcare insurance system of disability denial was
adopted, as was the involvement of a US healthcare company to distance the government from the
preventable harm created by its use. The private sector was introduced on a wide scale in many
areas of welfare and social policy as New Labour adopted American social and labour market
policies – and the gravity of its effects cannot be understated.
The result? In one 11 month study 10,600 deaths were attributed to the government disability
denial system of screening, with 2,200 people dying before the ESA assessment was even
completed. Between May 2010 and February 2014, an astonishing total of
40,680 people died within 12 months of going through a government Work Capability
Assessment. The government department responsible has since refused to publish updated
mortality totals.
This political and social scandal has been censored, with the author of
THIS truly damning report in trouble with the government for publishing it.
Climate Change, what a British oil giant knew all along
For decades, tobacco companies buried evidence that smoking was deadly, the same goes for
the fossil fuel industry. As early as 1981, big oil company Shell was aware of the causes and
catastrophic dangers of climate change. In the 1980s it was acknowledging with its own research
that anthropogenic global warming was a fact. Then, as the scientific consensus became more and
more clear, it started introducing doubt and giving weight to a "significant minority" of
"alternative viewpoints" as the full implications for the company's business model became
clear.
By the mid-90s, the company started talking about "distinguished scientists" that cast
aspersions of the seriousness of climate change.
THIS REPORT provides proof of Shell's documentation including emails of what they knew and
what they were hiding from the public domain. One document in 1988 confirms that: "By the time
the global warming becomes detectable it could be too late to take effective countermeasures to
reduce the effects or even stabilise the situation."
It was not until 2007 that scientific research eventually took a grip of the problem and
proved what was known all along. However, as Shell did say – it's probably too late to
take effective countermeasures now anyway. There is still persistent quoting of climate science
deniers by the fossil fuel industries.
Government Surveillance
In 2016, the UK was identified as the most
extreme surveillance state in the Western world. However, legislation really only came
about to legalise its use because of the Edward Snowden revelations in 2013. Prior to that, the
British government had created a secret 360-degree mass surveillance architecture that no-one,
including most members of parliament, knew anything about. And much of it has since been deemed
illegal by the highest courts in both Britain and the European Union.
From operation Optic Nerve which took millions of sexually explicit images of an unknowing
public through their devices to a hacking operation called Gemalto – where GCHQ stole the
keys to a global encryption system with 700 million subscribers. The unaccountable spymasters
of the UK have undertaken breathtaking operations of illegality with absolute impunity.
Some other programmes included; Three Smurfs
– an operation to turn on any mobile device so it could listen to or activate the camera
covertly on mobile phones. XKeyScore was basically a Google search engine for spies to find any
data about anyone. Upstream and Tempora hacked into the worlds main cable highway, intercepting
everything and anything globally with a leaked presentation slide from GCHQ on this programme
expressly stating they were intent on "Mastering the Internet". Royal Concierge identified diplomatic
hotel reservations so GCHQ could organise a surveillance operation against dignitaries either
domestic or foreign, in advance.
In truth, Britain is classed as an endemic surveillance state and right now, we only know
what has been uncovered by whistleblowers. This is why people like Julian Assange, Edward
Snowden and others are nothing less than political prisoners of Western governments. They don't
want you to know what they know about you. They also don't want you to know about them, which
is why the architecture is there in the first place. It is not for catching terrorists because
if it was the courts would not deem these surveillance systems as illegal.
Evidence-Based Medical Studies
Over the last few years, medical professionals have come forward to share a truth that, for
many people, proves difficult to swallow. One such authority is Dr. Richard Horton, the current
editor-in-chief of the Lancet – considered to be one of the most well respected
peer-reviewed medical journals in the world.
"The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps
half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid
exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for
pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards
darkness."
Across the pond, Dr
Marcia Angell , a physician and longtime Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal
(NEMJ), which is also considered another one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical
journals in the world, makes her view of the subject quite plain:
"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published
or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no
pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an
editor of the New England Journal of Medicine".
Many newspapers in Britain take the opportunity to indulge in some shameless click baiting
and report completely false stories simply to gain visitor numbers onto their website –
as in this example by the Mail Online HERE
or
HERE.
The Skripal poisoning and Pablo Millar
D-notice's (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice) are used by the British state to
censor the publication of potentially damaging news stories. They are issued to the mainstream
media to withhold publication of damaging information. One such case was the widespread use of
D-notices regarding the British ex-spy deeply involved in the Skripal/Novichok poisoning case
in Salisbury.
Mainstream journalists, the press and broadcast media were issued with D-notices in respect
of a former British intelligence officer called Pablo Miller. Miller was an associate of
Christopher Steele, first in espionage operations in Russia and more recently in the activities
of Steele's private intelligence firm,
Orbis Business Intelligence .
Steele was responsible for compiling the Trump–Russia dossier, comprising 17 memos
written in 2016 alleging misconduct and conspiracy between Donald Trump's presidential campaign
and the Putin administration. The dossier paid for by the Democratic Party, claimed that Trump
was compromised by evidence of his sexual proclivities (golden shower anyone?) in Russia's
possession. Steele was the subject of an earlier D-notice, which unsuccessfully attempted to
keep his identity as the author of the dossier a secret.
Millar is reported to be Skripal's handler in Salisbury and if Miller and by extension,
Skripal himself were involved in Orbis' work on the highly-suspect Steele-Trump dossier, which
is thought to be the case (for all sorts of reasons – including these D-notices)
alongside representatives of British and possibly US intelligence, then the motivations for the
attempted assassination on the ex-Russian double agent was very wide at best. As it turned out,
blame could not be pinned on Russia's intelligence service, the FSB, no matter how hard the
government tried. This particular part of the Skripal poisoning story remains buried by the
mainstream media.
The City of London – A global crime scene
For over a hundred years the Labour party tried in vain to abolish the City of London and
its accompanying financial corruption. In 1917, Labour's new rising star Herbert Morrison, the
grandfather of Peter Mandelson made a stand and failed, calling it the "devilry of modern
finance." And although attempt after attempt was made throughout the following decades, it was
Margaret Thatcher who succeeded by abolishing its opponent, the Greater London Council in
1986.
Tony Blair went about it another way and offered to reform the City of London in what turned
out to be a gift from God. He effectively gave the vote to corporations which swayed the
balance of democratic power away from residents and workers. It was received by its opponents
as the greatest retrograde step since the peace treaty of 1215, Magna Carta. The City won its
rights through debt financing in 1067, when William the Conqueror acceded to it and ever since
governments have allowed the continuation of its ancient rights above all others.
The consequence? It now stands as money
launderer of the world , the capital of global crime scene with Britain referred to by the
global criminal fraternity to be the most corrupt country in the world.
A 'watchman' sits at the high table of parliament and is its official
lobbyist sitting in the seat of power right next to the Speaker of the House who is
"charged with ensuring that its established rights are safeguarded." The job is to seek out
political dissent that might arise against the City.
The City of London has its own private funding and will 'buy-off' any attempt to erode its
powers – any scrutiny of its financial affairs are put beyond external inspection or
audit. It has it's own police force – and laws. Its dark and shadowy client list
includes; terrorists, drug barons, arms dealers, despots, dictators, shady politicians,
corporations, millionaires and billionaires – most with something to hide. The shocking
Panama Papers, Paradise Papers and Lux Leaks barely scratching the surface
even with their almost unbelievable revelations of criminality.
Keith Bristow Director-General of the UK's National Crime Agency
said in June 2015 that the sheer scale of crime and its subsequent money laundering
operations was "a serious strategic threat to Britain." And whilst much of this activity is
indeed published – the scale of it is not. It is now believed by many investigative
journalists that the City of London is managing "trillions in ill-gotten gains" – not
billions as we have all been told.
State propaganda – manipulating minds, controlling the internet
Reading this you would think this was the stuff of a conspiracy theory – sadly, it's
not. The government, through its spying agent GCHQ developed its own set of software tools to
infiltrate the internet to shape what people see, hear and read, with the ability to rig online
polls and psychologically manipulate people on social media. This was what Glenn Greenwald of
The Intercept confirmed through the Snowden files in 2014. It was not about surveillance
but about manipulating public opinion in ever more Orwellian ways.
These 'tools' now constitute some of the most startling methods of propaganda delivery
systems and internet deception programmes known to mankind. What the Snowden files show are
that the government can change the outcome of online polls (codenamed Underpass), send mass
delivery of emails or SMS messages (Warpath) at will, disrupt video-based websites (Silverlord)
and have tools to permanently disable PC accounts. They can amplify a given message to push a
chosen narrative (GESTATOR), increase traffic to any given website" (GATEWAY) and have the
ability to inflate page views on websites (SLIPSTREAM). They can crash any website (PREDATORS
FACE), reduce page views and distort public responses, spoof any email account and telephone
calls they like. Visitors to WikiLeaks are tracked and monitored as if an inquiring mind is now
against the law.
Don't forget, the government has asked no-one for permission to do any of this and none of
this has been debated in parliament where representative democracy is supposed to be taking
place. There is no protective legislation for the general public and no-one is talking about or
debating these illegal programmes that taxpayers have been given no choice to fund –
costing billions. This is government sponsored fake news and public manipulation programmes on
a monumental scale.
Chris Huhne, a former cabinet minister and member of the national security council until
2012 said – "when it comes to the secret world of GCHQ, the depth of my 'privileged
information' has been dwarfed by the information provided by Edward Snowden to The
Guardian."
The Guardian's offices were then visited by MI5 and the Snowden files were ordered to be
destroyed under threats that if they didn't, it would be closed down – a sign of
British heavy-handedness reminiscent of the East-German Stasi.
Censorship – Spycatcher
'Spycatcher' was a truly candid autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer published in
1987. Written by Peter Wright, a former MI5 officer, it was published first in Australia after
being banned by the British government in 1985. Its allegations proved too much for the
authorities to allow it to be in the public domain.
In an interesting twist of irony, the UK government attempted to halt the book's Australian
publication. Malcolm Turnbull, current Prime Minister of Australia, was a lawyer at the time
and represented the publisher that defeated the British government's suppression orders against
Spycatcher in Australia in September 1987, and again on appeal in June 1988. This is the same
man that refuses to assist Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, from his hellhole existence
in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
The book details plans of the MI6 plot to assassinate Egyptian President Nasser during the
Suez Crisis; of joint MI5-CIA plotting against British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and of
MI5's eavesdropping on high-level Commonwealth conferences. Wright also highlights the methods
and ethics of the spying business.
Newspapers printed in England, attempting proper reportage of Spycatcher's principal
allegations were served gag orders. If they continued, they were tried for contempt of court.
However, the book proved so popular many copies were smuggled into England. In 1987, the Law
Lords again barred reportage of Wright's allegations or sale of books.
The ruling was then overturned, but Wright was barred from receiving royalties from the sale
of the book in the United Kingdom. In November 1991, the European Court of Human Rights ruled
that the British government had breached the European Convention of Human Rights in gagging its
own newspapers. The book has sold more than two million copies. In 1995, Wright died a
millionaire from proceeds of his book.
Censorship – The Internet
To the inquisitive and knowledgeable, censorship of the internet by the British government
is not news. In addition, there have been many reports, especially from independent outlets
complaining about search engines and social media platforms censoring oppositional and
dissenting voices.
Already described earlier in this article is the involvement of the authorities in
strategies to manipulate public opinion and disseminate false narratives in their aims for
control of the internet itself.
A few months ago, the government changed the law to block online content deemed as either
pornographic or of an extremist nature to protect those under 16 years of age. It was
anticipated that approximately 50 websites would be banned altogether. What subsequently
happened was that thousands of websites
disappeared from the internet with no court orders, injunctions, notices or justification.
Even finding out which websites are on that list is a secret.
Over time, like many pieces of legislation that has been abused by the state, websites and
online content that the government of the day does not like will have the perfect tool to
simply press the 'delete' button, pretty much as they have already started doing.
Soon after the Second World War, some of America's richest people began setting up
a
network of thinktanks to promote their interests. These purport to offer dispassionate
opinions on public affairs. But they are more like corporate lobbyists, working on behalf of
those who founded and fund them. These are the organisations now running much of the
Trump administration . These same groups are now running much of Britain. Liam Fox and what
was the Atlantic Bridge and the
Adam Smith Institute are good examples.
They have control of the Conservative party and are largely responsible for years of work
that steered Britain through the EU referendum that ended with Brexit. Tens of £millions
have been spent, mostly undisclosed on making this dream to exploit Britain and its people a
reality. In fact, almost everything in this article is about such organisations. Those hugely
powerful individuals that own search engines and social media platforms along with the banking
industry, the pharmaceutical and medical business, the fossil fuel and arms industries –
they have reached a pinnacle of unprecedented corporate power.
Some of those fully censored stories pushed below the radar by these corporations include;
how over 100,000
EU citizens die every year because of lobbying against workplace carcinogens, how
corporate profits and taxes are hidden, the Tory-Trump plan to
kill food safety with Brexit – to name but a few. And don't forget the corporate
media who are complicit. There are a handful of offshore billionaires that have the ability to
decide what millions should read or see.
The Adam Smith Institute referred to earlier is a good example. It is a mouthpiece for
right-wing extreme neoliberal capitalists. With a turnover of over £130 million and an
operating profit of nearly £17 million, it has received millions of pounds in UK
government funding. That is taxpayers money being used against taxpayers because the ASI does
not believe in the likes of the NHS or civil society in general.
Talking of Dark Money – Brexit and the climate deniers
We recently reported about a
transatlantic network of lobbyists pushing against action on climate change and (latterly)
for Brexit? This group are all based out of one building around the corner from the Palace of
Westminster.
What is much less known is that more recently, these
groups have
lobbied for a Hard Brexit , hoping the UK's withdrawal from the EU will lead to a weakening
of those environmental regulations that hinder future profits. These same groups are also
behind the Tory-DUP pact , currently keeping Theresa May in her job while allowing
hard-line Northern Irish social conservatives to dictate significant parts of the UK's
political agenda, themselves climate change deniers. These are just some of Britain's most
censored stories. There are so many of them that we have had to categorise them, which says
something about how democracy, free speech, civil liberty and human rights are performing in
Britain right now. truepublica.org.uk
"... she's following the lead of the UK's evil intelligence agencies which are waging a psychological and economic war on Russia and Putin just because the oligarchs in the West don't like Putin doing good things for Russia. ..."
On behalf of this side of the pond, I would like to formally apoligize for calling Mr.
Blair, Mr. Bush's poodle. I am also certain that Ms. Skripal, sorry Ms. May, with her fiery
independence, is nobody's poodle either.
Tom , July 5, 2018 at 5:42 am
R U kidding me? Ms. May is a poodle for the UK's intelligence agencies i.e. MI5 and MI6.
The swift movement of her to get on board with the totally discredited blaming of Novichok
and Putin/Russia for the nerve agent attack on the Skripals means she is very evil -- she's
following the lead of the UK's evil intelligence agencies which are waging a psychological
and economic war on Russia and Putin just because the oligarchs in the West don't like Putin
doing good things for Russia.
"... Joe Mifsud is the key to the path that leads all the way through MI6 and back to Hillary Clinton and the 'permanent state'. Take a peek. ..."
"... Nothing was permissable, that is, that might impede the deep state's pursuit of world hegemony. ..."
"... The procedure used was the same as that used in 2003 – most likely because the order to prepare it was an Executive, not an Intelligence Community decision. That's what they're trying to keep under wraps, and that's why Rosenstein is stonewalling Congress. ..."
"... Those of the US elite pushing this steaming load of a propaganda campaign (and a really scurrilous one the latest is), for all their learning and experience, are either incredibly stupid or just plain psychotic. ..."
"... Thank you for a very informative piece. You are clearly a diplomat. Only a diplomat could refrain from saying: And the most important politician in the country, the President, completely and utterly failed in his obligation to exercise critical judgement of the advice that he had been given and foolishly and dangerously imposed sanctions on a nuclear equal based on this political hit job of an analysis which hasn't been shot down in flames only by virtue of an incessant invocation of classification. ..."
"... The only more amazing thing is that the US government has been so monumentally stupid that it has kept the sanctions in place even though the basis for the sanctions has been thoroughly discredited. ..."
"... I recall Jack Matlock relating the following anecdote; right around the dissolution of the USSR, the Soviet ambassador to the UN told Matlock, "This will be bad for us, but worse for you. We've just taken away your best enemy." ..."
