Will the War Clouds Pass Us By, Or Will the Storm Break? by Alastair Crooke
The compulsive hatred of President Putin in élite western circles has surpassed anything witnessed during the Cold War. Western states have been hyping political hostility in almost every sphere: In Syria, in Ukraine, across the Middle East, in Eurasia, and now, this hatred has leached into the Security Council, leaving it irretrievably polarised — and paralysed. This hostility has percolated too, across to all Russia’s allies, contaminating them. It potends – almost inevitably – further sanctions on Russia (and its friends) under the catch-all Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. But the real question is: Does this collective hysteria portend war?
Ed Curtis reminds us of the almost parabolic escalation of antagonism in recent weeks:
“This has happened as the Russia-gate claims have fallen to pieces … All across the media spectrum, from the big name corporate stenographers like The New York Times, CNN, National Public Radio, The Washington Post to The Atlantic and Nation magazines and other “leftist” publications such as Mother Jones and Who What Why, the Russia and Putin bashing has become hysterical in tone, joined as it is with an anti-Trump obsession … “Russia Sees Midterm Elections as a Chance to Sow Fresh Discord (NY Times, 2/13), “Russia Strongman [Putin] haspulled off one of the greatest acts of political sabotage in modern history” (The Atlantic, Jan. /Feb. 2018), “Mueller’s Latest Indictment Shows Trump Has Helped Putin Cover Up a Crime” (Mother Jones, 2/16/18), “A Russian Sightseeing Tour For Realists” (whowhatwhy.com, 2/7/18), etc.”
By casting Russia’s interference in the US presidential election as “an attack on American democracy” and thus “an act of war”, the ‘Covert American State’ is saying – implicitly – that just as the act of war at Pearl Harbour brought a retaliatory war upon Japan, so, pari passu, Russia’s effort to subvert America require similar retribution.
Across the Middle East – but especially in Syria – there is ample dry tinder for a conflagration, with incipient or existing conflicts between Turkey and the Kurds; between the Turkish Army and the Syrian Army; between Turkish forces and American forces in Manbij; between Syrian forces and American forces; between American forces and the USAF, and Russian servicemen and Russia’s aerospace forces; between American forces and Iranian forces, and last but not least, between Israel and Syria.
This is one heck of a pile of combustible material. Plainly any incident amidst such compressed volatility may escalate dangerously. But this is not the point. The point is: Does all this Russia hysteria imply that the US is contemplating a war of choice against Russia, or in support of a re-set of the Middle East landscape to Israel’s and Saudi Arabia’s benefit? Will the US deliberately provoke Russia – by killing Russian servicemen, for example – in order to find pretext for a ‘bloody nose’ military action launched against Russia itself – for responding to the American provocation?
Inadvertent war is a distinct possibility, of course: Both Israel and Saudi Arabia are experiencing domestic leadership crises. Israel may overreach, and America may overreach, too, in its desire to support Israel. Indeed the constant portrayal of the US President as Putin’s puppet is pursued, of course, to taunt Trump into proving the opposite – by authorizing some or other action against Russia – albeit against his better instincts…
About Alastair Crooke: Director and Founder of Conflicts Forum based in Beirut. He was formerly advisor on Middle East issues to Javier Solana, the EU Foreign Policy Chief. He also was a staff member of Senator George Mitchell’s Fact Finding Committee that inquired into the causes of the Intifada (2000-2001) and was adviser to the International Quartet. He facilitated various ceasefires in the Occupied Territories and the withdrawal of occupying forces on 2 occasions. Alastair has had 20 years’ experience working with Islamist movements, and has extensive experience working with movements such as Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamist movements in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East. He is a member of the UN’s Alliance of Civilization’s Global Experts. His book, Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution was published in February 2009 and he is a frequent contributor in the international press, both writing articles and TV and radio commentary
The wheel is indeed empty, or certainly devoid of truth. Marcy Wheeler at ’emptywheel’ blog believes “the Russians did it”, but there are so many holes in the ‘DNC hack’ story, a government embraced CIA generated conspiracy theory (one that’s going to backfire), Niagara Falls couldn’t keep that sieve filled; no matter intelligence agencies across the spectrum [2] [3] [4] of the liberal democracies are trying to pull the American intelligence agency’s chestnuts out of the fire, Russian hackers here, Russian Hackers there, evil Russian hackers everywhere!
To begin, we only need dissect one short article where Wheeler asserts ‘the Russians did it’ in her:
Why Is Russia Finally Letting (Dubious) Details of Its Involvement in DNC Hack Out?
December 12, 2017 by emptywheel
In recent days there have been a number of stories in Russia implicating the FSB (note, not GRU) in issues related to the DNC hack. First, there was this article from The Bell, claiming that the four Russian treason defendants (two of whom were FSB officers) are being prosecuted because they provided inside information to the US about GRU’s involvement in the DNC hack.
“But it is impossible to identify which specific cyber group or groups were responsible for last year’s Democratic National Committee hack based on technical traces alone, four cyber experts polled by The Bell confirmed. To prove specifically that the GRU was involved, U.S. investigators would have needed inside sources — preferably with access to confidential state matters, one source explained. Mikhailov had that access.
“Relations between intelligence agencies working on the cyber front were strained, one of Mikhailov’s acquaintances said. The FSB and GRU compete for funding and Mikhailov felt the FSB carried out cyber tasks more professionally than the GRU, according to one of his acquaintances.
“He used to say that “the GRU breaks into servers in a brazen, clumsy, and brutish manner and it interfered with his own work”, the acquaintance said. Moreover “the GRU’s hackers didn’t even try to cover their tracks””
The report said that Sergei Mikhailov — who was named (but not charged) the Yahoo hack case — shared information on Russian hackers who wouldn’t work with the FSB with western law enforcement agencies though a cut-out named Kimberly Zenz.
“Mikhailov had been working closely with Western intelligence agencies since 2010. Report written for Vrublevsky said that Mikhailov had leaked sensitive information “on Russian cyber-criminals, who had refused to cooperate with him, to a U.S. citizen”. More specifically, Mikhailov reportedly handed the U.S. citizen — a woman — information on Russian state-sponsored hacker attacks against Estonia and Georgia in 2007 and 2008.
“Burykh says he found that Mikhailov gave the information to Stoyanov, who then passed it on to Kimberly Zenz of the U.S. company iDefense Intelligence. From there, it went to the U.S. Department of Defense”
This 1st (immediate preceding) portion of Wheeler’s article is ok to set up her premise but is mostly notable for one omitted fact; her source, The Bell, is politically aligned with Russia’s most fringe anti-Putin liberal elements, led by the former nationalist turned liberal (western media darling & color revolution hopeful) Alexi Navalny.
Then there’s this story, reporting that a hacker tied to the Lurk group, Konstantin Kozlovsky, hacked the DNC on behalf of the FSB.
Following on this (immediate, preceding) linked story, which is mostly notable for its brevity and rehashing The Bell reporting but referencing another Russian liberal fringe (Navalny aligned) anti-Putin media outlet, Dozhd TV, introduces the name Konstantin Kozlovsky and it’s then we come to the real cheat in Wheeler’s reporting and where in her article things get really interesting:
Then there’s this, from Novaya Gazeta, laying out the news.
This immediate, preceding linked article is, again, the Russian liberal fringe or, Navalny aligned anti-Putin media but perhaps the most credible of the fringe liberal media. The article is in Russian language. It is long, complex, and it certainly does NOT lay out any news, despite Wheeler’s word play on the expression ‘lay out the facts.’ It is most notable for numerous points Wheeler omits to mention. The article’s author, Irek Murtazin, is very careful to emphasize, throughout, nearly everything he is writing is speculation. He mentions there is more than one version of his story. He begins his article with a disclaimer, pointing out almost nothing is known with any certainty, concerning the evidence or any facts surrounding the charges concerning those arrested. He proposes the American version of events is possible but doesn’t give this much credence. He uses many self-referring terms concerning his article’s content that can be translated variously as ‘my impression’, ‘a possibility’, ‘my opinion’ and more. This is a context most westerners will have no ability to discover for themselves and Wheeler construes this for her readers to be “laying out the news”
Notably, Murtazin admits the (keep reading) Konstantin Kozlovsky Facebook profile and posting could be a creation of “foreign security service” (implying CIA or other western intelligence) but he prefers to believe it is a Russian security service creation intended for manipulation and/or damage control. Murtazin’s article clearly indicates this is his opinion only and he has no hard facts to back these presumptions up. He even has his unnamed security services sources specifying ‘possibly’ or ‘it could be.’
