The hysterical Trump-bashing since his election win, most of it motivated by the horrific idea that his new administration might even think about being slightly friendly to Russia, rose to a crescendo this week with the release of an "intelligence report" by a
The origin of these laughable claims is Christopher Steele, a former MI6 operative who, along with fellow ex-spook, Christopher Burrows, runs 'Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd' a private intel outfit which, like so many similar private intel/security contractors, allow for Western "intelligence" agencies to peddle lies with impunity. Steele was stationed in Moscow during his official tenure at MI6, and after "leaving" provided information to the FBI that was instrumental in bringing down Sepp Blatter during the FIFA scandal last year that, coincidentally, focused heavily on alleged Russian government bribery of FIFA officials.
According to Reuters, Steele was initially hired by FusionGPS, a Washington, DC-based political research firm, to investigate Trump on behalf of unidentified Republicans who wanted to stop Trump's bid for the GOP nomination. This suggests that the report was commissioned in the early part of last year. Steele is said to have forwarded a copy to MI6 and the FBI office in Rome after Trump won the Republican nomination in July, but soon grew concerned that the FBI was dragging its feet on the information (we wonder why!). Believing a 'cover up' was in progress (how could anyone ignore his sensational horse hockey!), Steele told his silly story to David Corn, the Washington editor of Mother Jones, during a trip to Washington DC in October. Mother Jones then reported the existence of the material on 31 October.
Apparently dissatisfied with the Mother Jones coverage, about 2 weeks later and shortly after Trump's election win, former British Ambassador to Russia, Sir Andrew Wood, decided that the best way to give the story some traction was to tell blabber-mouth John McCain about it. True to form, McCain sent an emissary to England to talk to Steele himself and procure a copy of the fake news document, which McCain then took straight to the FBI, allegedly unaware that it had already been provided to them by Steele.
For those who remember, as the FBI was investigating Clinton's email server issues in the run-up to the election last year, McCain was loudly remonstrating with the FBI over the fact that they were sitting on data about Trump's ties to Russia. Around the same time, McCain's best buddy Sen. Harry Reid was demanding that the FBI go public with "explosive information" linking Trump to Russia. At least now we know what those two goons were referring to!
Interestingly, and as a possible explanation as to the genesis of this story; last July Harry Reid told a reporter at the DNC that the CIA should give 'fake briefings' to Trump. It took them a while to get around to it, but that's precisely what they did last week when they briefed Trump on their bogus report on Russia's 'hacking of the US election'. What no one expected, however, was that the fake briefings would be about Trump himself and his ties to Russia! So Trump was told about the dodgy dossier during a national security briefing last Friday. The primary purpose of the briefing was, supposedly, to present Trump with the much-maligned US intelligence agencies' report on Russian hacking efforts during the election. But if you read both documents, it's pretty clear that the documents come as a pair, a twofer.
The 'official' report makes lots of allegations but provides no evidence to substantiate them. For example, the reasons given for why Russia hacked the US elections in favor of Trump amount to 'Putin was annoyed that Clinton called him names' and 'Putin was annoyed Clinton encouraged anti-Putin protests in 2011' and, 'Putin doesn't like the US-led liberal democratic order'. In fact, in that 25-page document, there is only one credible statement that also points to the real reason why US spy chiefs dislike Trump, and why they conspired to produce this report that implicitly undermines their new President's legitimacy.
On page 11 we read:
"Moscow also saw the election of president-elect Trump as a way to achieve an international counter-terrorism coalition against ISIS."This is the core of the Washington elite's problem with a possible 'bromance' between Putin and Trump: their recent humiliating defeat in Syria at the hands of Russia via the defeat of their proxy army ISIS and the exposure of the fact that ISIS really is a proxy army for Washington. Real cooperation between the Trump administration and Russia in dealing with proxy terrorism in the Middle East (and around the world) poses a serious threat to the US position as an arrogant global hegemon because proxy terrorism is one of the primary means by which US hegemony is secured. When I say hegemony, I don't just mean the US' status as the only superpower, but the ability of the cabal of psychopaths that runs the USA to arbitrarily provoke and wage massively destructive wars against civilian populations simply for the profits they reap in weapons sales and usage.
So, on that point, I agree; Moscow very likely did see a Trump administration as more likely to cooperate with Russia in the fight against terrorism. Or, to put it another way, they knew that a Clinton administration would continue the US tradition of using terrorists to attack and destabilize other nations, including Russia, while Trump showed many signs that he understands that policy to be anathema to the interests of the American people, which it clearly is. That does not, of course, mean that Moscow 'hacked' anything or in any way influenced the US elections (and the report provides no proof that it did).