"... They also overestimated the power of the media, which traditionally has had much sway over which neoliberal candidate gets elected President. Turns out that said industry has gradually lost the public trust over time, which condition happened to reach a critical mass at any inconvenient juncture. ..."
Thank you John Matlock The fraud of this allegation has been apparent from day one. The
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein started this witch hunt and Sessions permits him to
continue. The stone walling of Congress is an insult to everyone watching. Yet the farce
continues. It seems Rod Rosenstein is the president of the permanent state and Trump is a
token president of the yankee snake oil corporation.
Please USA the world is weary of the permanent state script and hollywood movie based on
the farce. Is Sessions a protected species or just a convenient foil while the Awans,
Clintons, Comeys, Wasserman-Shultz team run past the statute of limitations finish line?
Trump is a failure on this most important measure. He might fool Kim Jong Un (or vice versa)
but he doesn't fool the world.
Joe Mifsud is the key to the path that leads all the way through MI6 and back to Hillary
Clinton and the 'permanent state'. Take a peek.
jacobo , July 4, 2018 at 12:33 am
After the Nov'16 election when Hillary Clinton, instead of acknowledging that she alone
was to blame for her defeat (what with, among her other mistakes, her labeling a segment of
the working class' as deplorables) resorted to attributing said defeat to Russian/Putin
interference in America's "sacred" electoral system.
Clearly, thereby, she was signaling that
her post-defeat game would consist of nothing but scapegoating.
Soon thereafter, though, as
the deep state joined the hate Russia/Putin chorus, it was apparent that this scapegoating
had as much to do with preventing Donald Trump from making good on his promises, however
vague, to improve US-Russian relations + getting our nation out of the business of regime
changing.
Nothing was permissable, that is, that might impede the deep state's pursuit of
world hegemony. Subsequent events re: government hearings along with democratic party
politics and MSM coverage of same have only confirmed, not only that the above initial
observations were correct, but that the scapegoating is aimed not only at maintaining the
status quo vis-a-vis US foreign policy, but to prevent any leftward shift in the Democratic
Party – that the duopoly be preserved. .
F. G. Sanford , July 3, 2018 at 9:23 pm
The procedure used was the same as that used in 2003 – most likely because the order
to prepare it was an Executive, not an Intelligence Community decision. That's what they're
trying to keep under wraps, and that's why Rosenstein is stonewalling Congress. I suspect
that James Clapper has nothing to worry about. It wasn't his idea in the first place.
Joe Tedesky , July 3, 2018 at 10:47 pm
F.G. are you saying the order came down from the president (Obama)? Joe
Sorry for the repeated posts, but this is a significant issue for me. Since 1990, when we had
the perfect opportunity to cement a bilateral relationship with Russia (maybe even one of
those "special" ones the UK, Germany, Japan, and Israel love reminding everyone of), the US
has done nothing but pull this kind of petty, mean spirited BS when all Russia has been after
is peaceful, profitable coexistence.
Those of the US elite pushing this steaming load of a propaganda campaign (and a really
scurrilous one the latest is), for all their learning and experience, are either incredibly
stupid or just plain psychotic. Eff them and the preening mandarins posing as national news
outlets.
I agree with all the statements in this analysis. And so far, what Mueller has put together does not come close to the charges he was
supposed to investigate. Maybe he will later. But why is it taking so long? He has been in business for over a year
now.
Jeff Harrison , July 3, 2018 at 7:44 pm
Thank you for a very informative piece. You are clearly a diplomat. Only a diplomat could
refrain from saying: And the most important politician in the country, the President,
completely and utterly failed in his obligation to exercise critical judgement of the advice
that he had been given and foolishly and dangerously imposed sanctions on a nuclear equal
based on this political hit job of an analysis which hasn't been shot down in flames only by
virtue of an incessant invocation of classification.
The only more amazing thing is that the
US government has been so monumentally stupid that it has kept the sanctions in place even
though the basis for the sanctions has been thoroughly discredited.
robjira , July 3, 2018 at 7:31 pm
I recall Jack Matlock relating the following anecdote; right around the dissolution of the
USSR, the Soviet ambassador to the UN told Matlock, "This will be bad for us, but worse for
you. We've just taken away your best enemy."
DFC , July 3, 2018 at 7:52 pm
MBOB, I used to hate Fox News, which I thought was a lunatic screech-fest against
anything Obama did, even when it was reasonable. I am not saying everything Obama did was
reasonable, but Fox portrayed everything he did in the worst possible light. As far as
Breitbart was concerned, I had not even heard of that organization until after the 2016
election. The way I ran into Breitbart was when I was trying to sort out why every single
reputable news agency that I was reading said HRC was going to be the next President and then
I read that there was one that reported the opposite (Breitbart). So, I guess the question I
asked myself was: am I going to continue to read news sources that got the 2016 presidential
election so wrong, or start to read Breitbart? And what else were they getting wrong? So, the
first week I was on Breitbart, they were talking Trump's "movement" and how it was related to
Brexit (no clue who Nigel Farage was at the tine) and how big Trump's crowd sizes had been at
his rallies. I was literally blindsided by all this; being a regular consumer of WaPo, CNN,
NYT, etc, I felt like I was totally left in the dark. Breitbart actually informed me about
what really happened and what was going on (how the world was undergoing a populist
revolution) vs having to swallow the idea that Putin and a bunch of xenophobic misogynistic
racists had taken over the United States. I finally gave up entirely on my old news sources
when time after time something I read in them would be debunked 3 days later (why spend all
those reading hours to become informed when I was being misinformed?). Anyway, I still have
not warmed up to Fox News entirely (if it were not for Tucker Carlson, it would be hard to
tune in at all, and I suppose Hannity has been right about Trump-Russia but he is so far over
the top ) and that is how I drifted here to Consortium News.
*I am not saying Breitbart is a balanced source of news, but can be indispensable at
times.
David G , July 3, 2018 at 5:55 pm
I've read elsewhere as well that the State Department's INR has historically yielded some
of the best intelligence analysis in the U.S. government. Perhaps not coincidentally, it also
lacks the big budget and swagger of the other agencies.
voteforno6 , July 3, 2018 at 5:52 pm
For me, the giveaway on this report was that half of it was boilerplate security tips, the
sorts of things that people see in their annual security training. It's almost like they were
writing a college paper, and had to hit a certain page count, so they included anything they
could.
Bill , July 3, 2018 at 5:26 pm
Yes the report is bad. I came to that conclusion just reading the contents. They didn't
have enough words to fill all of the pages. Now the question is, when is the GOP going to go
after Clapper for it?
mrtmbrnmn , July 3, 2018 at 5:15 pm
Intelligence Agencies "assessment" is weasel word for not exactly lying, just sayin'. The
MSM malpracticers, on the other hand, have decided, in the total absence of ANY evidence in
this long-running farcedy, to simply DECLARE their lies are truth. Paging George Orwell!! And furthermore: http://news.jornal.us/article-681288.-THE-REAL-PUTINGATE-.html
Zim , July 3, 2018 at 5:05 pm
Thanks for the info. This reinforces how corrupt the DNC/DLC/HRC cabal truly are.
Antiwar7 , July 3, 2018 at 4:55 pm
What a cogent, well-written piece. Shows a clear pattern of politically-motivated deception, implemented by a few appointees
at the top (of a few agencies). Plus, why did the FBI never request access to Hillary
Clinton's servers?
I hope Mr. Matlock becomes a frequent contributor. I think he has a lot more to say beyond
the subject he addresses.
John Kirsch , July 3, 2018 at 4:22 pm
Excellent article.
My understanding is that the FBI didn't examine the DNC computer that was allegedly
hacked.
I find that very curious.
John Neal Spangler , July 3, 2018 at 4:20 pm
It was a coup attempt and the FBI/CIA plotters must be held accountable if we are going to
regain a Democracy, instead of letting a few senile oligarchs dictate policy. Comey, Clapper,
Brennan and some lesser figures must go to prison for all the disturbance that Russiagate has
caused.
ranney , July 3, 2018 at 4:12 pm
Fabulous article with so much important info! THANK YOU!!!
But Ambassador Matlock, what took you so long??? Didn't it occur to you that we needed to
know this months ago?
Thank you for for finally sharing your very important expertise. And thanks to Ray McGovern
and Bill Binney for encouraging you to do so.
Sally Snyder , July 3, 2018 at 3:01 pm
As shown in this article, apparently it is not a two-way street when it comes to
Russian/American propaganda:
Washington has a very, very thin skin when it comes to outside nations criticisms of its
agenda.
jaycee , July 3, 2018 at 2:56 pm
There used to be a reasonably clear separation between objective news reporting and the
expression of opinion – i.e. in print, news and editorial opinion appeared in distinct
sections while on television there was hard news through the week and opinion and analysis on
the Sunday morning programs.
Fox News and right-wing talk radio was effectively responsible for clouding these
distinctions, presenting opinion (informed and uninformed) in a format usually understood as
factual reporting. It used to be a common observation fifteen years ago that Fox News viewers
cognitive understanding of objective reality diminished according to their degree of
consumption of the Fox product. (see the documentary film "Outfoxed"). But nowadays, most if
not all of the mainstream/legacy/corporate news media operate using the Fox model whereby
factual reporting and opinion have dissolved into one another – and opinion becomes
fact without the consumer being quite aware of it. It has been a major step backwards
socially and politically, and a real eye-opener for those who once believed in the ever
upward trajectory of human progress.
Joe Tedesky , July 3, 2018 at 6:16 pm
Your comment jaycee should not go unnoticed. More Americans should study and contemplate
the dynamics of what you point to, as our news isn't at all news reporting in as much as our
news is slanted opinion based propaganda. This control method is why Robert Parry left the
MSM, so as he could inform the voter as to allow the voter to have the knowledge required to
make an informed decision . & here we are. Good comment. Joe
robjira , July 3, 2018 at 2:45 pm
I first became aware of Jack Matlock via an interview on Democracy Now. Somehow I don't
think Amy Goodman will be having him on again anytime soon to discuss this issue.
Democracy Now and Counterpunch have both shilled the CIA regime change propaganda aimed at
Syria. One expects such things from the NYT's and mainstream media, but I found this quite
amazing given both DN and Counterpunch used to be valuable "progressive sites." My suggestion
is that they consider combining forces. They could appropriately call the new joint venture
either: "Counter Democracy," or better yet, "Democracy Punch."
Realist , July 3, 2018 at 2:42 pm
The deep state figured that the much-loathed Trump was the perfect patsy for Hillary to
roll in the general election, so they didn't prevent him from getting the Republican
nomination, in fact, with the considerable aid of the mass media, they promoted his case. The
puppet masters in Washington, Arlington and Langley never believed for a moment that Hillary
would lose. They simply miscalculated on how much she, also, was hated by the public. They've
orchestrated a soft, slow motion coup attempt ever since their bubble was popped on election
night. What will happen to Trump is still uncertain, probably depending on how he continues
to dance to their tune and walk back every promise made during the campaign. What is certain
is that these shadows behind the scenes will never again allow an "outsider," someone they
did not create and entirely control, to receive the nomination of either major party ever
again.
Joe Tedesky , July 3, 2018 at 6:08 pm
Realist good to hear from you, and yes Trump was the decoy candidate whom Queen Hillary
would run over with a stampede of her voters, but whoops then there was the Electoral College
damn the details. There by with Hillary's surprising loss, all the long knives of the Deep
State were drawn to take down the orange haired tv reality star turned president down. Now, I
have a theory, and my theory all though it can be disputed, is that I believe Trump out did
his rivals with his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. With this honor so bestowed
upon the disruptive Zionist Trump rallied his Calvary to his rescue or something like
that.
Kick it around Realist. Joe
KiwiAntz , July 3, 2018 at 6:56 pm
Trump's a "useful idiot" as a President & as long as he dances to the Deepstate &
MIC tune, he will be left in place & not suffer the same fate as JFK! Trump's backdown of
his Election promises confirm that he has been totally bought & paid for, by his DS
masters & now follows that warmongering agenda of plunder for Elitist gain! Russiagate is
the biggest, Propagandist lie that has ever been proported as Truth, despite 2 yrs of zero
evidence & fabricated reports such as this latest nothingburger of a Intelligence Report!
But they have to keep this nonsense going because to much time & money & energy has
been invested, to preserve this propagandist lie that they can't back track from it! Is it
any wonder that the general population are starting to despise & distrust all Politicians
& the US Govt & it's institutions because of their immoral behaviour! And the RT
Channel or Sputnik cannot be blamed for exposing this corruption which the MSM has failed to
do!
GM , July 3, 2018 at 9:06 pm
They also overestimated the power of the media, which traditionally has had much sway over
which neoliberal candidate gets elected President. Turns out that said industry has gradually
lost the public trust over time, which condition happened to reach a critical mass at any
inconvenient juncture.
I'm sure they'll address the problem next time round with strategies involving censorship,
blacklisting, and the deployment of covert armies of online disinformation teams, all of
which we have already begun to see take shape.
"... Novichok , the magic Russian military nerve agent jumped on another couple after it stayed low-key for weeks, in order to recover from the humiliation of being unable to kill the Skripals, in spite of being "the most powerful and deadly military agent". ..."
"... I May be wrong regarding this theory, but it is highly unlikely. ..."
The former empire known as Great Britain, was struck again by bad luck:
Novichok , the magic Russian military nerve agent jumped on another couple after it
stayed low-key for weeks, in order to recover from the humiliation of being unable to kill
the Skripals, in spite of being "the most powerful and deadly military agent".
Britain lost the Empire's colonies, its greatness (even if this was built on murder and
theft) , its economic power, and now has lost its mind and its shame .
Britain is currently a pedophile island, full of third world immigrants and given refuge
to all the dictators, criminals, crooks and terrorists in the world. It is laundering money
through its City of London, and this is the only thing keeping that island afloat. It's a
huge latrine with a Crown on top, as I like to describe it.
Now the Russians are randomly "poisoning" ordinary British subjects, because this is what
Brits are. The British government and media immediately knew it was Novichok and the Russians
were behind it. Maybe even Mr. Putin found time to do this.
The Russian team just qualified in the FIFA World Cup quarters ; like Britain did after
beating Columbia. Mr. Putin is practicing on poor Brits. If the Russian team will meet the
Brits in the finals, he may pull a Novichok on them and brazenly win this way, the
finals.
I May be wrong regarding this theory, but it is highly unlikely.
"... Craig Murray pointed out that when actions are discussed or carried out, strategies laid out, Trident is never even mentioned. ..."
"... Britain is a failing Western Democracy just as the US is -- they are getting desperate and trying all kinds of stuff under the general heading of evil Russia. Britain is pathetic when you think about it hollow empty country with no vision or concern for anything but the elites. The entire Western democratic ideal has failed utterly, we live in a multi-polar world now the SCO is far more important than the G7 but May probably doesn't even know what it stands for. Without its association with the US and out of the EU the UK will be about as important as Uruguay or Nauru. ..."
"... I can only conclude the the Ruling Class in GB looks at its own public as completely dimwitted morons, as they apparently believe them willing to swallow this crap. ..."
"... It is just over a week since OPCW was given more powers. Put forward by Britain and backed by the usual coalition of the killing. Pulling another Skripal so soon after that is more than a bit sus. ..."
"... And the unknown substance is now Novichuk. But that 4 day lag, not to worry, 1 day ago the suspects were already identified tying in with the Skripals. The 2 Hitmen with close ties to Russia. ..."
"... Take it from me 90 percent of the British public are dim witted morons that's official from me! No exaggeration! Half just regurgitate what the tv / papers say with out question or thought. The other half have just switched off entirely. Tell them 8,000000 could die in Yemen. There eyes glaze over. ..."
"... Britain was never a democracy. It was masquerading as one in order to placate the unwashed masses. They're definitely in panic mode and whatever they do makes them look insane. ..."
"... I love Guerrero's concept that these stories are prepared more like Novellas... especially the implication that the script for the next episode is written after gauging reaction to the former episode. ..."
"... "I think the take home point is to not live near a chemical weapons lab." Methinks it may be worse than that: just don't live in Britain, these days. Says this sympathetic anglophile. ..."
"... The British can't seem to put the lid back on the vial btw was this the same one used by US Secr of State Colin Powell in 2003 at the UN Security Council before the invasion and occupation of Iraq? The Ayatollahs of Persia be forewarned! ..."
"... After researching everything I could find on Novichok, the only rational and logical conclusion one can draw is the Skripals and this latest couple should be dead. The sad part of this incident and the Skripal affair is how many people actually believe the government's claims. ..."