NG [Novaya Gazeta, but actually Irek Murtazin’s opinion piece, Wheeler fails to make this distinction] questions — as I do — why this is all coming out now. Of particular interest, it notes that Kozlovsky’s claims were posted in August, but for some reason the hashtags that would have alerted people to the posted claim were not triggering, meaning the information only got noticed (at least in Russia) now.
This (immediate, preceding) omits Murtazin having pointed out Konstantin Kozlovsky had been held in a facility so secure ‘a mouse’ could not leave or arrive unregistered. This is important to note for the fact these may in fact not be (almost certainly are not) Kozlovsky’s claims at all. The impression Wheeler would leave with the inattentive is, the idea there is actual substance to Kozlovsky’s ‘Facebook claims’ when in fact there likely is no substantive element. Wheeler then quotes Murtazin:
“Interestingly, the first materials on this page were posted back in August of this year. And despite the fact that sensational publications were accompanied by tags # CIB, # FSB, # Dokoutchaev, # Mikhailov # Stoyanov, # hackers, # Kaspersky, the existence of a personal page Kozlovsky in Facebook for some reason became known only in early December”
Reinforcing her misleading the reader, Wheeler doesn’t openly or clearly state, or accurately interpret material posited in Murtazin’s article, pointing to the most likely possible of facts; the sound idea Kozlovsky, the imprisoned person, never had anything to do with setting up his own Facebook page. Then:
Here’s the timeline we’re currently being presented with (I’ve made some additions):
“April 28, 2015: FSB accesses Lurk servers with Kaspersky’s help.
“May 18, 2016: Kozlovsky arrest.
“May 19-25, 2016: DNC emails shared with WikiLeaks likely exfiltrated.
“November 1, 2016: Date of Kozlovsky confession.
“December 5, 2016: Arrest, for treason, of FSB officers.
“August 14, 2017: Kozlovsky posts November 1 confession of hacking DNC on Facebook.
“December 2, 2017: Kozlovsky’s claims posted on his Facebook page.
Note Wheeler does not specify which “additions” are hers, in the preceding, although (at her site) Wheeler attributes the timeline to Murtazin with a blockquote. She previously only uses blockquotes for portions of articles she cites (I’ve added quotation marks where Wheeler is quoting with blockquote at her article, as her entire article is reproduced here in blockquote for purpose of this discussion.) Nowhere in Murtazin’s article does a timeline appear in form Wheeler presents as a quote:
Then Wheeler speculates:
Of particular note, the emails exfiltrated from the DNC and shared with WikiLeaks were probably not exfiltrated until the days immediately after Kozlovsky’s arrest.
Where on earth did Wheeler come up with this? Now, she would have us believe the DNC mails hack was accomplished following Kozlovsky’s arrest, in which case the ‘confession’ posted at Facebook cannot possibly be passed off as accurate, the context and language of the proposed confession precludes this. Is Wheeler insinuating Kozlovsky hacked the DNC from maximum security prison, with a gun to his head, and attempting to attribute this to Murtazin? Finally, Wheeler concludes…
As NG [Murtazin’s opinion piece, actually] notes, this all may well be true (though I wonder why Russia is now letting claims it was involved in the DNC hack go public, after claiming it was uninvolved for so long). But the reason it is coming out now is at least as interesting that it is coming out.
…and her “may well be true” consistently ignores Murtazin has emphasized, not only throughout his article, but particularly in its conclusion, this is entirely speculation absent hard facts (noting none of the prosecution files are public), and his admission of this cannot take into account Wheeler’s twisting of his theory (Murtazin presents his piece as nothing more than a theory), her additions and most notably, omissions. Then, Wheeler can wonder for all of eternity (for her readers’ suggestion susceptible minds) “I wonder why Russia is now letting claims it was involved in the DNC hack go public” when in fact it has not been demonstrated Russia has done any such thing. This is Murtazin speculating, nothing more, coming from a disgruntled former mainstream Russian journalist with the integrity of 10,000 Marcy Wheelers with his admission amounting to ‘I made this all up, maybe it will prove true’ (but it certainly won’t, see section two of this post.) In fact, there is greater chance (even if very slim) the arrests of the Kapersky lab figure and the Russian secret services officers are coincidental and unrelated to the arrest of Kozlovsky, than there is chance (practically none) Kozlovsky hacked the DNC servers. For all we know, the FSB officers arrests & treason charges could relate to corruption concerning the billions of rubles the LURK hacking group had stolen from Russia. Anyone can speculate anything at a point where no one really knows what the evidence is concerning those charged. In the end, the most notable omission of Wheeler is, Murtazin’s theory does not implicate Putin, but proposes a possibility that would point to far down the chain of command, to a mid-level, American spy service directed, traitor embedded in Russia’s FSB; ordering the DNC hack to [apparently] frame the Russians. How’d Wheeler miss that? She couldn’t have. The damning piece of Wheeler’s article is as simple as its’ title; “Why Is Russia Finally Letting (Dubious) Details of Its Involvement in DNC Hack Out?” The plain answer is, Russia hasn’t. Novaya Gazeta, publishing this far-fetched speculation, is certainly not acting on behalf of the Russian state.
Marcy Wheeler is one of the slickest, most underhanded so-called ‘journalists’ this investigator has ever encountered. She comes off as a master propagandist, fully engaged in running a professional ‘limited hangout’ or information operation promoting the USA’s intelligence services line. Her target audience is what I’d call the ‘marginally mainstream alienated’ seeking to know what is actually happening. Those people are both; too often convinced and horribly misinformed.
Note on my methodology: I did not rely on google translate (never a good idea, although I do use this tool to become familiar with the overall gist of a story in foreign language.) In order to actually understand the Russian article by Murtazin, I arranged on three occasions to sit with one of my (several) Russian literate associates, to get at accuracy and the nuance of what Murtazin was trying to say. Once before this composition and twice again following this composition.
Incidental to this, I’m informed the Kozlovsky ‘confession’ (reproduced in the Novaya Gazeta opinion piece by Murtazin) reads in the original Russian like a hybrid geek spy novel/Russian suspense thriller movie trailer, with all of the elements of a criminal-turned-unlucky-super-hero plot; where the protagonist turned world savior Kozlovsky had been served with a task list of saving us all from the liberal democracies most extreme paranoid cyber-fantasies. The remark was made “they should give this to Spielberg” and this Russian literate friend is not a Putin fan. It follows, Central Intelligence Agency can never provide proper screen credit to its writers, for reason of plausible deniability as it were.
Also, it is noticed Murtazin’s bias is palpable; when Murtazin refers to Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) as ‘The Lubyanka‘ (a historic Moscow jail and museum where FSB has an office) to associate today’s FSB with Stalin’s political crimes (the comparison is not close.) This is not how you win friends and influence people (or change the system.)
Wrapping up this section on the emptywheel (which reads like an intelligence agency contracted) hit job, we come to question of Marcy Wheeler’s motive, in her ability to take advantage of her readers vulnerability where examples given…
…’cz’ is the ‘comfort zone’ and the V in the center represents ‘psychological sight.’ As a metaphor, we can say, the eyes are at the point (bottom) of the V and people who depend on certain media and consequent shaped, narrow perception, have their field of vision contained or restricted within the V or comfort zone. The point of working through media to shape perception is to keep the large majority of people inside the ‘comfort zone’, insuring trust in (no matter if undeserved), and support for, geopolitical policy (no matter how insane.) In the event Wheeler, with her habit of sourcing Operation Mockingbird 2.0‘s WaPo & NYT, were herself manipulated (narcissists are brilliant material for this), I’ll be following up on that with a forthcoming satire. Meanwhile, anyone desiring an unbiased take on what’s actually happening, politically, inside Russia by an author who is not socially engineering his material, is not in love with Putin but understands Putin’s method’s better than most, I recommend a read of analyst Gordon Hahn’s assessment HERE.