What is most galling in this 'official' report, however, is the complete lack of recognition of the fact that a majority of American voters voted for Trump, that they are the reason he is their next President, not 'Moscow' or Putin. And that they voted for him because they rejected Hillary and all that she represents (see the 2 paragraphs above). Of course, we're well aware of the fact that the intelligence types view democracy and the will of the American people with complete disdain. As far as National "Intelligence" Director Clapper and his ilk are concerned, when Americans voted for Trump, they simply voted for the wrong person, and for the past 2 months they have been repeatedly told that Putin mind-programmed them to do so, now with an 'official report' (and an unofficial one) attesting to the 'fact'. Talk about insulting!
While the official report was presented as, well, 'official' and therefore expected to be taken seriously by Trump, the 'dodgy dossier' was presented as an 'appendix', an FYI to Trump. All 35 pages of this screed read like a bad spy novel, and comprise tall tales from 'knowledgeable sources', unnamed 'officials' and 'trusted compatriots' about Trump's alleged contacts and dealings in Russia. These same sources also attest to the 'truth' that Putin was desperately trying to get Trump elected and hacking everything in sight to make it happen. To give you an idea of the crassness of the drivel it contains, in one paragraph on page 27 we're told that, according to some 'sources', Trump participated in 'sex parties' in St. Petersburg, but that all the direct witnesses had been "silenced" so evidence was "hard to obtain". Sure.
According to Clapper, the dodgy dossier was only included as an appendix to the official report in order to make Trump aware of all data that could "impact national security" and because the CIA was afraid it would "leak" before Trump knew of its existence. But the only reason that such a provably false and defamatory dossier could be construed as having an impact on national security would be if it were released to the public, something the CIA clearly intended to happen, and which then did happen a few days later, via that haven of neo-liberal nihilistic slop, Buzzfeed.
The other implausible coincidence is that the drivel dossier was released right as several of Trump's nominees were undergoing their confirmation hearings. Picture the scene, Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo are sitting in front of the pusillanimous Sen. Marco Rubio as he demands that they admit that Putin is a war criminal who hacked US elections. As the proceedings are screened live to the public, a news ticker along the bottom of the screen announces: "Intelligence dossier reveals Putin has been blackmailing Trump with sex tape for years". You get the picture, and you get the point; everyone does, Trump does, and the Russians do too.
To get an idea of just how deluded the 'secret government' types are, consider Rubio's last 'question' to Pompeo in that nomination hearing:
"As you see the state of American politics and political discourse, a president elect who has questioned at times the judgement of our intelligence agencies, opponents of the president elect who continually question the legitimacy of his election, the shameful leak in the media regarding unsubstantiated information designed to smear the president elect, the fact that Russia and Vladimir Putin have become a dominant theme in political coverage in this country for the better part of 3 months if not longer, as you look at all of that, in your opinion, are Vladimir Putin and the Russians looking at all this and saying: 'we've done a really good job of creating chaos, division, instability in the American political process?'"I hope everyone grasps the implications of what Rubio is saying here and what it means about the state of mind of those that represent the 'US political system'. Their paranoid narrative goes like this:
'We didn't expect Trump to win the Presidency, so his election MUST have been rigged. But how?Then again, I leave open the possibility that the Russian government became aware that the nut-jobs in Washington had tasked Steele with 'finding the proof' that Putin had influence over Trump, and that the Russians simply facilitated their delusions with a few eager-to-talk 'informants'.
Well Russia doesn't like Trump's opponent, so Russia MUST have helped Trump win. But how?
Russia must have hacked the Podesta emails to make Hillary look bad [even if the first thing to suspect would be a DNC insider leak].
But would Putin stop at merely influencing the election for Trump? Surely he would want to have influence over Trump as president!
Putin MUST, therefore, have influence over Trump. But how do we find out?
Let's task a foreign spy agency with a history of 'fixing facts around a pre-established policy' to produce a dossier proving that what we want to believe is, in fact, the truth!
With the dossier now duly assembled, we MUST make it public in order to expose Trump's vulnerability to Russian influence and discredit both Trump and Russia.
[dodgy dossier is released to the public]
Oh GOD! No one believes it, because it's full of outlandish and provably false allegations! This looks VERY bad, our reputation is in tatters, our 'democracy' and political process is a global laughing stock! How did this happen?!
Wait a minute...isn't this EXACTLY what Putin would have wanted!!??
[the horrific 'reality' finally becomes apparent]
Putin MADE us do this!!.. to OURSELVES!!! He USED our own paranoia, self-absorption and STUPIDITY AGAINST US!... by doing... NOTHING!
Hoisted on their own petards, with their heads too far up their own backsides to even see it. How far America has fallen.
Are petards like retards?
Or are retards like petards?
Do they work together?
Or are they separate (but equal) entities?
Do puppets control their own strings?
These are the burning questions that infest mankind.
ned,
OUT