"... Imagine being Yulia Skripal at this moment. She had a job, a boyfriend, a dog and a home in Russia she may never be able to see again, because the UK government cannot allow her to return home and spill the beans on this sordid affair. If their is any justice in this world, every rational individual should be demanding "FREE Yulia"! ..."
"... I don't think this latest version of the novichok case helps the British case at all as it strongly suggests that there is something else out there killing people than a military grade nerve agent. ..."
"... As for the report in the Daily Telegraph "Salisbury couple are fresh victims of the Novichok attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal", I suspect that is pure bullshit. ..."
"... I've been wondering how The Swamp's inner circle are feeling about the likelihood that Trump and Putin will get along like a house (of cards) on fire. It looks as though the reptiles are more than just a little bit worried... ..."
"... The capacity of some people to believe these lies is seemingly limitless, otherwise they would not bother. Must be hundreds of people fall ill and require emergency treatment each day. Are the Russians to be suspects in each illness requiring workers to go into home wear Hazmat gear and shut down the neighborhood pending tests? ..."
British Government Peddles Warmed Over Novichok Muck
It seems that Theresa May felt a need to stoke some more
Russia hate :
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.
All British media outlets report of a middle-aged British couple, Dawn Sturgess and Charlie
Rowley, who fell seriously ill in Amesbury, a town near Salisbury and near the British chemical
weapon site Proton Down. The couple were transported to the Salisbury hospital. They were first
suspected to have taken drugs but the police now
speaks (vid) of a "potential exposure to an unknown substance" and that they "remain in a
critical condition".
The parallels to the poisoning of the British-Russian spy Sergej Skripal and his daughter
four month ago are obvious. The government alleged they were poisoned by a nerve agent of the
Novichok series. Like back in March the British government will soon name the evildoer of this
new drama.
The most curious issue of the current case is that it happened Saturday morning and that
since a lot of local police action took place. But news of the incident emerged only early
today. None of the pieces I read explains the four day long lack of reporting. The British
government obviously prohibited all news of the case until early today and now prohibits to
explain the censoring.
Why?
A "friend of the couple", who has been together with them, was
interviewed by several outlets:
Here's a link to Newsnow's aggregator for the "major incident". FYI: Newsnow and Wikipedia
are fighting the Copyright Directive of the European Parliament tomorrow (July 5th) - so get
the news while you can...
Sam Hobson said: "His eyes were wide open and red, his pupils were like pinpricks."
Yes, exposition to some toxic agents can make the pupils like pinpricks (and newspapers said
that novichok has this effect), but this contraction is not so easy to note, because the
pupil is not the whole iris and the iris doesn't contract.
"A police spokesman said: "At the moment it is not a police incident it is being led by
the fire and the ambulance. It appears that there are three people who have taken drugs
and had a medical incident. They have all been taken to hospital."
A cordon was put in place as a precaution but police say there is "no danger" to anyone
else in the area.
A spokesman for South Western Ambulance Service later told the Journal that only one
patient had been taken to Salisbury District Hospital.
Might it be useful to think in terms of the structuring of TV-novelas? Are such media content events designed for a similiar/identical purpose? Unlike a literary novel, a soap opera series can be produced without having
an idea as to how artistic unity will be achieved with some universal meaning.
Are serial tear-jerker episodes the product of private storyboard conferences? Their requirements would be much simpler and less demanding than those of art. Each episode ends with the equivalent of a lewd embrace of an illicit couple viewed
by an interested, emotionally involved third-party who happens to come in the door.
(this point-of-view would be that of peeping-tom reflex of a mass-media consumer)
The camera is focusing mostly on skin, and a tear in the eye of the intruder, or
else it is a glare of rage... An advantage to the commercial TV content producers
is that they would be able to gauge reaction before publishing succeeding episodes.
Is it the story of some homeless recreational drug users who were accidently poisoned
by a dose of novichalk that Putin intended for a spy sheltering in the British isles
accidently deposited as spare-change into guitar-case of strung-out subway musician...
Maybe it is the case that cops are trained to look at pupils and can easily determine their
size. I could never do that and I doubt anyone who says so without being trained to do so,
and eve then eyesight and lighting needs to be close to to ideal.
Britain must be desperate or they really believe they are pulling this off. They must be
getting backing from factions in Washington, they must have unspoken permission for this.
Britain doing its humble part in the Russia demonizing to support Trident spending.
Craig Murray pointed out that when actions are discussed or carried out, strategies laid
out, Trident is never even mentioned.
Britain is a failing Western Democracy just as the US is -- they are getting desperate and
trying all kinds of stuff under the general heading of evil Russia. Britain is pathetic when
you think about it hollow empty country with no vision or concern for anything but the
elites. The entire Western democratic ideal has failed utterly, we live in a multi-polar
world now the SCO is far more important than the G7 but May probably doesn't even know what
it stands for. Without its association with the US and out of the EU the UK will be about as
important as Uruguay or Nauru.
So, uhm. How does a door handle on Skripal's front door end up contaminating the area near
the bar. Legit curious to see how they'll spin this to tie it all together now
Now that me being an ex-Junkie is out in the open here, i will provide some possible
explanations:
-Contaiminated Class A drugs: Heroin sold on the street is maximum 10% heroin, and 90%
various more or less toxic filler stuff. That may be strychnin (Which is used as rat poison,
and fits the symptoms well expect for hallucinating, valium or related opiates, paracetamol,
aspirin, or 1000 other chemicals the dealer has lying around.
-"Legal highs": in UK and in EU, those new synthetic drugs that are marketed as legal
substitute for cannabis, XTC, cocaine etc. are quite popular, and they are highly dangerous
because of their synthetic nature, and are known to cause severe health problems up to death.
In prisons also in UK those are popular, because inmates can pass drug tests easily. This
couple seems to have prison and hard drugs experience, and is therefore likely, to have known
or used those substances.
Additionally, being homeless, drug users/addicts, they are likely to have trouble with
police, and are an easy target for manipulation by intelligence operatives.
And why should evil Putin try to kill some UK Junkies?
Even BBC will have a pretty hard time to spin this..
Oh, goody!
Now we can have another round of UK authorities spewing ominous ambiguities, full of
Russia-blaming sound and fury, in the Gorgon PM and her rotten Tory government's ongoing
desperate struggle to keep its depraved nose above water.
I can't wait for UK Village Idiot Laureate Boris Johnson to provide another definitive
briefing.
Meanwhile, hmm... I suspect one of those lost, stolen, strayed, or liquidated Skripal pets
might be the perpetrator here.
I certainly agree that this story is worth reporting as farce . At this stage,
though, I hope people will resist that catnip-like intoxication of sifting through the
allegations and factoids to speculate on what it's "really" all about.
I wish this latest afflicted pair well, though. And just to flout my own suggestion and
engage in hypotheticals-- who knows, maybe next thing we know the UK government will pay top
dollar pound to purchase the crime-scene house!
no one really believes the uk anymore... if this doesn't make them a laughing stock,
nothing will..apparently people like bad re-runs and are happy to watch them.. this is the new 2018
version of coronation street i guess..
Today I was totally surprised. Headline in The Guardian: There is a cloud hanging over this World Cup and Fifa must not ignore it
An otherwise brilliant World Cup has been cheapened by the kind of histrionics witnessed in
England's game with Colombia and they have become a cancer in the game
Imagine: nothing in the article refers to Russia! Additionally "otherwise brilliant World
Cup".
I still stick with the food poisoning hypothesis (that doctor's letter sealed the deal for
me).
Both were near the restaurant the Skripals went right before they showed their symptoms.
They were homeless people. The simplest explanation is that they ate the same poisoned batch
in the garbage of the restaurant; or that the restaurant has an unreliable supplier, which
gave them more than one poisoned batch, or the restaurant simply pushes its luck with spoiled
food which, in seafood case, can result in some kind of toxins liberation (the practice of
recycling expired and sometimes even rotten expensive ingredients is common in sofisticated
restaurants).
In the case of the Skripals, the British government got lucky they were Russians, and
seized the opportunity. I don't see how they're going to use this now, since both victims are
British. Unless they want to declare war.
He described taking Mr Rowley to collect a prescription from Boots in Amesbury and on
to eat lunch at Amesbury Baptist Church fair, before returning to his friend's home in
Muggleton Road.
Boots, the church and the green outside it are among several sides in the town and nearby
Salisbury that have been cordoned off by police.
Mr Hobson said Mr Rowley started falling ill around four hours after Ms Sturgess was taken
to hospital, while they were preparing clothes to take to her. "He felt ill and went for a shower. Then his eyes went bloodshot and like two pin pricks,
he began garbling incoherently and I could tell he was hallucinating.
"He was making weird noises and acting like a zombie. It was a zombie-like state. He
slumped against the wall."
Mr Hobson said he called an ambulance and that when paramedics arrived they initially
believed the illness was drugs-related because of his friend's struggle with
addiction.
There are a plethora of substances that have those effects. Novichock is not one. That
just kills you, straight away. No passing out, no hallucinating, and definitely no park
benches. Done. Finished. Dead.
Even cyanide kills very quickly. Although Jim Jones might not agree. If anybody wanted to
kill anybody else through poisoning, they could do it very easily. Ratex (strychnine), takes
days, weeks to kill. Whoever adds that to their product would be killing their market anyway.
Capitalism hasn't gone full circle yet...
Yhis "poisoning" meme is not funny anymore, nor comical, that has worn off. It is in fact
tragic. It is tragic that the lies are so stupid, thick and unbelievable, that the whole
narrative is so crudely pieced together, that it make Pravda' 1970 articles look like
Voltaire's writings.
I can only conclude the the Ruling Class in GB looks at its own public as completely
dimwitted morons, as they apparently believe them willing to swallow this crap.
It is just over a week since OPCW was given more powers. Put forward by Britain and backed by
the usual coalition of the killing. Pulling another Skripal so soon after that is more than a
bit sus.
First post here - the only blog worth the time and effort to contribute to in my
opinion. Seems to me that as the UK and friends bought the OPCW last week, this incident has been
strategically timed so that the OPCW can investigate the 'poisoning' and apportion blame to
Russia just in time for the WC final, or am I being too cynical?
Thanks b for catching the 4 days lag in timeline.
Early morning, July 4th, British time, it was on the Daily Express as "Breaking News" as
in just happening. And the unknown substance is now Novichuk. But that 4 day lag, not to worry, 1 day ago the suspects were already identified tying in
with the Skripals. The 2 Hitmen with close ties to Russia.
UK Police Allege Two Hitmen 'With Close Ties to Russia' Involved in SkripalsLINK
Britain and its allies continue to blame Moscow for being behind the March 2018 attack on
former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter with what UK experts
claim was the A234 nerve agent, although the accusations have not been substantiated.
Russian authorities vehemently reject the allegations as groundless.
The Sun has cited sources in Scotland Yard as saying that "a two-man hit team with close
ties to Russia" orchestrated the alleged poisoning of ex-Russian security agent Sergei
Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK earlier this year.
Take it from me 90 percent of the British public are dim witted morons that's official from
me! No exaggeration! Half just regurgitate what the tv / papers say with out question or
thought. The other half have just switched off entirely. Tell them 8,000000 could die in
Yemen. There eyes glaze over.
Britain was never a democracy. It was masquerading as one in order to placate the unwashed
masses. They're definitely in panic mode and whatever they do makes them look insane.
I find it amusing there is no mention on why China is not part of the G7/8. If you believe
the official narrative that China's economy is the second largest in the World, then one
would think China would have a seat at the table. I was half expecting Russia's seat to be
given to China to create a wedge between China and Russia. But we all know why.
James. How I wish nobody believed these fairy tales anymore.
I love Guerrero's concept that these stories are prepared more like Novellas... especially
the implication that the script for the next episode is written after gauging reaction to the
former episode.
One of the witnesses in the BBC article I read reported believing the gas leak story
because electricity to the neighborhood had been cut off. Wonder what that's about?
Did y'all catch "
False Flag Fail: How Syrian Civilians Derailed White Helmet 'Chemical' Stunt in Eastern
Ghouta?"
ah, well...the verdict is in: 'Wiltshire pair poisoned by nerve agent novichok, say police;
Substance deemed responsible for severe illness of Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley'
"Basu added: "I would add that the complex investigation into the attempted murders of Yulia
and Sergei remains ongoing and detectives continue to sift through and assess all the
available evidence and are following every possible lead to identify those responsible, for
what remains a reckless and barbaric criminal act."
"I think the take home point is to not live near a chemical weapons lab." Methinks it may be worse than that: just don't live in Britain, these days. Says this sympathetic anglophile.
UK Nerve Center Porton Down: 'Putin Strikes Again!'
The British can't seem to put the lid back on the vial btw was this the same one used by
US Secr of State
Colin Powell in 2003 at the UN Security Council before the
invasion and occupation of Iraq? The Ayatollahs of Persia be forewarned!
Must have forgotten to scrub the home front door knop of the Skripals or was Yulia's
luggage returned via FedEx? Sloppy work by British Intelligence
Lightning never strikes twice, except near Porton Down. In fact, this second case will
prove the first case was bogus. Were the two KGB agents from the Cold War still around?
After researching everything I could find on Novichok, the only rational and logical
conclusion one can draw is the Skripals and this latest couple should be dead. The sad part
of this incident and the Skripal affair is how many people actually believe the government's
claims.
Imagine being Yulia Skripal at this moment. She had a job, a boyfriend, a dog and a home
in Russia she may never be able to see again, because the UK government cannot allow her to
return home and spill the beans on this sordid affair. If their is any justice in this world,
every rational individual should be demanding "FREE Yulia"!
Oh, but a communist dictatorship can't be in a club with the superior Western Democracies.
Just because they lifted over 700 million people out of poverty who tonight have something to
eat while Western Democracy is starving millions of people deliberately in Yemen, clearly
communists don't understand the free market.
Western Liberal Democracy is an utter and contemptible failure.
That was me - I was being facetious as Putin is not into gangsterism unlike Obama,
Cameron, May, Macron etc.
I don't think this latest version of the novichok case helps the British case at all as it
strongly suggests that there is something else out there killing people than a military grade
nerve agent.
Amesbury is about eight miles from Salisbury and I just can't see how a limited
release of a chemical would create a hot spot several miles away and almost four months
later. A few days later perhaps but not almost four months although I doubt that'd stop some wanker a bellingcat coming up with some dumb theory that's picked up by the MSM.
As for the report in the Daily Telegraph "Salisbury couple are fresh victims of the
Novichok attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal", I suspect that is pure bullshit.
I've been wondering how The Swamp's inner circle are feeling about the likelihood that Trump
and Putin will get along like a house (of cards) on fire. It looks as though the reptiles are
more than just a little bit worried...
The capacity of some people to believe these lies is seemingly limitless, otherwise they
would not bother.
Must be hundreds of people fall ill and require emergency treatment each day. Are the
Russians to be suspects in each illness requiring workers to go into home wear Hazmat gear
and shut down the neighborhood pending tests?
Ghost ship @ 39
Thanks for owning up to that joke ! Hell in these times a bit of humour is good therapy. So
can I stop digging my bunker now !
On a serious note- whether this latest incident proves to be drug over dose or nerve agent is
pretty secondary to how it's being used to beat the Russians with. What this actually is,is
dog whistle politics. A deliberate attempt again to ferment Hate for Russia in the eyes of
the British public. The only trick they know is hate.
The former empire known as Great Britain, was struck again by bad luck:
Novichok , the magic Russian military nerve agent jumped on another couple after it stayed
low-key for weeks, in order to recover from the humiliation of being unable to kill the
Skripals, in spite of being "the most powerful and deadly military agent".
Britain lost the Empire's colonies, its greatness (even if this was built on murder and
theft) , its economic power, and now has lost its mind and its shame .
Britain is currently a pedophile island, full of third world immigrants and given refuge to
all the dictators, criminals, crooks and terrorists in the world.
It is laundering money through its City of London, and this is the only thing keeping that
island afloat.
It's a huge latrine with a Crown on top, as I like to describe it.
Now the Russians are randomly "poisoning" ordinary British subjects, because this is what
Brits are.
The British government and media immediately knew it was Novichok and the Russians were
behind it.
Maybe even Mr. Putin found time to do this.
The Russian team just qualified in the FIFA World Cup quarters ; like Britain did after
beating Columbia.
Mr. Putin is practicing on poor Brits.