Section Two: Incompetent Espionage and Wikileaks
This section is substantially unchanged since it had been posted as “Incompetent Espionage & Wikileaks (III).” It still holds up:
Let me assure you, the DNC hack wasn’t even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick. I know this because I know who did it and why. Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied. 360 pounds!https://t.co/AGRO0sFx7shttps://t.co/epXtv0t1uN
“Under this deal, which was reported by the Wall Street Journal, Assange would provide conclusive proof that Russia was not the source of hacked emails WikiLeaks published. In return, he would be offered a pardon, or some other assurance that he wouldn’t be prosecuted by the US for involvement in WikiLeaks.
“Rohrabacher brought this deal to the White House Wednesday [13 September 2017], but Chief of Staff John Kelly not only apparently didn’t like the offer, but didn’t tell President Trump that the offer had been made, instead telling Rohrabacher to take the proposal to the intelligence community.
“The intelligence community almost certainly wouldn’t be in a position to offer any sort of amnesty for Assange, which likely means the end of the proposal. Rohrabacher offered to set up a meeting between Assange and a Trump representative, but that too appears to have been dismissed by Kelly”
So, the generals keep Trump sequestered like the Vatican keeps a rampant pedophile priest under wraps; away from any real work and responsibilities (in this case, kept from knowledge of what’s actually going on in the world.) But now, with the Wall Street Journal blowing the whistle, Ivanka should soon be whispering in her daddy’s ear; and what will tell you everything is, what happens next. Suppose Trump keeps his mouth shut and says nothing? This will indicate the absolute completion of the Pence aligned generals capture of the Oval Office.
But the real news here is, Assange provides evidence of his belief that he is personally more important than any unconditional release of information which should stop the Pentagon and NATO’s pursuit of a war footing directed at Russia in its tracks.
Narcissism? Is there a stronger word? Julian Assange, who fancies himself ‘Jesus of the Digital Age’ would appear to be tired of bearing his cross. The Roman’s puppet, King Herod, hasn’t been authorized to provide the pardon and Pontius Pilate’s (read Mike Pompeo’s) people will deliver Jesus of the Digital Age to crucifixtion on behalf of the ‘duopoly’ mob, to satisfy their blood lust. Good luck with the world’s biggest ‘deal-maker’ (read loser) Wikileaks, because you blew it by waiting too long.
The entire sand-castle (a product of Obama CIA Director John Brennan’s imagination facilitated by the ‘Never Trump’ Bush partisans at CIA’s dirty tricks division) the “Russians hacked the election” is finally washing away with an incoming tide. How this plays out is anyone’s guess.
The open question is, how the new information will be leveraged, if it were to actually break into the open widely, with the bad boy Trump essentially captured by the surreal evil that surrounds him. Other than pure evil (e.g. Pence), only a narcissist or a fool would ever desire to be president of this particular republic. In ‘The Donald’, we have both.
1 August 2017 an audio tape is leaked in which Seymour Hersh states the FBI knows it was Seth Rich leaked the DNC mails:
“What the [FBI] report says is that some time in late Spring… he makes contact with WikiLeaks, that’s in his computer. Anyway, they found what he had done is that he had submitted a series of documents — of emails, of juicy emails, from the DNC” -Seymour Hersh
On 9 August 2017 The Nation magazine publishes a column on a group of independent experts…
“Forensic investigators, intelligence analysts, system designers, program architects, and computer scientists of long experience and strongly credentialed are now producing evidence disproving the official version of key events last year”
…demonstrating the DNC mails were leaked, not hacked.
On 18 August 2017 Antiwar.com reports Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has met with Assange concerning the DNC mails and [the article] further credibly suggests Assange is holding the DNC leak evidence hostage as a bargaining chip to possibly acquire a pardon for himself and leverage wikileaks into legitimacy with a President of the United States who at this point is owned by the USA’s intelligence agencies, a hare-brained scheme destined to fail. Assange & company waited too long.
But this would fit Julian Assange’s self-centered, persecuted-savior complex which never ceases to amaze, this guy (as well, Craig Murray) has allowed the idiots surrounding Trump to push us towards the brink with Russia, for months. All because Assange is tired of his embassy confinement in London, a circumstance that is entirely his own fault for the fact he didn’t have the self-discipline to keep his dick in his pants (whether Assange’s admitted intercourse was a case of rape or not.)
What’s more is, this blog pointed to strong circumstantial evidence it was Seth Rich leaked the DNC mails this past January, and recalling this, it still stretches the imagination a former UK ambassador would make an amateur espionage move worthy of a cub scout playing spy. But that’s what Craig Murray had done in the case of the DNC emails leaked to WikiLeaks.
Seymour Hersh states Seth Rich is the source of the DNC mails. Craig Murray states he had met with the source of the DNC mails. A + B = C:
Craig Murray met with Seth Rich
That Murray would be a high value target for American counter-intelligence to monitor for the reason of his high profile association with WikiLeaks is beyond obvious. For Murray then to state…
“I know who leaked them. I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things”
…goes to the practically bizarre when coming from a former United Kingdom ambassador to Uzbekistan. The UK is little different to the USA in the case of embassies providing cover for spies; in which case Murray should at least have some rudimentary espionage understanding such as YOU DO NOT MEET YOUR SOURCE DIRECTLY WHEN YOU ARE A HIGH PROFILE TARGET OF YOUR ADVERSARY’S COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE HUNTING YOUR (in this case, WikiLeaks) SOURCE(S)
Then, we had WikiLeak’s Assange giving what amounts to a ‘Glomar’ ‘I will neither confirm or deny’ response concerning the murder (assassination) of Seth Rich after appearing to suggest Rich was the source of the DNC emails leak:
Beyond this, WikiLeaks offering a $20,000 reward for the solving of the Seth Rich murder is laughable, that’s what an American west coast upscale community would offer for the arrest of a serial killer of the neighborhood’s cats. Two million dollars might get two seconds’ attention of a corruptible counter-intelligence agent with knowledge of a professional hit on Seth Rich, twenty million might even net an inside the agency sucker willing to take the exceedingly high risk to one’s life (almost certain death) that would attend selling out an agency hit man for substantial lucre. In truth, the WikiLeaks reward offer amounted to little more than a tabloid publicity stunt.
Narcissism is a blinding thing; and a self-righteous narcissism is no exception. Ambassador Murray could have every good intention but on the face of it, he had seriously screwed up. Murray and WikiLeaks should have immediately come clean, there was little to lose. Seth Rich was the source, Murray had met with him, and much could have been gained by stating so; there would be nothing given up any intelligence agency involved did not already know. It have been the right thing to do.
Craig Murray stating ‘I had a serious lapse of professional judgement and this resulted in the death of Seth Rich’ would be the most responsible and newsworthy move WikiLeaks could have taken; to counter the CIA’s ‘the Russians hacked the DNC’ propaganda lie, in which there is much invested by the agency; and the consequent damage to relations with Russia, and growing threat to what little world peace yet exists, is immense. WikiLeaks should have done the right thing a long time ago and they have not. Why not? Because Assange and WikiLeaks believes Assange’s comfort is more important than world peace. What fucks. This is beyond inexcusable, it’s criminal. But for Murray, there’s more at stake here than just a hit to ego & image.
Murray’s likely role in the DNC leaks case? A personal meeting with Rich to confirm for WikiLeaks Seth Rich was a bona fide insider with authentic material prior to a WikiLeaks cash payment to Rich and arrangements completed for the mails transfer.
Now, it is a question of ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ release the evidence because WikiLeaks waited too long, and let the criminals surrounding Trump consolidate their power while investing deeply in the myth of the Russians hacked the election; a criminal cabal that will up the ante on the world stage to any level necessary to avoid accountability. WikiLeaks Idiots. WikiLeaks Morons.
Meanwhile, Murray subsequently barred from the United States (except that he applies for a visa, typically unnecessary for a British citizen) appears to have been, in a manner of speaking, a deep state message to Murray: ‘thank you very much for the lapse of judgement, we have taken full advantage with the assassination of Seth Rich and we won’t be requiring your services after this’ (he’d be smart to stay away.)
The really sticky problem for WikiLeaks in this scenario is, Seymour Hersh asserts in the recorded call WikiLeaks had paid Rich for the leaked documents, damaging or reducing to element of pretense WikiLeaks claims of journalism & providing rationale for deep state prosecutors & judges to find this had been straightforward espionage. But they won’t do it if the Rich-Murray meeting stays buried, a LOT is invested in ‘the Russians did it’ for the public consumption. If it DOES break open, Murray’s ‘goose is cooked.’ It’s now not only WikiLeaks problem in a larger sense, but Murray’s, whether he does or doesn’t admit the assassinated Seth Rich had been the DNC mails source.
As noted in the immediate preceding article ‘Cyber-War and Google Robots’, Buried in an annex to the ‘intelligence report’ Donald Trump can’t make up his mind whether to believe or not, per Putin and his evil minions ‘hacked the USA’s 2016 election’, is this language:
”Estimative language consists of two elements: judgments about the likelihood of developments or events occurring and levels of confidence in the sources and analytic reasoning supporting the judgments. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents”
What is going on is, with ZERO hard evidence to back their claim, the ‘cover your ass’ culture of the liberal democracies ‘intelligence’ bureaucracy inserted the mandatory disclaimer, not knowing whether the shit they made up, also known as a PSYOP or psychological operation, under cover of an ‘intelligence’ report, would acquire and sustain traction. This is because, if/when the report falls apart, the incompetent, cowardly, CIA authors can point to the disclaimer and say ‘it’s the best we could do with what we knew in the moment, so, no, we didn’t lie.’
Related to possible fallout of the entire business coming apart, the dunces at Central Intelligence senior management level ran with the report, apparently prior to ‘vetting’ it with anyone with an IQ in excess of 90. What’s worse is, the FBI wasn’t informed before the CIA pushed the proposed ‘fact’ evil Putin, the 21st Century’s ‘Vlad the Impaler’, had (according to the CIA’s aged, but infallible psychics, recalled from the disbanded Project Stargate) employed Russian advances in sorcery, er, make that quantum mechanics, and hacked the 2016 election. In effect, the entire ‘the Russians did it’ scenario, according to the report’s annex, is solely sourced in the CIA’s imagination. Thus, the CIA had, by not considering how this realistically plays out, put the FBI’s nuts in a vise.
Consequently, anyone familiar with American legal process, when contemplating the Democratic National Committee ‘refusing’ the FBI access to the DNC servers, experiences a (dark) chuckle. In a world where there was a reality of authentic facts (not to mention an intact rule of law), the servers would be seized (or at least court order administrated) by the FBI, to come up with evidence of whether there had been the much publicized ‘hack’, or whether, as had been elsewhere reported, but much suppressed in mainstream media, this was an ‘insider leak.’
Clearly, the FBI knows in all probability, probably beyond a reasonable doubt, the DNC mails release was due to an insider leak as stated by Wikileaks associate Craig Murray, and Seth Rich was the insider leaked the DNC mails, per sources close to the DC police Seth Rich murder investigation, those same sources informing Seymour Hersh.
Meanwhile, the ‘Russians did it’ meme is too deeply invested in, to dial-back the PSYOP, it has acquired a life of its own in Congress. Backing off, at this point, would badly undermine the credibility of institutions across the board (includes media), at the top of the military-industrial feeding frenzy; a small matter of economics, as it were.
The answer to this dilemma? Pitch to ALL of the liberal democracies ‘the devil you know‘ argument, that is, ‘if we go down, you could go down too‘ and in this case it means keep piling on ‘the Russians did it’ and by now the Russians have done it everywhere; England, Germany, Spain (Catalonia), all of western Europe, everywhere across the so-called ‘free world’, including Santa Claus’ village in the Arctic, remotely operated scientific stations at the geographic South Pole and ‘by now’ includes the dark side of the moon, all in desperate gambit to keep a lie that is unsustainable, from crumbling. This may ultimately prove to be the defining event, in case of not whether, but when, the western intelligence agencies’ manufacture of reality must finally collapse.
Why aren’t the Russians pointing to the idiocy of the CIA’s failure to redact from the ‘intelligence report’ the ‘cover your ass’ admission of fantasy…
”Estimative language consists of two elements: judgments about the likelihood of developments or events occurring and levels of confidence in the sources and analytic reasoning supporting the judgments. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents”
…practically exonerating them? Probably it’s a case of ‘the devil you know’ as well; with Putin knowing the western leadership are not rational people, these people have nukes, and no one knows what will happen if it were to begin to unravel for the liberal democracies criminal class clinging to power. A criminal class, which to now, has shown it won’t hesitate to initiate any violence to hang on to, and further their interests. No rational person should expect these ‘people’ (‘people’ making one nearly want to believe David Icke’s ‘lizard DNA’ theory) would surrender power and fortune, put tail between legs and march themselves off to jail. That’s just not going to happen. So, then what?
?
Right. So, ‘then what’, just now, becomes an exercise in intelligence agencies heating up the animation in the increasingly cartoon-like manufacture of reality, and at some point, with so much distance from actuality, this ‘reality’ bubble must pop; recalling Boris Yeltsen’s era and the rise of the oligarchs, juxtaposed to ‘kapital’ boogeyman Karl Marx:
If Ayn Rand had been alluding to socialism in ‘Atlas Shrugged’, why should any competent psychologist believe this title were not equally a projection of her own capital empire’s decaying inner self? We should be so lucky to rise from the coming social ashes as Russia had from Yeltsen.
I’d recently noticed an interesting ‘cyber-phenomenon’ when surfing online news outlets, here is last night and this morning’s result (Central Europe Time.) Don’t get me wrong, I’m no internet expert, but sometimes even a computer-troglodyte can detect a bad cyber-odor.
What I’d noticed is, an on-off-on-again-off again (over these past months), very interesting, ability or inability to access information, depending solely on where the cyber-robots decide one can read … indicating where the robot believes you are located. For instance, in today’s case, if I route my VPN [virtual private network] through Russia, to the English language pages of two Spanish publications, I am allowed to read at one, but not the other. This is when it gets interesting.
The Local (thelocal.es) runs much more balanced articles on Catalonia’s succession effort to break with Spain, whereas El Pais in English (elpais.com) is goosestepping with ‘the Russians did it’ western intelligence agencies information operations (PSYOPS) meme.
El Pais features ‘Russia is interfering in Catalonia’ headlines…
…running highly disputed (elsewhere) allegations of Russia interfering in Spain’s crisis. Furthermore, El Pais is putting out patently false information in the numerous articles it is running on the leadership of the Catalan independence movement, here is an example:
“It is false that we have ignored the Constitution… because there are international treaties that contemplate the right to self-determination, and constitutions are favorable to interpretation under international law”…
Here the Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont is quoted, and he is correct to state [paraphrased] treaties subscribed to under international law bind nations that have signed those treaties and there are such treaties with language that could be construed to favor Catalan independence; but El Pais falsely interprets this statement, deliberately discrediting Puigdemont’s stance, by adding on:
…he [Puigdemont] said, alluding to the United Nations resolution 50/6, which only acknowledges this right for people “under colonial or other forms of alien domination or foreign occupation”
Noting a UN resolution is not a treaty, the misrepresentation is clear. By way of example, here is my email to El Pais correcting this, pointing to a valid, in force treaty Spain is a party to, to which Puigdemont could easily be referring:
Dear El Pais
When I lived in Catalonia 7 and 8 years ago, I very much appreciated your newspaper. I cannot say this now, the bias has become palpable. Case in point would be your recent articles emphasizing ’The Right of Self Determination’ is only applicable to colonialism. In fact, this is a very much unsettled question in international law, as demonstrated in article one, paragraph one, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, where the self determination principle’s language is unequivocal; this is a right of ALL peoples:
Article 1 i) All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of the right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
“The relatively straightforward language of the first paragraph, in particular, is commonly cited as evidence of the universality of the right to self-determination, although its formulation does little to make the scope of the right more precise. Nevertheless, both the reference to “all” peoples and the fact that the article is found in human rights treaties intended to have universal applicability suggest a scope beyond that of decolonization”
…I can inform El Pais that, Rajoy’s policy of jailing Catalonia’s elected leadership could be the determining factor taken in arguing the Spanish state is delivering to the Catalans what is described as “The offensive right of self determination” or, and an earned right of independence, due to disproportionate Spanish state actions, in addition to any as yet unenforced right of self determination specified elsewhere in human rights treaty law.
Beyond this, Spain’s judiciary clearly IS politicized, as claimed by Puigdemont, when comparing the present arrests to cases which are not prosecuted, for instance the secret Catholic militia El Yunque. There are even worse, to now unpublicized cases, where Spain’s institutions, for political reasons, have failed to pursue prosecutions of patent criminal activities of an egregious nature, I invite a read at:
“The history of the great events of this world are scarcely more than a history of crime” -Voltaire
Of course El Pais did not respond to my mail and I did not expect they would; the point of the mail is covering future possible circumstance of El Pais editors claiming ignorance in a case of ‘journalistic’ denial.