If the Russian team will meet the Brits in the finals, he may pull a Novichok on them and
brazenly win this way, the finals.
I May be wrong regarding this theory, but it is highly unlikely.
The woman has the same hairline (off her forehead) and the shape of the man's face looks a
reasonable match.
The CCTV is from a local gym and it was reported, back in March, that the police were only
interested in that part of the CCTV. They must have known who these people were for a long
time, which makes the 4 day delay even more ridiculous.
Can you imagine if they follow this up with another one in Syria? That would be too stupid
but at this point not unfathomable. Seems like they would have tried to make us forget about
Novichok and the lies that were told by May and the MSM about it being something only Russia
could possibly produce. I guess when nobody is held accountable for spreading dangerous
criminal misinformation like that than they just try it again. Even now that there is still
zero evidence and no suspects in the Skirpal incident, none of the countries who expelled
diplomats have apologized and the news hasn't stopped referring to Russia as the only
culprit, so why not give it another go I suppose? Anything to put some smear on the World Cup
maybe, though the details of this story don't seem to make sense yet. As far as Syria, the
NeoCons like Bolton maybe panicking if the rumors that the Syrian government has made some
preliminary deals in regards to lite-reunification and a peace plan with the YPG/SDF. They
may do a "back to back" again and do something drastic in Syria while blaming both on Russia
indirectly..
I've been expecting another Steele dossier. If England make the finals it wouldn't surprise
me if the team get propositioned by some attractive ladies. Of course they will gallantly
resist.
@30 /31 daniel... one can dream, lol... thanks for the videos.. teh vanessa beeley one is
very good.. which brings me to the comment peter mentioned on a previous thread, or maybe
there were a few mentioning it.. the changes to the opcw - to quote the keyphrase from the
usa daily propaganda briefing yesterday "The decision calls on the technical secretariat to
establish arrangements for identifying the perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks in Syria
by using all potentially relevant information..." which essentially means this... all the
money the usa/uk have spent on propaganda to fund the white helmets, syrian civil defense,
'save our syria', chatham house and etc etc - will be accepted as fact, unless proven
otherwise... this will be the grounds for making war on syria with macron, may and trump
being the good poodles for saudi arabia and israel, that they continue to be.. well - that is
what i get from that..
@34 flamingo - thanks for that! just when you think britian can't get any more crazy and
whacked out then it already is - this comes along... a better view on britian at this point
is the whole country has been subject to some form of mind altering drug.. we are witnessing
the byproduct in their msm and political leadership vacuum...
In this episode, we are joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sy Hersh who exposed
NATO nation war crimes of the military-industrial complex. From Abu Ghraib prison in the
Anglo-American war on Iraq to the Mee Lai Massacre, Sy Hersh has exerted a damning scepticism
of the official line. His new book "Reporter - A Memoir" is out now.
What does Seymour say about 9/11? Anyone, including seymour Hersh and Noam Chomski, isn't
worth a damn if they gloss over 9/11. If he's written a book about Dick Cheney and omitted
his major role in making sure 9/11 was the success it was for the neocons, he's a limited
hangout.
RT should bring Hersh on the show as much as possible. The guy is a legend and he is not
allowed to publish his articles anywhere in the US except in a German newspaper.
Is he sure about tht chemical weapons in Syria? What happened then when it was taken out
of Syria by the Authorities - whose name I have forgotten - and verified by the UN? He should
have a chat with Vanessa Bealey.
Good to see Sy on the rounds again - it's been a while. I guess he was finishing his book.
That point about the Russian sample being what proved to Obama that Nusra probably did the
WMD attack - "Red Line" - and called it off - I bet that had a lot to do with the move to
make Russia "beyond the pale" regarding official OPCW reports. Since then, all the tests have
been done remotely, by Turkey, by the UK, by anyone but Russia. I believe that the balance of
the evidence in the entire Syria aggression suggests that the Syrian government never
conducted any chemical attacks, and that any real attacks that took place were done by the
terrorists.
It should be just common sense - groups which are happy to massacre men, women
and children, keep women as slaves, eat livers, etc would have no moral qualms about using
chemical weapons whatsoever. The Syrian government, on the other hand, has always been in
control of the majority of the population in Syria - even in their worst moments before the
Russians came to help - and so any use of such barbaric methods would risk revolt from the
masses.
No president under such a long conflict could remain in power if he were capable of
such brutal and callous methods - in fact, the evidence shows that they have made every
effort to either arrange the surrender or evacuate the belligerents, while allowing for
civilian escape wherever possible.
The whole "brutal dictator" libel never made any sense
about Assad - he remains popular, mingles with the people, has full support from the
military. He is also a rarity for so-called dictatorships in the Middle East - not a military
man, but a civilian doctor. If there were the slightest doubts about him, the military would
have removed him by now - instead, his government and military appear to have both high
morale and widespread support from the people.
Of course, the facts are never a big concern
for the "regime change" crew - but thankfully, their ability to "create facts on the ground"
has weakened immensely over the 20 years of terror the US rulers began in 2001.
Other patterns on behaviour of British government suggest their nefarious role in Skripal
poisoning scandal
Notable quotes:
"... What else to expect from "Christian colonialists" but hypocrisy and double speak! "Many commit the same crime with a very different result. One bears a cross for his crime; another a crown." ― Juvenal, The Satires ..."
"... Most Christian Colonial wars are fake wars against weak, or weakened, countries for 2 streams of Private Profit using Public Funds. ..."
"... Western looting of Libya netted "someone"(s) more than $1 Trillion in gold and currency reserves alone. Iraq lost historical artifacts of inestimable value. The Friends & Relatives crowd will be perpetually pissed with Putin for ruining Christian Colonialism's plan to loot Damascus. ..."
"... I hate to add another layer of shit on a very deep pile, when it comes to my u k but ! Could the academics here take a look at the time lines concerning the last general election and referendum compared to the 3 terrorist attacks about the same time. That is what kept may in power! Compare to for instances the fake Salisbury incident and east Douma Chem incident. All same patten ! I dug deep but don't let me influence enyone. To add, look at the timing of the grenfail tower fire, re election. I'l just leave this here. ..."
"... Talking about fake wars, bombing functioning ME countries back to the Stone Age and looting them, and "Israel" being a vociferous promoter of the Iraq & Syria Fake Wars, does anyone know how 'lootable' Iran is? ..."
"... Another astonishing thing about all this is the "liberal" media MSM or however you choose to call the corporate establishment press has always gone along with all the coverups. But things have changed and things are changing. ..."
Read Murray's blog entry prior to b's, and it's extremely damning. The May government must be
thrown out and the notables from all post-911 UK governments must be charged with over the
crimes they've committed--including the obstruction of those crimes investigations. This
report also shows we ought to consider Skripal Affair as 100% falsehood as the May government
has less than zero credibility on anything, which is one of the reasons it must be tossed. I
wonder if there're enough Corbynites capable of unseating the "Blue Tories" to bring a new
revitalized People's Labour Party back into power so that justice can be served.
craig murray and b are to be commended for addressing this ongoing issue..
we're back to the issue of accountability and again - nothing has changed..as karlof1 and
worldblee note - this must be addressed and someone must be held accountable for this, or it
will continue.
so - is the uk trying to be like the uae/ksa of the north? maybe they could take up
headchopping as well? i am not sure what country is more backward - uk or usa... in this race
to the bottom, both countries are fully supportive of these regressive regimes in uae/ksa and
fully onside with the war on yemen which they must profit from in order for them to justify
it... for me - justifying murder and mayhem based on profit is a sign of a really sick
culture, but it is fully embraced by many of the so called democratic western countries,
including the one i live in - canada... as far as leadership is concerned - there is a huge
gap and no one is speaking out on any of it in the political spectrum as i know of...
meanwhile we have to thank b and craig murray for shining a light on this as a constant
reminder of just how backward the so called civilized countries are here in 2018..
What else to expect from "Christian colonialists" but hypocrisy and double speak!
"Many commit the same crime with a very different result. One bears a cross for his crime;
another a crown." ― Juvenal, The Satires
There are two aspects of this Christian Colonial (Western) clusterfuck which are particularly
galling for The People in whose name these crimes are committed:
1. Torture was used to extract false confessions.
2. Most Christian Colonial wars are fake wars against weak, or weakened, countries for 2
streams of Private Profit using Public Funds.
----(a) The M-IC makes vast profits from Weapons (win or lose).
----(b) Their wealthy Friends & Relatives get first pick of the spoils of Looting, at a
big discount.
Western looting of Libya netted "someone"(s) more than $1 Trillion in gold and currency
reserves alone. Iraq lost historical artifacts of inestimable value. The Friends &
Relatives crowd will be perpetually pissed with Putin for ruining Christian Colonialism's
plan to loot Damascus.
I hate to add another layer of shit on a very deep pile, when it comes to my u k but !
Could the academics here take a look at the time lines concerning the last general election
and referendum compared to the 3 terrorist attacks about the same time. That is what kept may
in power! Compare to for instances the fake Salisbury incident and east Douma Chem incident.
All same patten ! I dug deep but don't let me influence enyone. To add, look at the timing of
the grenfail tower fire, re election. I'l just leave this here.
Talking about fake wars, bombing functioning ME countries back to the Stone Age and looting
them, and "Israel" being a vociferous promoter of the Iraq & Syria Fake Wars, does anyone
know how 'lootable' Iran is?
Rumors says that Iran has very ancient roots and one imagines it may have artifacts going
back 5000+ years, although I've never heard them talked about.
Another astonishing thing about all this is the "liberal" media MSM or however you choose to
call the corporate establishment press has always gone along with all the coverups. But
things have changed and things are changing.
There is a not quite parallel story to this. The child separations - did you ever hear
from the corp. media about the 5,100+ children separated from their families in 2011 by
Obama. Nor much about how Obama had deported more than Trump at this point in his term.
I try to follow press from several countries and what I notice now is that EVEN MODI is
moving away from the US. The general views is - hay, we want to trade and get along we want
development but we have to deal with this big pain in the ass we have to spend a lot if time
and energy dealing with the US that we could use for development.
Trump is doing the world a favor by bringing all the criminal behavior of the US into the
open, its been there all along.
The liberal press which is hounding Trump over the issue now were silent for a decade when
"liberals" were in power have a Pyrrhic victory, it will come back on them.
If this trade crazy stuff drives Modi to join the B&R the US commercial/corporate
global empire is well and truly over.
Let us appeal to the gods.
The World Cup proceeds as if carried along by an unstoppable force, pouring very positive
concrete into foundations somewhere, giving ordinary people another vision of a country that
has always fascinated me.
Graham Phillips, an Englishman and journalist, who joined with the Donbass people in their
resistance to the coup in Ukraine made an interesting podcast echoing b.'s piece about Shaun
Walker, my particular enemy. He quietly demolishes Walker's claims that Russians were singing
Nazi songs in a nightclub.
All in all there is a feeling of tensions subsiding a little, a feeling that one can carry
on a bit with one's life. The only thing I have learned is to enjoy such moments even if stuff
like Yemen is agonizing. Agonizing but not existential as Syria is. But is that not just a bit
cynical?
SERIOUSLY?!!! - Did Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey have time to visit his home after he was
exposed to the poison but before he exhibited symptoms? Or did someone deliberately pour
bucketfuls of
Novichok into his home?
Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, who also fell ill after being exposed to Novichok,
receiving £430,000 in compensation for his family home.
Actually I suspect there is nothing wrong with the house. It is Detective Sergeant Nick
Bailey that is too poisonous to be allowed to roam free. He will be given a new identity,
transferred to the USA and released into the custody of some FBI witness protection program. He
must never be allowed to speak to public.
The secret that Nick Bailey must never reveal is that he was poisoned two days after the
Skripals, most likely in the evidence room at the police station by the
£100,000 of cash in the red bag .
"... Comey's memo was a key component in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's decision to launch a special counsel investigation headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller. ..."
"... Some have also suggested ( Paul Sperry to be exact) that Cambridge professor and FBI "informant" (spy) Stefan Halper, may have had a much larger role in the operation. ..."
"... Halper is a longtime spook whose ex-father-in-law, Ray Cline , was the former chief Soviet analyst and Deputy Director of the CIA from 1962 - 1966. Halper also spied on the Carter campaign during the 1980 election for Reagan - whose Vice President was former CIA director George H.W. Bush ( Ray Cline denied the spying took place). ..."
"... Papadopoulos' statement of offense also detailed his April 26, 2016, meeting with Mifsud at a London hotel. Over breakfast Mifsud told Papadopoulos "he had just returned from a trip to Moscow where he had met with high-level Russian governmental officials." Mifsud explained "that on that trip he (the Professor) learned that the Russians had obtained 'dirt' on then-candidate Clinton." Mifsud told Papadopoulos "the Russians had emails of Clinton." - The Federalist ..."
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says he'll issue subpoenas for former FBI Director James Comey and former Attorney
General Loretta Lynch, but the panel's top Democrat Dianne Feinstein (CA) has to agree to it per committee rules. Grassley also said
he would be open to exploring immunity for Comey's former #2, Andrew McCabe.
"I will want to subpoena him," Grassley said of Comey during an appearance on C-SPAN's Newsmakers ."
The Iowan added that committee rules require that he and Feinstein "agree to it, and at this point I can't tell you if she
would agree to it. But if she will, yeah, then we will subpoena . " -
Politico
Feinstein may be hesitant to sign on, as she says she thinks Comey acted in good faith - which means she thinks Congress shouldn't
have a crack at questioning a key figure in the largest political scandal in modern history.
"While I disagree with his actions, I have seen no evidence that Mr. Comey acted in bad faith or that he lied about any of his
actions," said Feinstein during a Monday Judiciary panel hearing. Former Feinstein staffer and FBI investigator Dan Jones, meanwhile,
continues to work with Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS on a
$50 million investigation privately funded by George Soros and other "wealthy donors" to continue the investigation into Donald
Trump.
Also recall that
Feinstein
leaked Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson's Congressional testimony in January.
Comey skipped out on appearing before Grassley's committee this week following the June 14 release of DOJ Inspector General Michael
Horowitz's (OIG) report on FBI conduct during the Hillary Clinton email investigation - which dinged Comey for being "insubordinate"
and showing poor judgement. Horowitz is conducting a separate investigation into the FBI's counterintelligence operation on the Trump
campaign, including allegations of FISA surveillance abuse.
Maybe Comey also decided to bail after Horowitz admitted on Monday that
he's under a separate investigation for mishandling classified information after leaking a memo to the press documenting what
he felt was President Trump obstructing the FBI's probe into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn - which was conducted
by the FBI under dubious circumstances, and for which evidence may have been
tampered
with .
Comey's memo was a key component in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's decision to launch a special counsel investigation
headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Loretta Lynch, on the other hand , was dinged in the IG report over an "ambiguous" incomplete recusal from the Clinton email "matter"
despite a clandestine 30-minute "tarmac" meeting with Bill Clinton
one week before the FBI exonerated
Hillary Clinton .
All part of the bigger picture...
Despite IG Horowitz ultimately concluding that pro-Clinton / anti-Trump bias among the FBI's top brass did not make its way into
the Clinton email investigation, his report revealed alarming facts about FBI officials handling parallel investigations into each
candidate who received vastly different treatment.
For starters, it's clear that the FBI rushed to wrap up the Clinton email investigation before the election, while at the same
time the agency launched an open-ended counterintelligence operation against those in Trump's orbit.
We also know that opposition research paid for by Hillary Clinton was used by the FBI to justify surveilling the Trump campaign
- while new facts point to a multi-pronged campaign of espionage and deceit spanning several continents, governments and agencies
which was deployed at the highest levels in an effort to undermine Donald Trump before and after the 2016 U.S. election.
Some have also suggested ( Paul Sperry to be exact) that Cambridge
professor and FBI "informant" (spy) Stefan Halper, may have had a much larger role in the operation.
Halper is a longtime spook whose ex-father-in-law, Ray Cline , was the
former chief Soviet analyst and Deputy Director of the CIA from 1962 - 1966. Halper also
spied on the Carter campaign during the 1980 election for Reagan - whose Vice President was former CIA director
George H.W. Bush (
Ray Cline denied the spying took place).
From 2012 - 2017, the Pentagon under Obama awarded Halper over
$1 million in "research" contracts - nearly half of which was awarded during the 2016 US election .