Now, back to the robot: If, I happen to be an English literate person the robot thinks is located in Russia (because of my VPN identifying my location in Russia, with routing through a Russian server) and I want to read western press, I’m allowed to read the rank propaganda at El Pais, but not the much more accurate reporting at The Local:
403. That’s an error.
Your client does not have permission to get URL / from this server. That’s all we know.
But if I run my VPN through a western country, in this case Greece, I can load The Local page, no problem:
Now, I seriously doubt The Local’s servers are going to be configured to fence out Russian readers, that simply makes no sense (except in the case of The Local servers hacked by western intelligence, a distinct possibility) because The Local is much less biased towards Russia in its coverage of the news in Catalonia and doesn’t print the, in some cases, outright false, and in other cases seriously misleading, sort of articles one finds at El Pais. It is even less likely Russia itself is blocking The Local, if Russia were to block one of sites, it would be El Pais.
What we appear to be looking at, and it is highly doubtful there is an otherwise innocent explanation, is cyber war, where Russians, those who happen to be English literate readers, are directed to western media that is propagandized; along the lines of ‘look, Mr or Ms Russian citizen, at the evil meddling of Putin in the liberal democracies affairs.’
The unanswered question (for myself) is, why is it a Google robot provides the outright lie of ‘something is broken and we don’t know what it is’, when clearly something is broken deliberately and whoever is behind it DOES know what it is. This has gone on for too long, too consistently, for Google not to know what it is. Who gives a Google robot the assignment of announcing to web-surfers located in Russia what amounts to an unspoken but matter of fact ‘sorry you can only read biased propaganda pieces and outright lies, because the system is ‘fixed.’ Central Intelligence Agency? Google, after all, practically sleeps with western intelligence.
It’s when encountering the preceding, one more than wonders at the veracity of claims it is Russia is the cyber-war boogeyman everywhere one looks… considering our liberal democracies obsession with controlling the narrative:
“Control over the narrative has more and more replaced truth seeking. It is the old Goebbels dictum: If you repeat the same lie over and over enough, it becomes the truth…
“Recent examples abound, but the golden egg prize goes to the claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 Presidential elections to secure a victory for Donald Trump. This narrative was presented in January 2017, after the Trump victory but before his inauguration, in an intelligence community assessment. Go back and re-read that 25-page “narrative” today and you will be shocked. It contains no evidence, but relies on a pseudo-psychological profile of Russian President Vladimir Putin…
“In a methodological annex to the report, the authors acknowledged that they had no facts to back up their conclusions:
“”Estimative language consists of two elements: judgments about the likelihood of developments or events occurring and levels of confidence in the sources and analytic reasoning supporting the judgments. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents…””
Yes, dear reader, that’s our liberal democracies’ intelligence agencies, in a ‘cover your ass culture’, admitting ‘we make this shit up’
Let me assure you, the DNC hack wasn’t even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick. I know this because I know who did it and why. Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied. 360 pounds!https://t.co/AGRO0sFx7shttps://t.co/epXtv0t1uN
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) February 18, 2018
If Congress includes #SethRich case into their Russia probe I’ll give written testimony with evidence that Seth Rich was @Wikileaks source.
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) May 19, 2017
I knew Seth Rich. I know he was the @Wikileaks source. I was involved. https://t.co/MbGQteHhZM
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) May 20, 2017
“Under this deal, which was reported by the Wall Street Journal, Assange would provide conclusive proof that Russia was not the source of hacked emails WikiLeaks published. In return, he would be offered a pardon, or some other assurance that he wouldn’t be prosecuted by the US for involvement in WikiLeaks.
“Rohrabacher brought this deal to the White House Wednesday [13 September 2017], but Chief of Staff John Kelly not only apparently didn’t like the offer, but didn’t tell President Trump that the offer had been made, instead telling Rohrabacher to take the proposal to the intelligence community.
“The intelligence community almost certainly wouldn’t be in a position to offer any sort of amnesty for Assange, which likely means the end of the proposal. Rohrabacher offered to set up a meeting between Assange and a Trump representative, but that too appears to have been dismissed by Kelly”
So, the generals keep Trump sequestered like the Vatican keeps a rampant pedophile priest under wraps; away from any real work and responsibilities (in this case, kept from knowledge of what’s actually going on in the world.) But now, with the Wall Street Journal blowing the whistle, Ivanka should soon be whispering in her daddy’s ear; and what will tell you everything is, what happens next. Suppose Trump keeps his mouth shut and says nothing? This will indicate the absolute completion of the Pence aligned generals capture of the Oval Office.
But the real news here is, Assange provides evidence of his belief that he is personally more important than any unconditional release of information which should stop the Pentagon and NATO’s pursuit of a war footing directed at Russia in its tracks.
Narcissism? Is there a stronger word? Julian Assange, who fancies himself ‘Jesus of the Digital Age’ would appear to be tired of bearing his cross. The Roman’s puppet, King Herod, hasn’t been authorized to provide the pardon and Pontius Pilate’s (read Mike Pompeo’s) people will deliver Jesus of the Digital Age to crucifixtion on behalf of the ‘duopoly’ mob, to satisfy their blood lust. Good luck with the world’s biggest ‘deal-maker’ (read loser) Wikileaks, because you blew it by waiting too long.
The entire sand-castle (a product of Obama CIA Director John Brennan’s imagination) the “Russians hacked the election” is finally washing away with an incoming tide. How this plays out is anyone’s guess.
The open question is, how the new information will be leveraged, if it were to actually break into the open widely, with the bad boy Trump essentially captured by the surreal evil that surrounds him. Other than pure evil (e.g. Pence), only a narcissist or a fool would ever desire to be president of this particular republic. In ‘The Donald’, we have both.
1 August 2017 an audio tape is leaked in which Seymour Hersh states the FBI knows it was Seth Rich leaked the DNC mails:
“What the [FBI] report says is that some time in late Spring… he makes contact with WikiLeaks, that’s in his computer. Anyway, they found what he had done is that he had submitted a series of documents — of emails, of juicy emails, from the DNC” -Seymour Hersh
On 9 August 2017 The Nation magazine publishes a column on a group of independent experts…
“Forensic investigators, intelligence analysts, system designers, program architects, and computer scientists of long experience and strongly credentialed are now producing evidence disproving the official version of key events last year”
…demonstrating the DNC mails were leaked, not hacked.
On 18 August 2017 Antiwar.com reports Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has met with Assange concerning the DNC mails and [the article] further credibly suggests Assange is holding the DNC leak evidence hostage as a bargaining chip to possibly acquire a pardon for himself and leverage wikileaks into legitimacy with a President of the United States who at this point is owned by the USA’s intelligence agencies, a hare-brained scheme destined to fail. Assange & company waited too long.
But this would fit Julian Assange’s self-centered, persecuted-savior complex which never ceases to amaze, this guy (as well, Craig Murray) has allowed the idiots surrounding Trump to push us towards the brink with Russia, for months. All because Assange is tired of his embassy confinement in London, a circumstance that is entirely his own fault for the fact he didn’t have the self-discipline to keep his dick in his pants (whether Assange’s admitted intercourse was a case of rape or not.)
What’s more is, this blog pointed to strong circumstantial evidence it was Seth Rich leaked the DNC mails this past January, and recalling this, it still stretches the imagination a former UK ambassador would make an amateur espionage move worthy of a cub scout playing spy. But that’s what Craig Murray had done in the case of the DNC emails leaked to WikiLeaks.