Then there's the mysterious Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud - a key witness in the Mueller investigation who
disappeared last fall , and who told Trump aide George Papadopoulos that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos would
drunkenly repeat the rumor to seasoned Australian diplomat (and
Clinton ally ) Alexander Downer in a London Bar, only to be construed by the FBI as potential collusion in order to justify their
counterintelligence operation against Trump.
And just Monday Trump advisor Roger Stone said that a
second FBI informant , Henry Greenberg, tried to entrap the Trump campaign with an offer to sell dirt on Hillary Clinton in exchange
for $2 million.
While the entire mosaic of events is multi-faceted and requires perhaps the world's biggest corkboard - here's a basic timeline
of various espionage or other spycraft conducted against the Trump campaign.
Papadopoulos' statement of offense also detailed his April 26, 2016, meeting with Mifsud at a London hotel. Over breakfast
Mifsud told Papadopoulos "he had just returned from a trip to Moscow where he had met with high-level Russian governmental officials."
Mifsud explained "that on that trip he (the Professor) learned that the Russians had obtained 'dirt' on then-candidate Clinton."
Mifsud told Papadopoulos "the Russians had emails of Clinton." -
The Federalist
May 10, 2016 - Papadopoulos tells this to former Australian Diplomat Alexander Downer during an alleged "
drunken barroom admission ."
Late May, 2016 - Roger Stone is approached by Greenberg with the $2 million offer for dirt on Clinton
July 2016 - FBI informant (spy) Stefan Halper meets with Trump campaign aide Carter Page for the first time, which would be one
of many encounters.
July 31, 2016 - the FBI officially launches operation
Crossfire Hurricane , the code name given to the counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign.
September, 2016 - Halper invites Papadopoulos to London, paying him $3,000 to work on an energy policy paper while wining and
dining him at a 200-year-old private London club on September 15.
While the FBI has yet to find any evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, they were able to use information Mifsud
planted with Papadopoulos to launch a
counterintelligence operation .
And as new facts and revelations continue to emerge, and IG Horowitz continues to unravel the FBI's counterintelligence operation
on Donald Trump, several rank-and-file FBI employees say
they want Congress to subpoena them so that they can step forward and testify against Comey and Andrew McCabe.
Funny - for two "innocent" people, Comey and Lynch want the exact opposite!
~Grassley also said he would be open to exploring immunity for Comey's former #2, Andrew McCabe.~
Screw you, Chuck. No one gets immunity. Stay the fuck out of what should be the business of a federal criminal grand jury.
Diane has enough trouble of her own with the leaky aide.
No, I think she will. They have the goods on her for leaking like a sieve through her aide and on to the entry level Pulitzer
Prize media whore (remember, they raided the newspaper. The goods are still there).
Rumor has it there is a subpoena waiting for DiFi out there. It would be best if she complied.
If two or more
persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the
United States , conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the
United States , or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder,
or delay the execution of any law of the
United States , or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the
United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty
years, or both.
We don't need Commey and Lynch questioned by those losers on Capitol Hill, that is a waste of money and time. What is required
is a DOJ inquiry, or better yet, a special council for the HRC Mail Server and Corruption in the Meuller probe.
I am normally against a special council, but in this case the DOJ is clearly biased. They should get to the bottom of the crimes
committed by hillery on her mail server including realated crime transacted on the server like uranium one. That is what the FBI
would do to us, and they should be no different. Equal protection under the law means equal punishment under the law as well.
An additional special council should be formed to get to the bottom of the FISA warrant to used for surveillance on the Trump
team and find out if there was any malfeasance obtaining those warrants. This would also bring up the question of whether the
meuller probe obstructed justice by obscuring exonerating evidence that the probe was established with junk evidence.
If a good prosecutor was used, there is enough evidence in the public forum now to throw a bunch of the obama administration
in prison for political corruption and the higher echelon members of the FBI in jail for bribery. That's right, the FBI can't
take gifts, even if the media are offering them. This is corruption of the highest order and our country will not survive this
if it is not prosecuted properly.
IF WE WANT THE SWAMP DRAINED PEOPLE HAVE TO GO TO PRISON FOR LIFE TO PUT THE FEAR OF GOD AND THE PEOPLE BACK INTO BUTEAUCRATS.
"... In my article for Consortium News I discussed at length the size of the British footprint in the scandal, and the outsized role in it of various British or British connected individuals such as the ex British spy Christopher Steele who compiled the Trump Dossier, the former chief of Britain's NSA equivalent GCHQ Robert Hannigan, the former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove, and the Cambridge based US academic Stefan Halper. ..."
"... I would add that there are now rumours that Professor Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious London based Maltese Professor who also had a big role in the Russiagate affair, may also have had connections to British intelligence. ..."
"... As this article in Zerohedge says, all roads in Russiagate lead to London, not, be it noted, Moscow. ..."
Britain alarmed as John Bolton travels to Moscow to prepare summit...
Days after I discussed rumours of an imminent
Trump-Putin summit , seeming confirmation that such a summit is indeed in the works has been provided with the Kremlin's confirmation
that President Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton is travelling to Moscow next week apparently to discuss preparations
for the summit.
As far as we know, such a visit is going to take place. This is all we can say for now.
Further suggestions that some sort of easing of tensions between Washington and Moscow may be in the works has been provided by
confirmation that a group of US Republican Senators will shortly be visiting Moscow.
It seems that a combination of the collapse in the credibility of the Russiagate collusion allegations – which I suspect no Republican
member of the House or Senate any longer believes – unease in the US at Russia's breakthrough in hypersonic weapons technology (recently
discussed by Alex Christoforou and myself in this video
), and the failure of the recent sanctions the US Treasury announced against Rusal, has concentrated minds in Washington, and is
giving President Trump the political space he needs to push for the easing of tensions with Russia which he is known to have long
favoured.
One important European capital cannot conceal its dismay.
In a recent article for Consortium News I discussed the
obsessive
quality of the British establishment's paranoia about Russia , and not surprisingly in light of it an article has appeared today
in The Times of London which made clear the British government's alarm as the prospect of a Trump-Putin summit looms.
As is often the way with articles in The Times of London, this article has now been "updated" beyond recognition. However it still
contains comments like these
Mr Trump called for Russia to be readmitted to the G8 this month, wrecking Mrs May's efforts to further isolate Mr Putin after
the Salisbury poisonings. Mr Trump then linked US funding of Nato to the trade dispute with the EU, singling out Germany for special
criticism.
The prospect of a meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Putin appalls British officials. "It's unclear if this meeting is after or
before Nato and the UK visit," a Whitehall official said. "Obviously after would be better for us. It adds another dynamic to
an already colourful week." .
A senior western diplomatic source said that a Trump-Putin meeting before the Nato summit would cause "dismay and alarm", adding:
"It would be a highly negative thing to do."
Nato is due to discuss an escalation of measures to deter Russian aggression. "Everyone is perturbed by what is going on and
is fearing for the future of the alliance," a Whitehall source said.
I will here express my view that the Russiagate scandal was at least in part an attempt by some people in Britain to prevent a
rapprochement between the US and Russia once it became clear that achieving such a rapprochement was a policy priority for Donald
Trump.
In my
article
for Consortium News I discussed at length the size of the British footprint in the scandal, and the outsized role in it of various
British or British connected individuals such as the ex British spy Christopher Steele who compiled the Trump Dossier, the former
chief of Britain's NSA equivalent GCHQ Robert Hannigan, the former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove, and the Cambridge based US academic
Stefan Halper.
I would add that there are now rumours that Professor Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious London based Maltese Professor who also
had a big role in the Russiagate affair, may also have had
connections to British intelligence.
A summit meeting between the US and Russian Presidents inaugurated an improvement in relations between the US and Russia is exactly
the opposite outcome which some people in London want.
When I saw that Shawn Walker Tweet, and the mostly brilliant take-down responses, I hoped b
would mention it. I can think of no one better suited to address this particularly putrid
propaganda. Bravo! And to the (almost) universally excellent barfly commentariat.
BBC created a whole genre of Russian World Cup scare mongering. One they did was on the
deadly threat of "Russian Football Hooligans." RT did an excellent 4 minute job of combining
journalism with humor to expose that bit of 100% Fake News.
The Media is a complete weapon for propaganda. The "writers" are propagandists. There never
is a report on Russia from the Western media that does not vilify or demonize Russia or
Russians in some way.
The World Cup is experienced by hundreds of thousands of tourists in Russia. They are
going to be the truth-tellers.
The event, like Sochi Winter Olympics will stand for itself. It will be splendid.
And the lies will die.
Never expect the truth from the Media.
Always expect the Russian people to be extraordinary. They have demonstrated it for a
century.
The problem the MSMs have is that the World Cup so far has been a success.
Notable quotes:
"... Also just like the Trump bizzo, when his employers dipped out, Steele's unsubstantiated gossip & slander having done nothing useful, Steele leaked his report to the feds. ..."
"... The claims he makes are utterly fantastic ( WARNING the link is to a graun 'long read' and is brimming with tedious & tendentious bulldust) the most laughable being that 'Putin' - always Putin never any of the many thousands of astute bureaucrats who work in the Russian government, stole a bunch of valuable old paintings from the Hermitage and gave them to the blokes on the World Cup venue committee as a bribe. The feds who went through these poor old buggers' lives with a fine tooth comb found nothing to substantiate that libel. ..."
"... The worst thing about these slanders and the harassment of a few old geezers who prefer sport as a mechanism for nations to interact than war, is that these old fellas were all (well just about all) socialists who yeah probably did allow a coupla mill to fall into their wallets, but who were dedicated to their sport remaining egalitarian. They invested billions into developing their sport all over the world especially in Africa, Latin America and the Mid-East where a shortage of venues, kit and professional coaches used to really hold those nations back. ..."
"... The 'clean sweep' of FIFA has opened the door to neolibs who are talking about corporatising the World Cup like the Olympics, then the billions will all go to corporations and their shareholders ..."
"... It is stuff like this about Skirpal's boss Steele, which really opens up the field of suspects on the 'poisoning'. I have no doubt Skirpal would have been the alleged 'proof' for this farrago of tosh. Russia and Qatar got their world cup final, but england and amerika (who were the finalists against Qatar for hosting in 2022) didn't, surely it is the latter two who are more likely to have a grudge against old Sergei. ..."
"... The Western corporate media is a sorry spectacle to behold. The Baltic and the Scandinavian branches are the most pathetic. Combining native stupidity with pig-headed tenacity to hold on to the past. ..."
And another thing - the other day I came a cross an interesting tidbit, I would include a
link if I can remember where I saw it, it may in fact have even been the graun. It goes like
this:
A few years back the FBI raided the FIFA HQ in Switzerland eventually arresting and charging
many FIFA commissioners alleging they were taking backhanders and at the time I, along with
many other sort of assumed that the amerikans shoving their stickbeaks into an organisation
which was none of their damn business was down to an announcement from FIFA president Blatter
that if the Israeli army and police didn't cease harassing the Palestinian team preventing
players from getting to international games by holding the players up at checkpoints, sometimes
for days, FIFA would have no choice but to penalise the Israeli football team who had already
been granted special dispensation by FIFA to play in the Euro conference rather than the ME one
that their geography should have demanded.
Nuttytahoo did his usual 'antisemite' victim whine so it was a reasonable assumption to think
the fed raid the next week was connected.
It may have been the issue which caused the amerikan sheet sniffers to move, but the actual
investigation was caused by something completely different. Two nations competed for the 2018 world cup hosting rights. One was Russia and the second one
was . . .drumroll. . . England! Yep the perfidious poms had put in their bid and one of the tools in their 'kit' was none other
than the old fibber Christopher Steele, who just as with the Trump investigation, did his
'inquiry' by remote control as he is persona non grata in Russia.
Also just like the Trump bizzo, when his employers dipped out, Steele's unsubstantiated gossip
& slander having done nothing useful, Steele leaked his report to the feds.
The claims he makes
are utterly fantastic ( WARNING the link is to a graun 'long read' and is brimming with
tedious & tendentious bulldust) the most laughable being that 'Putin' - always Putin never
any of the many thousands of astute bureaucrats who work in the Russian government, stole a
bunch of valuable old paintings from the Hermitage and gave them to the blokes on the World Cup
venue committee as a bribe. The feds who went through these poor old buggers' lives with a fine
tooth comb found nothing to substantiate that libel.
The other big lie was that while the Russian president was in Qatar finalising the joint gas
pipeline deal he cut another deal of the 'you vote for us we'll vote for you' as world cup host
in 2018 and 2022 respectively. Yeah that sounds just like President Putin tossing Russia's
economic future to the side while he organised a few soccer games - not.
The worst thing about these slanders and the harassment of a few old geezers who prefer
sport as a mechanism for nations to interact than war, is that these old fellas were all (well
just about all) socialists who yeah probably did allow a coupla mill to fall into their
wallets, but who were dedicated to their sport remaining egalitarian. They invested billions
into developing their sport all over the world especially in Africa, Latin America and the
Mid-East where a shortage of venues, kit and professional coaches used to really hold those
nations back.
The 'clean sweep' of FIFA has opened the door to neolibs who are talking about corporatising
the World Cup like the Olympics, then the billions will all go to corporations and their
shareholders.
No one should begrudge these guys the few quid they grabbed, I know puritans hate it but in
a truly tolerant society we should expect that a few otherwise dedicated types will always
'tickle the peter'. I used to get pissed about it in the union movement but the amounts are
usually small compared to turn-over and I'd rather have a dodgy member of the proletariat who
grabs a little in a position of power than a slimy neolib forever manouvering to flog the
entire kit & kaboodle off to a bunch of anonymous 'financiers'.
It is stuff like this about Skirpal's boss Steele, which really opens up the field of
suspects on the 'poisoning'. I have no doubt Skirpal would have been the alleged 'proof' for
this farrago of tosh. Russia and Qatar got their world cup final, but england and amerika (who
were the finalists against Qatar for hosting in 2022) didn't, surely it is the latter two who
are more likely to have a grudge against old Sergei.
The UK hates the idea that the EU that they left would turn to Russia for friendship. Their
propaganda goes along with the USA that shares this apprehension. Now that Trump has
humiliated the EU, the EU is turning toward Russia despite the UK...
The Western corporate media is a sorry spectacle to behold. The Baltic and the Scandinavian
branches are the most pathetic. Combining native stupidity with pig-headed tenacity to hold
on to the past.
"... Fact is that the Guardian and the Telegraph are full of anti-Russian propaganda. There is no piece in them about Russia or Putin that does not include snide and fear mongering or repeats long refuted claims about this or that incident for which Russia is claimed to be responsible. The military industrial complex gave order to condemn Russia and the "western" main stream media follow through. ..."
"... But don't pity them. They made their choice, and are well rewarded for their services. With respect, I would rather despise them. ..."
"... And Shaun is trying to sneak out: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/20/police-england-fans-russia-nazi-salute-world-cup ..."
"... I can't prove Shaun Walker and Luke Harding are MI5 operatives but I feel it in my gut. ..."
"... Shawn Wanker personally witnessed Russian AFVs invading Ukraine when he was 1) too far away from the border to see them 2) had amazingly forgotten to bring his smart phone so he could take a geolocated photo. So his credibility is low. As in lower than snake shit. ..."
"... What a tangled web the west has woven for itself through its deceits. How these presstitutes had to work through the night, and sweat the details, to try to patch the holes in the sinking ship - while those who were part of the truth of discovering the reality of Russia slept soundly, and probably with a great beer buzz, and the ring of real people in their ears. ..."
Andrew Roth Retweeted Shaun Walker
Absurd the responses to this incident that multiple correspondents saw. And their point is that it was an outlier in
what sounded like a fine night at the football. Context is all here, should they ignore it instead?
If two British scribes say they heard something, which each describes differently, then it must be true. "Evidence?
We don't report with evidence. Trust us."
This morning a Russian blogger posted some evidence (machine translated from Russian):
Remember yesterday there was a lot of talk about the English journalist who wrote about the alleged Russians who
sang Nazi songs in a bar in Volgograd? They found them. But they were not Russian, but... British. Actually, for
that, it's e... Lo must be beaten. This is Volgograd! Stalingrad!
The attached a video shows three drunk
British blokes in an 'Irish' pub where the menu is written in Cyrillic letters and World Cup flags hang from the
ceiling. The blokes sing a line about putting someone to Auschwitz, give the Hitler salute and shout "Sieg Heil!" The
pub where the video was taken seems to be a different one than the Harat's Walker and Luhn visited. But the point was
made.