Seymour Hersh states Seth Rich is the source of the DNC mails. Craig Murray states he had met with the source of the DNC mails. A + B = C:
Craig Murray met with Seth Rich
That Murray would be a high value target for American counter-intelligence to monitor for the reason of his high profile association with WikiLeaks is beyond obvious. For Murray then to state…
“I know who leaked them. I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things”
…goes to the practically bizarre when coming from a former United Kingdom ambassador to Uzbekistan. The UK is little different to the USA in the case of embassies providing cover for spies; in which case Murray should at least have some rudimentary espionage understanding such as YOU DO NOT MEET YOUR SOURCE DIRECTLY WHEN YOU ARE A HIGH PROFILE TARGET OF YOUR ADVERSARY’S COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE HUNTING YOUR (in this case, WikiLeaks) SOURCE(S)
Then, we had WikiLeak’s Assange giving what amounts to a ‘Glomar’ ‘I will neither confirm or deny’ response concerning the murder (assassination) of Seth Rich after appearing to suggest Rich was the source of the DNC emails leak:
Beyond this, WikiLeaks offering a $20,000 reward for the solving of the Seth Rich murder is laughable, that’s what an American west coast upscale community would offer for the arrest of a serial killer of the neighborhood’s cats. Two million dollars might get two seconds’ attention of a corruptible counter-intelligence agent with knowledge of a professional hit on Seth Rich, twenty million might even net an inside the agency sucker willing to take the exceedingly high risk to one’s life (almost certain death) that would attend selling out an agency hit man for substantial lucre. In truth, the WikiLeaks reward offer amounted to little more than a tabloid publicity stunt.
Narcissism is a blinding thing; and a self-righteous narcissism is no exception. Ambassador Murray could have every good intention but on the face of it, he had seriously screwed up. Murray and WikiLeaks should have immediately come clean, there was little to lose. Seth Rich was the source, Murray had met with him, and much could have been gained by stating so; there would be nothing given up any intelligence agency involved did not already know. It have been the right thing to do.
Craig Murray stating ‘I had a serious lapse of professional judgement and this resulted in the death of Seth Rich’ would be the most responsible and newsworthy move WikiLeaks could have taken; to counter the CIA’s ‘the Russians hacked the DNC’ propaganda lie, in which there is much invested by the agency; and the consequent damage to relations with Russia, and growing threat to what little world peace yet exists, is immense. WikiLeaks should have done the right thing a long time ago and they have not. Why not? Because Assange and WikiLeaks believes Assange’s comfort is more important than world peace. What fucks. This is beyond inexcusable, it’s criminal. But for Murray, there’s more at stake here than just a hit to ego & image.
Murray’s likely role in the DNC leaks case? A personal meeting with Rich to confirm for WikiLeaks Seth Rich was a bona fide insider with authentic material prior to a WikiLeaks cash payment to Rich and arrangements completed for the mails transfer.
Now, it is a question of ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ release the evidence because WikiLeaks waited too long, and let the criminals surrounding Trump consolidate their power while investing deeply in the myth of the Russians hacked the election; a criminal cabal that will up the ante on the world stage to any level necessary to avoid accountability. WikiLeaks Idiots. WikiLeaks Morons.
Meanwhile, Murray subsequently barred from the United States (except that he applies for a visa, typically unnecessary for a British citizen) appears to have been, in a manner of speaking, a deep state message to Murray: ‘thank you very much for the lapse of judgement, we have taken full advantage with the assassination of Seth Rich and we won’t be requiring your services after this’ (he’d be smart to stay away.)
The really sticky problem for WikiLeaks in this scenario is, Seymour Hersh asserts in the recorded call WikiLeaks had paid Rich for the leaked documents, damaging or reducing to element of pretense WikiLeaks claims of journalism & providing rationale for deep state prosecutors & judges to find this had been straightforward espionage. But they won’t do it if the Rich-Murray meeting stays buried, a LOT is invested in ‘the Russians did it’ for the public consumption. If it DOES break open, Murray’s ‘goose is cooked.’ It’s now not only WikiLeaks problem in a larger sense, but Murray’s, whether he does or doesn’t admit the assassinated Seth Rich had been the DNC mails source.
A former Special Forces Sergeant of Operations and Intelligence, Ronald Thomas West is a retired paralegal/investigator (living in exile) whose work focus had been anti-corruption and human rights. Ronald is published in International Law as a layman (The Mueller-Wilson Report, co-authored with Dr Mark D Cole) and has been adjunct professor of American Constitutional Law at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (for English credit, summer semester 2008.) Ronald’s formal educational background is primarily social psychology. His therapeutic device is satire –
“While the compliant American press parrots the narrative that our military support for the Syrian insurgency is purely humanitarian, many Arabs [correctly] see the present crisis as just another proxy war over pipelines and geopolitics” –Robert F Kennedy Jr
Meanwhile, as Plan A or breaking Syria into several warring mini-regions that would preoccupy Assad’s presumed (compliant) replacement, has failed, the reliable multinational’s false-flag journalist, Robert Fisk, has declared ‘move along folks, nothing further to see here’
“The West might hardly believe it, but it now seems the Syrian war is ending – and Assad is the victor” –Robert Fisk
Not. In fact, not even close. The Plan B? An independent Kurdistan encompassing the de facto independent northeast of Iraq, the east of Syria, particularly the oil rich region of Deir ez-Zor, where the USA backed Kurds and Assad’s Syrian Arab Army are in a race for control as the Islamic State ‘caliphate’ is process of military collapse, and eventually the east of the eventually to be ‘non-NATO’ Turkey and the northwest of Iran. The roots of this scenario has been underway for quite some time, as noted at oilprice.com back in 2012 in an article titled The Making of Kurdistan: Oil, Investment and a Turkish Gamble[they lost]
What we see in the lead-up to today is, ExxonMobil making independent (of Baghdad) deals with Iraq’s Kurdish province and meanwhile paying al Qaida ‘protection’ money in the high style of geopolitical organized crime, all of which had been concerning resources dependent on a corrupt Erdogan for export via Turkey. Fast-forward to this morning and we see ExxonMobil front-man Netanyahu endorsing independence for the Kurds with the Iraqi Kurds upcoming independence referendum:
“Iraq’s Kurds plan to hold the referendum on September 25 in three governorates that make up their self-ruled region as well as disputed areas that are controlled by Kurdish forces but claimed by Baghdad, including the oil-rich province of Kirkuk
“Israel “supports the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to attain a state of its own””
Of course, this announcement is a trial balloon put out by Rex Tillerson’s (read ExxonMobil’s) front-man in Tel Aviv; against the updated backdrop of NATO ‘member’ Turkey actually now Russia aligned in every sense but formal alliance. Western intelligence is aware by now Turkey has been lost to Russia in everything but name, and Plan B is an independent Greater Kurdistan; initially comprised of portions of Iraq and Syria, with Turkey eventually to be splintered and instability fostered within Iran’s Kurd population. This will weaken Russia’s de facto ally Turkey with looming civil war, and keep Iran preoccupied with a second front in the USA-Israeli-Arab states geopolitical maneuvers against that nation; as well splinter Shia dominated (Iran accommodating) Iraq. Will Russia, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria roll over and allow Kurdistan to come into existence? Don’t count on it.
With the demise of the Islamic State ‘caliphate’ across Syria & Iraq, Iraq will politely ask the USA military to leave and the Americans will have little choice. However the Americans will not abandon Syria and their Kurdish allies there, as well expect a robust CIA paramilitary support for the Kurds to remain in Iraq’s portion of the budding ‘Kurdistan.’
It is Syria where things are most tricky at this moment, with the race to control Deir ez-Zor province between the USA and Russia’s proxy armies. Meanwhile Turkey’s corrupt and criminal Erdogan has not only aligned with Russia but has increasingly alienated his larger Kurdish population, with a consequential reactive and growing indigenous support for Turkey’s Kurdish insurgency, while Iraq, with Iran’s support, is unlikely to sit idly on its hands and allow Iraq’s oil rich Kurd province to pursue independence unchallenged.
Thus, the stage is set for a wider regional, war with Syria at the center.
Probably the greatest (forthcoming) casualty in all of this, is the greater Kurdish peoples’ aspiration for self-determination; with enemies created on all sides and their guarantor a USA empire on precipice of collapse.
Of course, with a Pentagon not only unleashed to make its own policies independent of Trump, but also firmly in the hands of apocalyptic religious extremists with an aversion to Muslims…
“You’re telling me 28 to 34 percent of our military want 7 billion people to die” [believe in literal Armageddon] … “The simple answer is affirmative”
…and with a religiously stupid CIA in the mix throughout, any expectation of rational solutions should be pronounced ‘dead on arrival.’
And the CIA having its Syria paramilitary operations shut down by Trump? Canned laugh here. Not to worry over this cover story attending a shift in strategy, the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command’s paramilitary operations are welded to CIA…
^ “…the CIA works intimately with JSOC…”
…and has billions budgeted for the Syria arms pipeline through 2022:
“The munitions were airdropped to Arab units within the then recently formed Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF, a Kurdish-led coalition currently spearheading the fight to reclaim Raqqa, and the Pentagon’s main ally in Syria“
The entire sand-castle (a product of Obama CIA Director John Brennan’s imagination) the “Russians hacked the election” is finally washing away with an incoming tide. How this plays out is anyone’s guess.
The open question is, how the new information will be leveraged, if it were to actually break into the open widely, with the bad boy Trump essentially captured by the surreal evil that surrounds him. Other than pure evil (e.g. Pence), only a narcissist or a fool would ever desire to be president of this particular republic. In ‘The Donald’, we have both.
1 August 2017 an audio tape is leaked in which Seymour Hersh states the FBI knows it was Seth Rich leaked the DNC mails:
“What the [FBI] report says is that some time in late Spring… he makes contact with WikiLeaks, that’s in his computer. Anyway, they found what he had done is that he had submitted a series of documents — of emails, of juicy emails, from the DNC” -Seymour Hersh
On 9 August 2017 The Nation magazine publishes a column on a group of independent experts…
“Forensic investigators, intelligence analysts, system designers, program architects, and computer scientists of long experience and strongly credentialed are now producing evidence disproving the official version of key events last year”
…demonstrating the DNC mails were leaked, not hacked.
On 18 August 2017 Antiwar.com reports Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has met with Assange concerning the DNC mails and [the article] further credibly suggests Assange is holding the DNC leak evidence hostage as a bargaining chip to possibly acquire a pardon for himself and leverage wikileaks into legitimacy with a President of the United States who at this point is owned by the USA’s intelligence agencies, a hare-brained scheme destined to fail. Assange & company waited too long.
But this would fit Julian Assange’s self-centered, persecuted-savior complex which never ceases to amaze, this guy (as well, Craig Murray) has allowed the idiots surrounding Trump to push us towards the brink with Russia, for months. All because Assange is tired of his embassy confinement in London, a circumstance that is entirely his own fault for the fact he didn’t have the self-discipline to keep his dick in his pants (whether Assange’s admitted intercourse was a case of rape or not.)
What’s more is, this blog pointed to strong circumstantial evidence it was Seth Rich leaked the DNC mails this past January, and recalling this, it still stretches the imagination a former UK ambassador would make an amateur espionage move worthy of a cub scout playing spy. But that’s what Craig Murray had done in the case of the DNC emails leaked to WikiLeaks.
Seymour Hersh states Seth Rich is the source of the DNC mails. Craig Murray states he had met with the source of the DNC mails. A + B = C:
Craig Murray met with Seth Rich
That Murray would be a high value target for American counter-intelligence to monitor for the reason of his high profile association with WikiLeaks is beyond obvious. For Murray then to state…
“I know who leaked them. I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things”
…goes to the practically bizarre when coming from a former United Kingdom ambassador to Uzbekistan. The UK is little different to the USA in the case of embassies providing cover for spies; in which case Murray should at least have some rudimentary espionage understanding such as YOU DO NOT MEET YOUR SOURCE DIRECTLY WHEN YOU ARE A HIGH PROFILE TARGET OF YOUR ADVERSARY’S COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE HUNTING YOUR (in this case, WikiLeaks) SOURCE(S)
Then, we had WikiLeak’s Assange giving what amounts to a ‘Glomar’ ‘I will neither confirm or deny’ response concerning the murder (assassination) of Seth Rich after appearing to suggest Rich was the source of the DNC emails leak:
Beyond this, WikiLeaks offering a $20,000 reward for the solving of the Seth Rich murder is laughable, that’s what an American west coast upscale community would offer for the arrest of a serial killer of the neighborhood’s cats. Two million dollars might get two seconds’ attention of a corruptible counter-intelligence agent with knowledge of a professional hit on Seth Rich, twenty million might even net an inside the agency sucker willing to take the exceedingly high risk to one’s life (almost certain death) that would attend selling out an agency hit man for substantial lucre. In truth, the WikiLeaks reward offer amounted to little more than a tabloid publicity stunt.
Narcissism is a blinding thing; and a self-righteous narcissism is no exception. Ambassador Murray could have every good intention but on the face of it, he had seriously screwed up. Murray and WikiLeaks should have immediately come clean, there was little to lose. Seth Rich was the source, Murray had met with him, and much could have been gained by stating so; there would be nothing given up any intelligence agency involved did not already know. It have been the right thing to do.
Craig Murray stating ‘I had a serious lapse of professional judgement and this resulted in the death of Seth Rich’ would be the most responsible and newsworthy move WikiLeaks could have taken; to counter the CIA’s ‘the Russians hacked the DNC’ propaganda lie, in which there is much invested by the agency; and the consequent damage to relations with Russia, and growing threat to what little world peace yet exists, is immense. WikiLeaks should have done the right thing a long time ago and they have not. Why not? Because Assange and WikiLeaks believes Assange’s comfort is more important than world peace. What fucks. This is beyond inexcusable, it’s criminal. But for Murray, there’s more at stake here than just a hit to ego & image.
Murray’s likely role in the DNC leaks case? A personal meeting with Rich to confirm for WikiLeaks Seth Rich was a bona fide insider with authentic material prior to a WikiLeaks cash payment to Rich and arrangements completed for the mails transfer.
Now, it is a question of ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ release the evidence because WikiLeaks waited too long, and let the criminals surrounding Trump consolidate their power while investing deeply in the myth of the Russians hacked the election; a criminal cabal that will up the ante on the world stage to any level necessary to avoid accountability. WikiLeaks Idiots. WikiLeaks Morons.
Meanwhile, Murray subsequently barred from the United States (except that he applies for a visa, typically unnecessary for a British citizen) appears to have been, in a manner of speaking, a deep state message to Murray: ‘thank you very much for the lapse of judgement, we have taken full advantage with the assassination of Seth Rich and we won’t be requiring your services after this’ (he’d be smart to stay away.)
The really sticky problem for WikiLeaks in this scenario is, Seymour Hersh asserts in the recorded call WikiLeaks had paid Rich for the leaked documents, damaging or reducing to element of pretense WikiLeaks claims of journalism & providing rationale for deep state prosecutors & judges to find this had been straightforward espionage. But they won’t do it if the Rich-Murray meeting stays buried, a LOT is invested in ‘the Russians did it’ for the public consumption. If it DOES break open, Murray’s ‘goose is cooked.’ It’s now not only WikiLeaks problem in a larger sense, but Murray’s, whether he does or doesn’t admit the assassinated Seth Rich had been the DNC mails source.
Trump recently whined over a law passed OVERWHELMINGLY by Congress, tying his hands in dealings with Russia. Trump’s right (or his lawyers got it right.) But then Trump SIGNED the law, knowing full well the law was unconstitutional, with the lame excuse his veto (he didn’t exercise) would be overridden by a wide margin. Now, before we go into Trump’s missed political opportunity of his life, based in an exceedingly simple constitutional question, let’s examine why this blog has a specific category for “morons”, closely related to, if not synonymous with, ‘oaf’
oaf |ōf| noun a stupid, uncultured, or clumsy person. ORIGIN early 17th cent.: variant of obsolete auf, from Old Norse álfr ‘elf.’ The original meaning was ‘elf’s child, changeling,’ later ‘idiot child’ and ‘halfwit,’ generalized in the current sense
President ‘grab em by the pussy’ Trump had already made a case for being ‘uncultured’ and only a half wit could wonder what attracts ‘cultured’ women to an oaf. For Trump’s fan base (which are likely math-challenged half-wits) the answer is precisely $$$,$$$,$$$,$$$,$$$.00¢
Then, reinforcing the definition of our oaf through his actions (for The Donald’s fan base of half-wits, or people too stupid to understand they’re stupid) becomes slightly more complicated, with a ‘constitutional question’ recently raised. Except for this question was strictly implication (tip for those half-wits willing to read on: we are not discussing ‘constitutional’ in the vulgar slang, defined as ‘taking a shit’, also known as the act of defecating, noted 2nd instance for the uninformed cultured)
If The Donald had not been castrated by whatever it is castrates every president’s arrival in DC since JFK (Pentagon liaison to the CIA L Fletcher Prouty called it “The Secret Team“, closely related to what the CIA’s George H.W. Bush designed to be “The Enterprise” and also related to what has been extensively documented by investigative journalist Jeff Sharlet as “The Family“), The Donald could have turned Congress on its head with this simple statement:
Of the 522 members of Congress who voted on the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act”, 517 violated their oath to uphold our Constitution. Only 5 members of Congress have upheld their oath. I am proud to make their number 6, with my resolute veto of this constitutionally faithless law
But no, our 71-going-on-5-years old President ‘The Donald’ joined in with a violation of his own oath, when he signed the act into law; missing opportunity to put 517 of his political enemies in a compromised position with their constituents … when, due to Trump’s statement, they would have been faced with casting a very high profile, second vote in violation of their oath, to override Trump’s veto.