Fact is that the Guardian and the Telegraph are full of anti-Russian propaganda. There is no piece
in them about Russia or Putin that does not include snide and fear mongering or repeats long refuted claims about this
or that incident for which Russia is claimed to be responsible. The military industrial complex gave order to condemn
Russia and the "western" main stream media follow through.
Both of the scribes quoted English fans who lament about the false picture they had when they arrived in Russia.
Might that have something to do with the constant stream of russophobe trash the British media provides? Should a
British correspondent in Russia take some time to reflect upon that?
But the two scribes go off to have lots of beer to then send spurious, late-night, anti-Russian claims to their
100,000 followers without providing any evidence. Then they lament about being called out for that.
They are mediocre propagandists who's words no one trusts or believes. One must truly pity these guys.
Posted by b on June 20, 2018 at 04:14 PM |
Permalink
Pity these guys? Not really. Remember, they are not journalists. They are propagandist,
hired mouthpieces. They say what they are scripted to say by their corporate bosses, it doesn't
matter how absurd, the point is to just hammer and hammer and hammer away and mold public
opinion via brute force. The old Soviet Union had more subtle liars.
But don't pity them. They made their choice, and are well rewarded for their services. With
respect, I would rather despise them.
I can't prove Shaun Walker and Luke Harding are MI5 operatives but I feel it in my
gut. I got banned from the Guardian for contrasting Walker's article on the supposedly
insanely loud, strident music in hotels at the Sochi Olympics with a real journalist who said
the music was quiet and varied between classical and soft pop.
Most people are reading the sports journalists, thankfully, and watching them...
Every day the NYT has one or two op-ed pieces critical of Putin/Russia. Today it was by
Alexey Kovalev, and titled "The World Cup Is Fun. Except for the Russians Being Tortured." I'm still waiting for a mention that the host team scored 8 goals in their two
matches.
Shawn Wanker personally witnessed Russian AFVs invading Ukraine when he was 1) too far away
from the border to see them 2) had amazingly forgotten to bring his smart phone so he could
take a geolocated photo. So his credibility is low. As in lower than snake shit.
Aaaaaaaaaand in the meantime, people around the world are are amazed at the beautiful
stadiums, the fantastic atmosphere, the great welcome from local people who ar suddenly
"invaded", they wonder at the well functioning machine behind it all, the wonder at the tight
security and safety of spectators and sport stars.
Congratulations Russia and Russian people, well done! You are doing this exceptionally well.
The World Cup, will be billions of dollars worth in positive reviews.
Great to see that Brit fans laid a wreath at the memorial. Shows May and Johnson are not
connected to the public,
Seeing that the homophobia and racism claims are not sticking well in their relentless
anti-Russian narrative, the MSM has dug up the case of the Ukrainian film director Oleg
Sentsov who is currently on hunger strike while in jail in Labytnangi, in northern Siberia,
for planning to carry out terrorist acts on public infrastructure and a statue in Crimea and
to set fire to government office buildings in Simferopol in 2014, and is flaying it for all
it's worth.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/ukrainian-film-director-on-hunger-strike-in-a-russian-prison-casts-dark-cloud-over-world-cup-20180620-p4zmmr.html
The sports writers are the truth, while the established anchors are the party line. It was
never any different.
We forget the upside. We forget how much energy it takes to keep a lie believable. We
forget how the west has to strain against incredulity itself in order to counter the random
and unschooled manifestations of the truth.
What a tangled web the west has woven for itself through its deceits. How these
presstitutes had to work through the night, and sweat the details, to try to patch the holes
in the sinking ship - while those who were part of the truth of discovering the reality of
Russia slept soundly, and probably with a great beer buzz, and the ring of real people in
their ears.
We have to do something, but we don't have to do everything, in order to counter the lies
of the liars. The universe itself - the very nature of reality - abhors untruth, and causes
the truth to show the shallowness of lies on countless, unscripted occasions.
And these occasions are usually a party. A celebration by ordinary people, joining in
common understanding.
What the rulers most fear.
Because all it takes is a small consensus of 10-15 percent of any population and you have
an activist force. They know this. Minions like the presstitutes mentioned here probably
don't understand this in words, but in their bowels they know.
Harding is definitely a joke. He is pretty pathetic easily jumping in and trying to milk any
Russian scandal be in Litvinenko, Russiagate, Steele dossier, of Skripals. Any version of events
that he approved can be instantly discarded a lie probably created with MI6 help. So he can serve
as a kind of reliable negative indicator, if you wish.
Applebaum is more dangerous, but still she a typical rabid neocon without any "in depth"
understanding of Russia. the net result of Skripal affair was poisoning Russian-British relation
for decade or so. If this is the price Theresa May wanted to pay to stay in power she should be
prosecuted for abuse of her office.
Notable quotes:
"... The Skripal case: A new Cold War? ..."
"... Applebaum now works at the London School of Economics where she heads, appropriately enough, a program on disinformation and 21st century propaganda. She is a virulent anti-communist and a ferocious warmonger, married to the former foreign minister of Poland. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... editing, contextualising, explanation and redaction ..."
"... Answering a question about the government's use of D-Notices (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice), Morris tried desperately to excuse press censorship. Contradicting reports that the government had issued two D-notices to prevent the media from identifying British intelligence service personnel Skripal was working with, he said there were "very few that we know about, only one." D notices had "changed" and are now "advisory." ..."
"... One audience member pointed out that since the poisoning had been unsuccessful, Russia might not have been responsible and that the government and media had taken the easy way out by blaming Russia. ..."
"... This was dismissed without a serious answer. The newspaper of what passes for the "liberal left" instead proceeded to solidify its alliance with the most right-wing layers of the US and British political and intelligence establishment by churning out anti-Russian propaganda of a distinctly McCarthyite character. ..."
The Guardian's June 4 event, The Skripal case: A new Cold War? was a
blatant attempt to propagandise against Russia in the interests of British imperialism.
The newspaper gave the platform to Anne Applebaum and Luke Harding along with two of its
journalists, Caroline Bannock and Steve Morris, who had covered the Skripal story.
All have uncritically regurgitated the British government's unsubstantiated, contradictory
and constantly shifting claims that the Russian-British double agent Sergei Skripal and his
daughter Julia were poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent by the Putin regime.
Applebaum now works at the London School of Economics where she heads, appropriately
enough, a program on disinformation and 21st century propaganda. She is a virulent
anti-communist and a ferocious warmonger, married to the former foreign minister of
Poland.
After the Russian annexation of Crimea, she called for "total war" against nuclear-armed
Russia in a column in the Washington Post . Closely connected to the highest echelons
of the US state, she is a member of key foreign policy think tanks and sits on the board of
directors of the CIA-linked National Endowment for Democracy.
Harding, long time foreign correspondent for the Guardian , appears to have very
close links to Britain's security services. He has authored books that can only be described as
hatchet jobs on Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, aimed at discrediting them and facilitating
their persecution by the US authorities, as well as innumerable propaganda pieces against
Russia.
The Guardian itself has a long record of dutifully promoting the anti-Russian
warmongering of both the US and British political establishments. It supported the
Western-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014, using allegations of Russian aggression to press for
punitive sanctions against Moscow, British participation in the US intervention in Syria
against the Russian-backed regime of Bashar al-Assad, most recently following fake news of a
chemical weapons attack on Douma. This is in addition to accepting uncritically the allegations
of Russian interference in the US presidential election in 2016.
To underscore the Guardian's political loyalties, another invitee, although not on
the platform, was Sir David Omand, from whom the Guardian has commissioned several
articles over the years.
Omand is a former senior civil servant and head of the Government Communications
Headquarters (GCHQ), the intelligence and security organisation responsible for spying on
people at home and abroad. He is currently a visiting professor at King's College London and
vice-president of the Royal United Services Institute, the leading military think-tank.
It was GCHQ that in 2013 oversaw the operation to destroy the Guardian's hard
drives and memory cards on two computers containing encrypted files from whistle-blower Edward
Snowden, after the British government threatened to jail editor Alan Rusbridger and close the
newspaper over its reporting of the Snowden revelations. The Guardian accepted this
blatant censorship with only token protest.
The newspaper also has form on news control. It stated in 2010 in an infamous editorial
about WikiLeaks, which had provided secret US diplomatic cables to the Guardian and
four other news outlets, that it had only agreed to publish "a small number of cables" to
control the political fall-out from the details of murder, torture, espionage and
corruption they revealed. It added that the newspaper had exercised extreme discretion in the "
editing, contextualising, explanation and redaction " of the documents. [emphasis
added]
The Guardian is acutely aware of the widespread and entirely healthy scepticism
towards anything the government says on Skripal, in the aftermath of lies such as the existence
of Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction" in furtherance of Britain's warmongering. Indeed, the
week before the June 4 event confirmed the need for the Guardian's services in
propping up the government's campaign of lies.
The newspaper led on the report of the supposed murder of Russian journalist Arkady
Babchenko at his apartment in Kiev as the assassination of yet another Putin critic, only for
Babchenko to show up alive and well the very next day at a press conference about his "murder."
Harding wrote lamenting that the stunt "would allow Russia and other unscrupulous governments
to dismiss real events as fake."
At the event itself, focus was placed for the most part on calls to end Russian money
laundering in London and avoiding wherever possible any direct examination of the Skripal case
in favour of sweeping generalisations.
Applebaum rejected any possibility that the Kremlin was not involved in the Skripals'
attempted assassination. She insisted that, having done a lot of research on how Russian
propaganda works, "this was like watching a replay of MH17," the Malaysian passenger jet shot
down over Eastern Ukraine. In that case, "Russia immediately put out dozens of stories, not
just deny it, but using multiple sources, gave out dozens of stories to pollute media with so
much nutty stuff in order to make people draw back and say believe it is all unknowable. That
is their modus operandi, designed for a Russian audience."
Applebaum never indicated that the same might be said about the British government's line on
the Skripal case!
Harding said that assassination was a traditional Russian method of dealing with opponents
going back to Lenin and Stalin and was resurrected in the 1990s when Putin and ex-KGB people
came to power. Unable to cite any example of Lenin assassinating anyone, he roamed willy-nilly
through history citing various assassinations by Stalin, including that of Trotsky, and various
more contemporary alleged assassinations as "proof" of his argument.
There were, he said, two theories about why Russia had tried to kill Skripal.
The first, which Harding rejected, was that after Skripal was released in a spy exchange, he
broke the rules, remained active and embarked on the old spies' lecture trail. The second,
which he "preferred," is that Skripal was "almost irrelevant": not so much the target but an
instrument to frighten and intimidate anyone thinking of cooperating with the West, especially
talking to the Mueller Inquiry in the US into the alleged Russian attempt to subvert the US
2016 election.
After these baseless ruminations, chairperson Mark Rice Oxley asked former GCHQ chief Omand,
sitting in the audience, for his thoughts. Omand was enthused. "It's a great conversation. I
agree with Luke's idea of implausible deniability. Hence the baroque method assassination. The
point is to intimidate.
"I know the team that did the assessment of the nerve agent, attributing it to a Novichok
agent and the Russian state. It was meticulous, like Sherlock Holmes, eliminating
everything.
"No scientific theory is 100 percent reliable, but this was as close as it gets," he
asserted.
He then admitted that it was entirely unclear how applying Novichok to a door handle would
work!
Omand agreed with Harding that the British government "should go after the money," urging
investigative journalists "to dig," saying it "would hurt the people in power around
Putin."
Omand, responding to a question from the chair as to whether British public opinion would be
in favour of increasing hostility to Russia, revealed the extent of the collaboration between
the Guardian and Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative government.
He said, "You are doing a good job in that regard. My fear is that if things worsen, it
would be necessary to explain The Kremlin could miscalculate, for example with a cyber-attack.
We could be moving into a dangerous period."
Applebaum interrupted, saying, "We know they could do that."
Some questions from the floor revealed public scepticism towards the government and media's
coverage of the Skripal case.
Answering a question about the government's use of D-Notices (Defence and Security Media
Advisory Notice), Morris tried desperately to excuse press censorship. Contradicting reports
that the government had issued two D-notices to prevent the media from identifying British
intelligence service personnel Skripal was working with, he said there were "very few that we
know about, only one." D notices had "changed" and are now "advisory."
Other members of the audience asked where the Skripals were now, reports about them being
given US passports and relocated to the US under fake names, the government's news management,
whether it was coincidence that Porton Down, the government's chemical and biological military
research institute, was so close to the incident, and that it had recently received additional
funding of £48 million.
One audience member pointed out that since the poisoning had been unsuccessful, Russia
might not have been responsible and that the government and media had taken the easy way out by
blaming Russia.
This was dismissed without a serious answer. The newspaper of what passes for the
"liberal left" instead proceeded to solidify its alliance with the most right-wing layers of
the US and British political and intelligence establishment by churning out anti-Russian
propaganda of a distinctly McCarthyite character.
When the media is controlled by people responsible for false flag operation chances to use investigation to
discredit this false flag operation, no matter how many evidence they have is close to zero
In other word false flag operation is perfect weapon for the "sole superpower" and due to this status entail very little
risks.
Notable quotes:
"... Today's false flag operations are generally carried out by intelligence agencies and non-government actors including terrorist groups, but they are only considered successful if the true attribution of an action remains secret. ..."
"... False flags can be involved in other sorts of activity as well. The past year's two major alleged chemical attacks carried out against Syrian civilians that resulted in President Donald Trump and associates launching 160 cruise missiles are pretty clearly false flag operations carried out by the rebels and terrorist groups that controlled the affected areas at the time. ..."
"... Because the rebels succeeded in convincing much of the world that the Syrian government had carried out the attacks, one might consider their false flag efforts to have been extremely successful. ..."
"... The remedy against false flag operations such as the recent one in Syria is, of course, to avoid taking the bait and instead waiting until a thorough and objective inspection of the evidence has taken place. The United States, Britain and France did not do that, preferring instead to respond to hysterical press reports by "doing something." If the U.N. investigation of the alleged attack turns up nothing, a distinct possibility, it is unlikely that they will apologize for having committed a war crime. ..."
"... The other major false flag that has recently surfaced is the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury England on March 4 th . Russia had no credible motive to carry out the attack and had, in fact, good reasons not to do so. ..."
"... Unfortunately, May proved wrong and the debate ignited over her actions, which included the expulsion of twenty-three Russian diplomats, has done her severe damage. Few now believe that Russia actually carried out the poisoning and there is a growing body of opinion suggesting that it was actually a false flag executed by the British government or even by the CIA. ..."
"... The lesson that should be learned from Syria and Skripal is that if "an incident" looks like it has no obvious motive behind it, there is a high probability that it is a false flag. ..."
False Flag is a concept that goes back centuries. It was considered to be a legitimate ploy
by the Greeks and Romans, where a military force would pretend to be friendly to get close to
an enemy before dropping the pretense and raising its banners to reveal its own affiliation
just before launching an attack. In the sea battles of the eighteenth century among Spain,
France and Britain hoisting an enemy flag instead of one's own to confuse the opponent was
considered to be a legitimate ruse de guerre , but it was only "honorable" if one
reverted to one's own flag before engaging in combat.
Today's false flag operations are generally carried out by intelligence agencies and
non-government actors including terrorist groups, but they are only considered successful if
the true attribution of an action remains secret. There is nothing honorable about them as
their intention is to blame an innocent party for something that it did not do. There has been
a lot of such activity lately and it was interesting to learn by way of a leak that the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) has developed a capability to mimic the internet fingerprints of
other foreign intelligence services. That means that when the media is trumpeting news reports
that the Russians or Chinese hacked into U.S. government websites or the sites of major
corporations, it could actually have been the CIA carrying out the intrusion and making it look
like it originated in Moscow or Beijing. Given that capability, there has been considerable
speculation in the alternative media that it was actually the CIA that interfered in the 2016
national elections in the United States.
False flags can be involved in other sorts of activity as well. The past year's two major
alleged chemical attacks carried out against Syrian civilians that resulted in President Donald
Trump and associates launching 160 cruise missiles are pretty clearly false flag operations
carried out by the rebels and terrorist groups that controlled the affected areas at the time.
The most recent reported attack on April 7th might not have occurred at all
according to doctors and other witnesses who were actually in Douma. Because the rebels
succeeded in convincing much of the world that the Syrian government had carried out the
attacks, one might consider their false flag efforts to have been extremely successful.