So, who is going to be “in charge” of whatever emerges from the chaos that is the doomed Trump presidency? “Doomed”, some of my readers might ask? The phony ‘Russia hacked the election’ meme makes it sound like Moscow took over the archaic voter tabulating software the Bush people used to hack the 2004 election and ‘reelect’ a moron even the dumbed down American populace was too smart to vote for (but weren’t smart enough to widely challenge the result.) An ‘imposter’ presidency is nothing new to the USA, it’s just a matter of how we arrive there, perhaps more on that another time but just now:
The short answer to who’ll be in charge? Dick Cheney on steroids, um, I mean Mike Pence will be “in charge” who has stated, and I quote:
“I frankly hold Dick Cheney in very high regard in his role as vice president”
Ok, so Mike Pence admires the man who ran what Seymour Hersh has been investigating for the past eight or more years and flat out states was “Dick Cheney’s executive assassination ring.” Hersh further stated:
“they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving”
Make no mistake, ‘Murderous Mike’ will be taking over just as soon as ‘The Donald’ can be tarred, feathered and run out of DC on a rail by our ‘The Russians hacked our democracy! The Donald collaborated!’ vested interest hysteria (shameless, egregious liars) in Congress:
^ USA, taxman 1794 & Trump 2017
Running the ‘Make Mike Pence President’ program, er, investigation, for all of the idiots who’ll suck up the result like a vacuum sucks out an aborted fetus is, ahem, that shining ‘public servant’ former FBI Director Robert Mueller whose rap sheet, were the truth to be known, outdoes gangster Al Capone; Mueller sabotaged the biggest international narcotics and arms trafficking money laundering investigation in history (BCCI), Mueller looked the other way when two Department of Justice attorneys were murdered by CIA when the DoJ lawyers came too close to Jeb Bush (recalling Jeb’s daddy is a former career CIA, includes director) when Jeb was nearly caught with his fingers in the Novation Medicare fraud multi-billion dollar pie, oh, and Mueller was in charge of the USA end of the Lockerbie bombing investigation when the CIA planted faked evidence and the FBI provided ‘expert testimony’ resulting in Libya framed for a mass murder (here’s the story(s)) … yeah, that’s the guy investigating ‘the Russians did it’ and ‘Trump collaborated’ hijacking of the USA’s democracy (which actually never happened.)
Never minding the bozo Donald, Pence will make Cheney look like your gay neighbor’s benign sweetheart, just have a look at (the recently deceased) Pence spiritual guru of decades:
“I’ve seen pictures of the young men in the Red Guard… They would bring in this young man’s mother. He would take an axe and cut her head off. They have to put the purposes of the Red Guard ahead of their father, mother, brother, sister, and their own life. That was a covenant. A pledge. That’s what Jesus said” -Pence’s guru Doug Coe, verbatim quote from video
Now, the vise will see its’ handle turned again on The Donald’s nuts, as that moron keeps elevating generals fresh out of the Bible thumping Pentagon, two of which have a pact:
“Mattis and Kelly also agreed in the earliest weeks of Trump’s presidency that one of them should remain in the United States at all times to keep tabs on the orders rapidly emerging from the White House”
Now, we’re supposed to believe we have two generals decided for themselves to babysit Trump at all times and one of them has been elevated from ‘Homeland Security’ (‘homeland’ makes it sound like the world is a USA colony, well, I suppose it mostly is) to Chief of Staff position where he controls access to the president. Except when Bibi calls Jared who talks with Ivanka who whispers in her daddy’s ear.
The Mike Pence faction is clamping down on The Donald’s freak show.
How long before one of these generals, admired by “both sides” of the duopoly, is put up to having a ‘it’s time to resign for the good of the nation’ talk with America’s #1 reality show personality? Kelly will have the eventual talk with an isolated Donald taken to the woodshed (or worse), and Mattis will flex whatever military muscle is necessary to keep order in the streets, whether on account of the Soros funded mob providing the excuse or, The Donald’s fans or, possibly both. G’day, President Pence.
Where’s Firesign Theater when you most need them? Armageddon, ho!
That’s my end of July notes folks, and depending on the outcome of recent ‘engagement’ with CIA meddling in my affairs, I might get back to you all with end of August notes –
Enterprise (Coe cult) man Charles Grassley cuts a deal with neoliberal zionazi Diane ‘the fossil’ Feinstein (DC politics are not only subverted and inverted but mostly perverted) who was over 30 when the phrase ‘don’t trust anyone over 30’ was coined in 1967:
The details? Senate Judiciary chairman Grassley gives colleague Feinstein an opening at taking down ‘the donald’ and Feinstein trades delivering Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s head on a platter for shielding Clinton. Lynch, as a Black American, has a highly inauspicious name, she should have changed it to Kagame, Zuma or Mugabe, considering the White establishment she served faithfully in the politics of Black incarceration for profit will easily toss her into the machine that ‘lynches’ people of color in return for opportunity at Trump.
The double-double-cross invested in the circumstance is, Grassley, member of ‘the enterprise’ (the Coe cult government penetration project) as well a member of the (the Coe cult’s) Pence faction, gets to hand off leadership of the upcoming Trump removal to the neoliberal Feinstein as a means of damage control and cover; but with identical objective, that is Trumps impeachment and removal, all in the name of ‘bi-partisanship.’ Everybody’s base is covered, Grassley delivers Lynch to his base, Feinstein delivers Trump to her base. At the end of the scene, Feinstein gets Pence for her president, something her fossilized brain-case is incapable of grasping; as Grassley and Pence laugh all the way to a clubhouse that still denies women full membership (a.k.a the Coe Cult.)
^ Feinstein exhibit at Kentucky’s Creation Museum
Where is the FBI? James Comey, who covered for Gladio and CIA arms & narcotics trafficking, has his close buddy Robert Mueller, who covered for Gladio and CIA arms & narcotics trafficking, investigating everyone after his buddy Comey. No conflict of interest there from the points of view of Grassley and Feinstein, just get the dirty work done. Now, following on that act, who do you suppose put ‘the donald’ up to appointing Christopher ‘fae’ Wray to replace Comey (who replaced Mueller at FBI, essentially we have an FBI criminal investigating his personally mentored partner in FBI crimes) … noting ‘Fae’ Wray was the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division when two of his subordinates, Shannon Ross & Thelma Colbert, were ‘dropped dead’ in the process of shutting down a Medicare fraud investigation that ultimately would lead to Fae Wray’s boss Alberto Gonzalez, and beyond Gonzalez to his bosom buddy Jeb Bush. Fae Wray is just the sort of leadership the FBI can depend on (to continue covering up Gladio and CIA arms & narcotics trafficking.)
Meanwhile, ‘the donald’, too busy with fending off inside attempts, the most important of which he doesn’t even see coming (narcissism is indeed blinding), hands off Syria to his general ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, a Pence partisan, and the Mad Dog shoots down a Syrian combat jet that had been attacking Islamic State with Russian aircraft in the vicinity. Result? Russia duly notifies the USA all ‘coalition’ aircraft operating west of the Euphrates River in Syria are now “targets.” I think the over-hyped boogeyman Vlad ‘the impaler’ Putin’s patience is wearing thin.
Following on the 350 billion arms sale to the Saudis leveraged by Kushner, now ‘the donald’ sends his totally owned (by MOSSAD) gigolo son-in-law off to Israel to buy a peace agreement even as Bibi fronts the first entirely new West Bank settlement since 1992… yeah, that should distract from, uh, about everything that matters, recalling Pence, Sessions (who’ll fall on his sword, if need be) Grassley and ‘the donald’s’ generals all believe in literal Armageddon (it’s the cult’s theology.)
Oh well (or, oh shit, depending on your state of zen)
Ronald Thomas West 