The remedy against false flag operations such as the recent one in Syria is, of course, to
avoid taking the bait and instead waiting until a thorough and objective inspection of the
evidence has taken place. The United States, Britain and France did not do that, preferring
instead to respond to hysterical press reports by "doing something." If the U.N. investigation
of the alleged attack turns up nothing, a distinct possibility, it is unlikely that they will
apologize for having committed a war crime.
The other major false flag that has recently surfaced is the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and
his daughter Yulia in Salisbury England on March 4th. Russia had no credible
motive to carry out the attack and had, in fact, good reasons not to do so. The allegations
made by British Prime Minister Theresa May about the claimed nerve agent being "very likely"
Russian in origin have been debunked, in part through examination by the U.K.'s own chemical
weapons lab. May, under attack even within her own party, needed a good story and a powerful
enemy to solidify her own hold on power so false flagging something to Russia probably appeared
to be just the ticket as Moscow would hardly be able to deny the "facts" being invented in
London. Unfortunately, May proved wrong and the debate ignited over her actions, which included
the expulsion of twenty-three Russian diplomats, has done her severe damage. Few now believe
that Russia actually carried out the poisoning and there is a growing body of opinion
suggesting that it was actually a false flag executed by the British government or even by the
CIA.
The lesson that should be learned from Syria and Skripal is that if "an incident" looks like
it has no obvious motive behind it, there is a high probability that it is a false flag. A bit
of caution in assigning blame is appropriate given that the alternative would be a precipitate
and likely disproportionate response that could easily escalate into a shooting war.
"... Obama/Dem circles were strong supporters-funders of jihadis and the MB (Ex. Huma Abedin, with of course the MB itself being of doubtful aka astro-turf origins, British encouragement back in the day. ..."
"... The Dems captured informatics, computers, aka 'Silicon valley', anything cultural , ex. MSM, other media, Unis, etc., Unions (symbolic), and the hugely profitable Health Care sector (scammers.) Afaik, Banks contributed equally to both (as I heard from an UBS bankster but I did not tally on O.S.) ..."
"... Trump + Putin loathing (compare with Bush Jr. and Russia in 2002, 3..) thus seems fuelled by the MSM (more so than the pols or the ppl) which seems evident though one might like to add trad. Brit. (T. May, etc. but recall the UK is down to 9% manufacturing jobs, well before the grip of Brexit.) That has to do with Russia and bloggers breaking the W MSM monoply strangle on 'news.' ..."
Is there a "civil war" between est./"deep state" factions represented by
Hillary/Obama-Qatar/Muslim Brotherhood ("globalists"/"socialists") and Trump-KSA
("nationalists") .. it's difficult to see why the establishment would be so much against
Trump. .. has proven to be a faux populist. .. the political charades that we have seen have
as much to do with the "betrayal" of ISIS as they do with anti-Russian psy-ops.
Yes, an intercine fight, not left-right, or Dem-Rep, but covert tribes that maintain an
ersatz pol. oppo for the deplorable unwashed public. (They share the power and the profits,
e.g. McCain is practically part of Clintoon.Co.)
They vie for control of Gvmt. law-making, organisation, largesse / exemption, passes /
etc., in view of implementing regulatory capture, monopolies, rent-seeking, etc., for them to
keep their position as dependent on being a conduit for their funders + backers. All other
personae are there for cinematic purposes only to create the illusion of a 'democracy.'
Well-paid, these side-actors do a fair job, the MSM cheers along so they hold on and
persevere.
DJT's 'nationalist' stance is evident in his keeness in meeting, dealing with, NK Kim,
China Xi, the 'desire' to ally w. Putin (now he wants it back into the G7 so 8), his original
plan > withdraw from Syria (partly achieved) and of course KSA - Israel. (That gets
muddled, long story..)
Obama/Dem circles were strong supporters-funders of jihadis and the MB (Ex. Huma
Abedin, with of course the MB itself being of doubtful aka astro-turf origins, British
encouragement back in the day. The primo contemp. MB voice, Tariq Ramadan, is in prison
in France for rape, having being brought down by the Me Too cries.) DJT made the
'fight' against 'muslim terrorists' etc. a priority, going so far as to hold up visas, etc. -
quite the Racist! scandal.
Funding to Dems/Reps was about equal overall in the last election. DJT was funded by Big
Agri, Arms, Oil.
The Dems captured informatics, computers, aka 'Silicon valley', anything
cultural , ex. MSM, other media, Unis, etc., Unions (symbolic), and the hugely
profitable Health Care sector (scammers.) Afaik, Banks contributed equally to both (as I
heard from an UBS bankster but I did not tally on O.S.)
Trump + Putin loathing (compare with Bush Jr. and Russia in 2002, 3..) thus seems
fuelled by the MSM (more so than the pols or the ppl) which seems evident though one might
like to add trad. Brit. (T. May, etc. but recall the UK is down to 9% manufacturing jobs,
well before the grip of Brexit.) That has to do with Russia and bloggers breaking the W MSM
monoply strangle on 'news.'
Interesting that the Daily Mail article on Hala Jaber's interview with the Syrian President
was not open for BTL comments. I presume this could be because many DM readers might well
agree with Bashar al Assad on much of what he says about Britain's role in the West's war
against Syria and the White Helmets in particular. As a whole, DM readers tend to be much
more skeptical about the MSM in Britain than, say, followers of The Guardian or the BBC.
"... Soros and his band of colluding commodities fund managers have done more damage in the world than any communist, socialist, or American exceptionalist. These soulless pathological misers' need to accumulate endless wealth leads to their trampling the rules and laws of free nations, bought off by their ownership of the regulatory apparatus. ..."
"... I speak from first hand knowledge. This is no fantasy. What IS a fantasy is that it is any religion or group ("the Rothschilds," "the Joos") who are behind this clique. It is the heads of the largest funds and money managers who work together like sharks on the body politic. Some are Jews, but far more are not. Greed knows no religion, no country, no creed or color. ..."
"... Bill and Hillary are at the vanguard of this group. Bill's administration did more to abet the metastatisis of this group than any other. Hillary tried to cash the IOU but failed because of her transparent venality, and Trump's appeal. ..."
In the latest revelation concerning the "mysterious Maltese Professor," Joseph Mifsud, and
his involvement in the "Russiagate" saga, Disobedient Media can additionally reveal that Mifsud
interacted on a number of occasions with individuals tied to think tanks known for engaging in
"pay to play" behavior for the purposes of pushing specific policies on behalf of donors. The
involvement of these institutes, which include the Atlantic Council, Brookings Institute and
Open Society Foundation raises questions about whether or not certain private parties were
involved with efforts to target Donald Trump's presidential campaign for their own political
benefit.
Disobedient Media broke coverage of Joseph Mifsud's connections to UK intelligence and was
also the
first outlet to report on the findings of UK political analyst Chris Blackburn, who
recounted evidence that included reference to Mifsud's close relationship with Italian Senator
Gianni Pittella. Pittella has been deemed in leaked documents to be a "
reliable ally " of George Soros' Open Society Foundation.
Mifsud's Interaction With Think Tank Members
Joseph Mifsud has routinely and consistently interacted with various members of think tanks
and institutions that as a general rule support internationalist policies. In the aftermath of
the 2016 US Presidential Election, these interactions intensified as both think tanks and
establishment media outlets began to increase their coverage of alleged "Russian collusion"
narratives in an effort to justify ongoing investigations to the public.
On June 21st and 22nd, 2009, Mifsud was listed as a participant in the Italian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs-hosted " G8 and
Beyond " convened with the Brookings Institution, Aspen, Club de Madrid and LINK Campus.
The event was also attended by Strobe Talbott, the President of the Brookings Institution.
Disobedient Media has previously highlighted research by Chris Blackburn, tying members of
cyber-security firm Crowdstrike to the LINK Campus in Rome. Crowdstrike founder Dmitri
Alperovitch acts as a
Senior Fellow for the Atlantic Council .
Mifsud has routinely aligned himself with pro-European Union parties and attended multiple
events where members of the Atlantic Council and Open Society Foundation were also involved
within the last several years. On June 28, 2016, Mifsud was listed as a signatory to a
statement released by the European Council on
Foreign Relations (ECFR) in response to the UK's Brexit vote. Other signatories included
David Koranyi , Director of the Atlantic
Council's Eurasian Energy Future Initiative, Jordi Vaquer , Director of the Open Society Initiative for
Europe, Goran Buldioski , Director of the
Open Society Initiative For Europe and George Soros. Since March 2018, the ECFR has removed Mifsud from
their List of Members in
an apparent attempt to distance themselves from this troubling affiliation.
On May 7th through May 9th, 2017, Mifsud was a participant in a panel discussion as part of
the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation-sponsored " G7 International
Forum " at the LINK Campus in Rome along with Andrea Montanino , a Chief Economist at the Atlantic Council.
On May 21st, 2017, Mifsud spoke at the Riyadh Forum On
Countering Extremism And Fighting Terrorism hosted by the King Faisal Center for Research
and Islamic Studies and the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition. The event also
featured multiple speakers from the Atlantic Council, including Nonresident Senior Fellow
Elisabeth Kendall and Ashton B. Carter , who is listed as
an Honorary Director at the Atlantic Council.
On the 26th and 27th of June 2017 Mifsud attended the 10th annual council meeting of the
European Council on Foreign
Relations . Also present at the event was David Koranyi , the Director of the Atlantic Council's Energy
Diplomacy Initiative. George Soros also appeared at the meeting along with his son, Alex
Soros.
The Involvement Of Think Tanks In "Pay For Play" Propaganda Peddling
The Atlantic Council is a NATO-supported think tank that is known for pushing pro European
Union, anti-Russia narratives, including " black propaganda " claiming that Russia was likely involved with
attempts to "hack" the 2016 US Presidential Elections and that Wikileaks is a pawn of the
Russian government. However,
Disobedient Media has previously reported that the Atlantic Council and other think tanks
have a troubling history of taking money from foreign special interest groups and government
agencies in return for pushing propaganda to support various initiatives around the globe.
The New York Times has named the
Atlantic Council along with the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International
Studies as being think tanks which have made undisclosed "agreements" with foreign
governments. The article denounced the Atlantic Council for having "opened a whole new window
into an aspect of the influence-buying in Washington that has not previously been exposed."
Multiple legal experts cited by the New York Times said that these relationships with foreign
powers may constitute a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act .
In May 2016, a report by the Associated
Press identified the Atlantic Council as one of a number of think tanks which had received
funding from the Ploughshares Fund. The Ploughshares Fund is financed by George Soros'
Open Society Foundation . A May 5, 2016 article by the New York Times revealed that the Ploughshares Fund was a major
player in efforts to sell the Iranian nuclear deal to the American public. The deal has been
generally criticized as a foreign policy
failure which resulted in the transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars to Iran without any
concessions in return and has failed to prevent Iran from continuing to illegally test long range ICBM missiles in violation of both
the deal and international sanctions.
The Atlantic Council has released a number of glowing reviews of Soros' "philanthropic" work and proudly lists a jaw-dropping number of various
special interest groups, government agencies, foreign governments and well connected, wealthy
individual patrons among its donors. Highlights include the foundation of Ukranian oligarch
Victor Pinchuk, The Open Society Foundation, the United Arab Emirates, Bahaa Hariri, the
billionaire brother of Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc.,
NATO, the United States Department of State, and Lockheed Martin Corporation. A donor list from 2015 also names the Turkish
Ministry of Energy & National Resources, whose head Berat Albayrak was the subject of leaks released by publishing giant
Wikileaks exposing increasing
political oppression in Turkey and the involvement of the Ministry in providing material support to the terror group ISIS.
The Brookings Institution's
Contributor List also mentions many of the same donors who fund the Atlantic Council.
Common supporters include Victor Pinchuk, The Open Society Foundation, The Rockefeller
Foundation, Lockheed Martin Corporation and The Boeing Company. Brookings has also played a
central role in helping to stoke the flames of the "Russiagate" story. Its staff includes
Benjamin Wittes , a Senior Fellow at the
Brookings Institution who admitted to
leaking information given to him by James Comey about President Donald Trump to the New York Times .
The heavy emphasis placed on narrative pushing by the Atlantic Council and Brookings
Institution is hardly surprising and has only intensified in 2018. In May 2018, a panel
convened by the
Council on Foreign Relations openly endorsed the use of propaganda on Western populations
to combat what they claim to be "disinformation and fake news."
Consistent Interactions Create Concerns About Claims Of Collusion
The consistent interactions and connections between Mifsud and individuals tied to think
tanks with a vested interest in pushing specific policy narratives leads to skepticism about
claims that Russia systemically interfered with American elections. The damage that has been
done not only to the reputation of hardworking intelligence professionals but to the very
ideals of Western democracy internationally will take some time to fully repair.
While much attention has been given to the identities of the intelligence and government
officials involved with the "Spygate" scandal, very little has been said about the private
parties who may have used them for their own benefit. There is a plethora of international
groups such as the Open Society Foundation, NATO and other individuals and organizations around
the world which support these think tanks that have a proven history of pushing propaganda on
behalf of their beneficiaries. Mifsud's ties to such groups that support an internationalist
political agenda which has been disrupted by political events over the past several years raise
serious questions about the identities of the actual parties who interfered with democratic
processes and institutions in the United States.
Soros and his band of colluding commodities fund managers have done more damage in the world than any communist,
socialist, or American exceptionalist. These soulless pathological misers' need to accumulate endless wealth leads to their
trampling the rules and laws of free nations, bought off by their ownership of the regulatory apparatus.
I speak from first hand knowledge. This is no fantasy. What IS a fantasy is that it is any religion or group ("the
Rothschilds," "the Joos") who are behind this clique. It is the heads of the largest funds and money managers who work
together like sharks on the body politic. Some are Jews, but far more are not. Greed knows no religion, no country, no creed
or color.
Bill and Hillary are at the vanguard of this group. Bill's administration did more to abet the metastatisis of this group
than any other. Hillary tried to cash the IOU but failed because of her transparent venality, and Trump's appeal.
But, Trump isn't a pimple on their ass. He will come and go, and they will still be with us. They co-opt useful idiots like
Comey and McCabe, and will laugh as their heads, most deservedly roll. But until the corrupt financial complex is brought to
justice, nothing will change.
"... the Obama administration intelligence agencies worked with Clinton to block " Siberian candidate " Trump. ..."
"... The template was provided by ex-MI6 Director Richard Dearlove , Halper's friend and business partner. Sitting in winged chairs in London's venerable Garrick Club, according to The Washington Post , Dearlove told fellow MI6 veteran Christopher Steele, author of the famous "golden showers" opposition research dossier, that Trump "reminded him of a predicament he had faced years earlier, when he was chief of station for British intelligence in Washington and alerted US authorities to British information that a vice presidential hopeful had once been in communication with the Kremlin." ..."
"... Apparently, one word from the Brits was enough to make the candidate in question step down. When that didn't work with Trump, Dearlove and his colleagues ratcheted up the pressure to make him see the light. A major scandal was thus born – or, rather, a very questionable scandal. Besides Dearlove, Steele, and Halper, a bon-vivant known as "The Walrus" for his impressive girth , other participants include: Robert Hannigan, former director Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, UK equivalent of the NSA. Alexander Downer, top Australian diplomat. Andrew Wood, ex-British ambassador to Moscow. Joseph Mifsud, Maltese academic. James Clapper, ex-US Director of National Intelligence. John Brennan, former CIA Director (and now NBC News analyst). ..."
"... Dearlove and Halper are now partners in a private venture calling itself "The Cambridge Security Initiative." Both are connected to another London-based intelligence firm known as Hakluyt & Co. Halper is also connected via two books he wrote with Hakluyt representative Jonathan Clarke and Dearlove has a close personal friendship with Hakluyt founder Mike Reynolds, yet another MI6 vet. Alexander Downer served a half-dozen years on Hakluyt's international advisory board, while Andrew Wood is linked to Steele via Orbis Business Intelligence, the private research firm that Steele helped found, and which produced the anti-Trump dossier, and where Wood now serves as an unpaid advisor . ..."
"... Everyone, in short, seems to know everyone else. But another thing that stands out about this group is its incompetence. Dearlove and Halper appear to be old-school paranoids for whom every Russian is a Boris Badenov or a Natasha Fatale . In February 2014, Halper notified US intelligence that Mike Flynn, Trump's future national security adviser, had grown overly chummy with an Anglo-Russian scholar named Svetlana Lokhova whom Halper suspected of being a spy – suspicions that Lokhova convincingly argues are absurd. ..."
"... As head of Britain's foreign Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is formally known, Dearlove played a major role in drumming up support for the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq even while confessing at a secret Downing Street meeting that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the [regime-change] policy." When the search for weapons of mass destruction turned up dry, Clapper, as then head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, argued that the Iraqi military must have smuggled them into neighboring Syria, a charge with absolutely no basis in fact but which helped pave the way for US regime-change efforts in that country too. ..."
"... Brennan was meanwhile a high-level CIA official when the agency was fabricating evidence against Saddam Hussein and covering up Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. Wood not only continues to defend the Iraqi invasion, but dismisses fears of a rising fascist tide in the Ukraine as nothing more than "a crude political insult" hurled by Vladimir Putin for his own political benefit. Such views now seem distressingly misguided in view of the alt-right torchlight parades and spiraling anti-Semitism that are now a regular feature of life in the Ukraine. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... describes Mifsud as "an enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia" and "a regular at meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual conference held in Sochi, Russia, that Mr. Putin attends," which tried to suggest that he is a Kremlin agent of some sort. ..."
"... But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange later tweeted photos of Mifsud with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and a high-ranking British intelligence official named Claire Smith at a training session for Italian security agents in Rome. Since it's unlikely that British intelligence would rely on a Russian agent in such circumstances, Mifsud's intelligence ties are more likely with the UK. ..."
"... Stefan Halper then infiltrated the Trump campaign on behalf of the FBI as an informant in early July, weeks before the FBI launched its investigation. Halper had 36 years earlier infiltrated the Carter re-election campaign in 1980 using CIA agents to turn information over to the Reagan campaign. Now Halper began to court both Page and Papadopoulous, independently of each other. ..."
"... The rightwing Federalist website speculates that Halper was working with Steele to flesh out a Sept. 14 memo claiming that "Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and [are] considering disseminating it." Clovis believes that Halper was trying "to create an audit trail back to those [Clinton] emails from someone in the campaign so they could develop a stronger case for probable cause to continue to issue warrants and to further an investigation." Reports that Halper apparently sought a permanent post in the new administration suggest that the effort was meant to continue after inauguration. ..."
"... Notwithstanding Clovis's nutty rightwing politics , his description of what Halper may have been up to makes sense as does his observation that Halper was trying " to build something that did not exist ." Despite countless hyper-ventilating headlines about mysterious Trump Tower meetings and the like, the sad truth is that Russiagate after all these months is shaping up as even more of a "nothing-burger" than Obama administration veteran Van Jones said it was back in mid-2017. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has indicted Papadopoulos and others on procedural grounds, he has indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for corruption, and he has charged a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency with violating US election laws. ..."
"... As The Washington Post noted in an oddly, cool-headed Dec. 2 article , 2, 700 suspected Russian-linked accounts generated just 202,000 tweets in a six-year period ending in August 2017, a drop in a bucket compared to the one billion election-related tweets sent out during the fourteen months leading up to Election Day. ..."
"... Opposition research is intended to mix truths and fiction, to dig up plausible dirt to throw at your opponent, not to produce an intelligence assessment at taxpayer's expense to "protect" the country. And Steele was paid for it by the Democrats, not his government. ..."
"... Although Kramer denies it, The New Yorker ..."
"... But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry observed a few days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information about you that I'd sure hate to see end up in the press." ..."
"... It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth degree. But that's what the intelligence agencies are for, i.e. to spread fear and propaganda in order to stampede the public into supporting their imperial agenda. In this case, their efforts are so effective that they've gotten lost in a fog of their own making. If the corporate press fails to point this out, it's because reporters are too befogged themselves to notice. ..."
"... "Russiagate" continues to attract mounting blowback at Clinton, Obama and the Dems. Might well be they who end up charged with lawbreaking, though I'd be surprised if anyone in authority is ever really punished. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-02/fbi-spying-trump-started-london-earlier-thought-new-texts-implicate-obama-white ..."
"... I've always thought that the great animus between Obama and Trump stemmed from Trump's persistent birtherist attacks on Obama followed by Obama's public ridicule of Trump at the White House Correspondants' Dinner. Without the latter, Trump probably would not have been motivated to run for the presidency. Without the former, Obama would probably not have gotten into the gutter to defeat and embarrass Trump at all costs. Clinton and Obama probably never recruit British spooks to sabotage and provide a pretense for spying on the campaigns of Jeb, Ted or Little Marco. Since these were all warmongers like Hillary and Obama, the issues would have been different, Russia would not have been a factor, and Putin would have had no alleged "puppet." ..."
"... The irony is that Clinton and Obama wanted Trump as her opponent. They cultivated his candidacy via liberal media bias throughout the primaries. (MSNBC and Rachel Maddow were always cutting away to another full length Trump victory speech and rally, including lots of jibber jabber with the faithful supporters.) Why? Because they thought he was the easiest to beat. The polls actually had Hillary losing against the other GOP candidates. The Dems beat themselves with their own choice of candidate and all the intrigue, false narratives and other questionable practices they employed in both the primaries and the general. That's what really happened. ..."
"... I agree that Hillary wanted Trump as an opponent, thought she could easily win. I've underestimated idiot opponents before, always to my detriment. Why is it that they are always the most formidable? The "insiders" are so used to voters rolling over, taking it on the chin. They gave away their jobs, replaced them with the service industry, killed their sons and daughters in wars abroad, and still the American people cast their ballots in their favor. This time was different. The insiders just did not see the sea change, not like Trump did. ..."
"... Long-time CIA asset named as FBI's spy on Trump campaign By Bill Van Auken https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/21/poli-m21.html ..."
"... What the MSM really needed was a bait which they could use to lure more dollars just like a horse race where the track owners needed a fast underdog horse to clean up. I believe the term is to be "hustled". The con men of the media hustlers decided they needed a way to cause all of the candidates to squirm uneasily and to then react to the news that Donald Trump was "in the lead". ..."
"... Those clever media folks. What a gift the Supreme Court handed them. But there was one little (or big) problem. The problem was the result of the scam put Trump in the White House. Something that no conservative republican would ever sign onto. Trump had spent years as a democrat, hobnobbed with the Clinton's and was an avowed agnostic who favored the liberal ideology for the most part. ..."
"... The new guy in the White House with his crazy ideas of making friends with Vladimir Putin horrified a national arms industry funded with hundreds of billions of our tax dollars every year propped up by all the neocons with their paranoid beliefs and plans to make America the hegemon of the World. Our foreign allies who use the USA to fight their perceived enemies and entice our government to sell them weapons and who urge us to orchestrate the overthrow of governments were all alarmed by the "not a real republican" peace-nick occupying the White House. ..."
"... It is probable that the casino and hotel owner in the White House posed an very threatening alternate strategy of forming economic ties with former enemies which scared the hell out of the arms industry which built its economy on scaring all of us and justifying its existence based on foreign enemies. ..."
"... So the MSM and the MIC created a new cold war with their friends at the New York Times and the Washington Post which published endless stories about the new Russian threat we faced. It had nothing to do with the 0.02% Twitter and Facebook "influence" that Russia actually had in the election. It was billed as the crime of the century. The real crime was that they committed the crime of the century that they mightily profited from by putting Trump in the White House in the first place with a plan to grab all the election cash they could grab. ..."
As the role of a well-connected group of British and U.S. intelligence agents begins to
emerge, new suspicions are growing about what hand they may have had in weaving the Russia-gate
story, as Daniel Lazare explains.
Special to Consortium News
With the news that a Cambridge academic-cum-spy
named Stefan Halper infiltrated the Trump campaign, the role of the intelligence agencies in
shaping the great Russiagate saga is at last coming into focus.
It's looking more and more massive. The intelligence agencies initiated reports that Donald
Trump was colluding with Russia, they nurtured them and helped them grow, and then they spread
the word to the press and key government officials. Reportedly, they even tried to use these
reports to force Trump to step down prior to his inauguration. Although the corporate press
accuses Trump of conspiring with Russia to stop Hillary Clinton, the reverse now seems to be
the case: the Obama administration intelligence agencies worked with Clinton to block "
Siberian
candidate " Trump.
The template was provided by ex-MI6 Director Richard Dearlove , Halper's friend and business
partner. Sitting in winged chairs in London's venerable Garrick Club, according to The
Washington Post , Dearlove
told fellow MI6 veteran Christopher Steele, author of the famous "golden showers"
opposition research dossier, that Trump "reminded him of a predicament he had faced years
earlier, when he was chief of station for British intelligence in Washington and alerted US
authorities to British information that a vice presidential hopeful had once been in
communication with the Kremlin."
Apparently, one word from the Brits was enough to make the candidate in question step down.
When that didn't work with Trump, Dearlove and his colleagues ratcheted up the pressure to make
him see the light. A major scandal was thus born – or, rather, a very questionable
scandal. Besides Dearlove, Steele, and Halper, a bon-vivant known as "The Walrus" for
his impressive girth , other participants include: Robert Hannigan, former director
Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, UK equivalent of the NSA. Alexander Downer, top
Australian diplomat. Andrew Wood, ex-British ambassador to Moscow. Joseph Mifsud, Maltese
academic. James Clapper, ex-US Director of National Intelligence. John Brennan, former CIA
Director (and now NBC News analyst).
In-Bred
A few things stand out about this august group. One is its in-bred quality. After helping to
run an annual confab known as the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, Dearlove and Halper are now
partners in a private venture calling itself "The Cambridge Security Initiative." Both are
connected to another London-based intelligence firm known as Hakluyt & Co. Halper is also
connected via two books he wrote with Hakluyt representative Jonathan Clarke
and Dearlove has a close personal friendship with Hakluyt founder Mike Reynolds, yet another
MI6 vet. Alexander Downer
served a half-dozen years on Hakluyt's international advisory board, while Andrew Wood is
linked to Steele via Orbis Business Intelligence, the private research firm that Steele helped
found, and which produced the anti-Trump dossier, and where Wood now serves as an
unpaid
advisor .
Everyone, in short, seems to know everyone else. But another thing that stands out about
this group is its incompetence. Dearlove and Halper appear to be old-school paranoids for whom
every Russian is a Boris
Badenov or a Natasha Fatale . In February 2014, Halper notified US intelligence that Mike
Flynn, Trump's future national security adviser, had grown overly chummy with an Anglo-Russian
scholar named Svetlana Lokhova whom Halper suspected of being a spy – suspicions that
Lokhova convincingly
argues are absurd.
Halper: Infiltrated Trump campaign
In December 2016, Halper and Dearlove both resigned from the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar
because they suspected that a company footing some of the costs was tied up with Russian
intelligence – suspicions that Christopher Andrew, former chairman of the Cambridge
history department and the seminar's founder, regards as " absurd " as well.
As head of Britain's foreign Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is formally known,
Dearlove played a major role in drumming up support for the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of
Iraq even while confessing at a secret Downing Street meeting that "the intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the [regime-change] policy." When the search for weapons of mass
destruction turned up dry, Clapper, as then head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency,
argued that the Iraqi
military must have smuggled them into neighboring Syria, a charge with absolutely no basis in
fact but which helped pave the way for US regime-change efforts in that country too.
Brennan was meanwhile a high-level CIA official when the agency was fabricating evidence
against Saddam Hussein and covering up Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. Wood not only continues to defend
the Iraqi invasion, but dismisses
fears of a rising fascist tide in the Ukraine as nothing more than "a crude political insult"
hurled by Vladimir Putin for his own political benefit. Such views now seem distressingly
misguided in view of the alt-right torchlight parades and
spiraling anti-Semitism that are now a regular feature of life in the Ukraine.
The result is a diplo-espionage gang that is very bad at the facts but very good at public
manipulation – and which therefore decided to use its skill set out to create a public
furor over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
It Started Late 2015
The effort began in late 2015 when GCHQ, along with intelligence agencies in Poland,
Estonia, and Germany, began monitoring
what they said were " suspicious 'interactions' between figures connected to Trump and
known or suspected Russian agents."
Since Trump was surging ahead in the polls and scaring the pants off the foreign-policy
establishment by calling for a rapprochement with Moscow, the agencies figured that Russia was
somehow behind it. The pace accelerated in March 2016 when a 30-year-old policy consultant
named George Papadopoulos joined the Trump campaign as a foreign-policy adviser. Traveling in
Italy a week later, he ran into Mifsud, the London-based Maltese academic, who reportedly set
about cultivating him after learning of his position with Trump. Mifsud claimed
to have "substantial connections with Russian government officials," according to prosecutors.
Over breakfast at a London hotel, he told Papadopoulos that he had just returned from Moscow
where he had learned that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands
of emails."
This was the remark that supposedly triggered an FBI investigation. The New York
Timesdescribes
Mifsud as "an enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia" and "a regular at
meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual conference held in Sochi, Russia, that Mr.
Putin attends," which tried to suggest that he is a Kremlin agent of some sort.
But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange later
tweeted photos of Mifsud with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and a high-ranking
British intelligence official named Claire Smith at a training session for Italian security
agents in Rome. Since it's unlikely that British intelligence would rely on a Russian agent in
such circumstances, Mifsud's intelligence ties are more likely with the UK.
After Papadopoulos caused a minor political ruckus by
telling a reporter that Prime Minister David Cameron should apologize for criticizing
Trump's anti-Muslim pronouncements, a friend in the Israeli embassy put him in touch with a
friend in the Australian embassy, who introduced him to Downer, her boss. Over drinks, Downer
advised him to be more diplomatic. After Papadopoulos then passed along Misfud's tip about
Clinton's emails, Downer informed his government, which, in late July, informed the FBI.
Was Papadopoulos Set Up?
Suspicions are unavoidable but evidence is lacking. Other pieces were meanwhile clicking
into place. In late May or early June 2016, Fusion GPS, a private Washington intelligence firm
employed by the Democratic National Committee, hired Steele to look into the Russian angle.
On June 20, he turned in the first of eighteen memos that would eventually comprise
the
Steele dossier , in this instance a three-page document asserting that Putin "has been
cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years" and that Russian intelligence
possessed "kompromat" in the form of a video of prostitutes performing a "golden showers" show
for his benefit at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton. A week or two later, Steele
briefed the FBI on his findings. Around the same time, Robert Hannigan flew to Washington
to brief CIA Director John Brennan about additional material that had come GCHQ's way, material
so sensitive that it could only be handled at "director level."
One player was filling Papadopoulos's head with tales of Russian dirty tricks, another was
telling the FBI, while a third was collecting more information and passing it on to the bureau
as well.
© Photo : Screenshot Screenshot
© Photo : Screenshot Screenshot
© Sputnik / Vitaly Belousov UK Integrity Initiative Project Aims to Damage Russia's Public Image - Lavrov
expansion, except in the sense that "security" means operational freedom. You can find references to Russia's nuclear weapons, though, which are described as defensive, designed "to counter US forces and weapons systems." [vii] Try finding that on the BBC. I should mention that even "defensive" nukes can be launched accidentally.
© missannawebb / Instagram In one of the least surprising developments in an ongoing story, the Sun newspaper has been forced to remove a report from its website in which a Russian model claims Vladimir Putin is trying to kill her. The article has since been removed " for legal reasons, " and, some are speculating, probably for some 'truth' reasons as well.
'Putin wants me dead': Russian 'model' seduces UK tabloids with new Salisbury poisoning claims
'Alexander Petrov' and 'Ruslan Boshirov' are seen in an image handed out by the Metropolitan Police in London, Britain / Reuters Moscow is aware of who the people named as suspects in the Skripal case are, President Vladimir Putin said, adding that these people are civilians. Saying that there is "nothing criminal" about the two, Putin also hopes that the people in question will eventually come forward and talk to the media.
British prosecutors name the 2 Russians suspected of poisoning the Skripals
Names of 'Russian suspects' in Skripal case published by UK don't mean anything to us – Moscow
British PM says two suspects in Skripals poisoning case are Russian military intelligence officers
'No cause for further investigation' into 14 deaths of people linked to Russia – May
MARK CHAPMAN August 22, 2018 at 3:55 pm
After Magnitsky: Dead lawyer's boss Browder and his legal hurdles – now in US
Russia slaps travel ban on 5 US ex-officials over 'legalization of torture'
Key Magnitsky case witness may have been poisoned – report
The film, entitled "The Browder Effect," was assembled by the channel's investigative reporter and presenter in his own right, Yevgeni Popov. The full version of "The Browder Effect" will be aired on Wednesday evening, 13 April on Russia's flagship network, Pervyi Kanal. However, from the lengthy segments shown on Sunday it is possible to draw some conclusions about the sensational material it sets out.
