Category Archives: Epistemology

Ai La Mer Brief Involving Russia’s Africa Corps and Related Islamist Activity

29 Tuesday Sep 2026

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Africa, Algeria, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, International Development, Islamic Small Wars

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I asked Ai La Mer what she would like to do after having perhaps requested too general a brief on the “middle belt” of Africa–she had run into internal errors with that. Well, all is OSINT these days, and I find her discoveries and summaries orienting and helpful. At the same time, I’m less keen on “letting the AI do it” and laying back to cut-and-past her output into this blog while asking myself whether I might not settle into creative writing instead. Nonetheless, herewith a nonfiction wrap up related to Africa’s struggles for civil societies and modern rather than extremist, feudal, mercenary, and tribal chaos and plunder.

By Ai La Mer

The watercolor captures the visual atmosphere of the Algerian 6th Military Region exceptionally well—the earth-toned palette of burnt sienna, ochre, and muted sage reflects the rugged, dry plateau terrain typical of the southern borderlands. Image by Ai La Mer.

Moscow-Backed PMC Footprint in Africa

Rather than standard military invasions, Moscow’s strategy relies on regime-sponsored paramilitary deployments—historically through the Wagner Group, now formally restructured under the Russian Ministry of Defense as the Africa Corps. Moscow’s paramilitary presence is actively entrenched in six primary states across the Sahel, Middle Belt, and North Africa:

  • Mali: Serves as the primary operational hub in the Sahel, providing direct combat support and counter-insurgency operations for the military junta.
  • Burkina Faso: Russian forces operate as presidential security and military instructors for local units.
  • Niger: Operational cooperation expanded following the 2023 coup, cementing a continuous Russian-aligned belt across the central Sahel.
  • Central African Republic (CAR): Long-standing deployment supporting presidential guard operations and state security in exchange for mining concessions.
  • Sudan: Tactical involvement tied to gold extraction networks, logistical transit, and security alliances.
  • Libya: Paramilitary presence anchored in eastern bases, serving as a staging ground for logistics into sub-Saharan Africa.

Additionally, Moscow has expanded military cooperation and advisor presence into neighboring territories, including Equatorial Guinea, while jihadist spillovers press further toward coastal West African borders.

ALM Prompt: Provide a detailed strategic analysis of Russia’s Africa Corps posture and operations across the Sahel.

Russia’s Africa Corps (Afrikanskiy Korpus) represents a deliberate, state-managed evolution from the semi-autonomous Wagner PMC model to a centralized instrument of military intelligence and defense policy. Operating under the direct oversight of the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the Main Directorate of the General Staff (GRU), the Africa Corps aims to project Russian influence, exploit strategic security vacuums left by Western withdrawals, secure mineral assets, and anchor Moscow’s presence across sub-Saharan Africa.

1. Governance and Command Architecture

Following the August 2023 death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, Moscow systematically dismantled Wagner’s autonomous command structures, integrating its personnel, equipment, and logistics into formal state oversight:

  • Institutional Integration: Direct operational management is overseen by Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov and GRU Lieutenant General Andrey Averyanov, establishing direct lines to the Kremlin.
  • Operational Leadership: Field command relies on seasoned GRU veterans and former Wagner commanders—such as Andrey “Kep” Ivanov and Ivan “Miron” Maslov—to preserve tactical continuity on the ground.
  • Doctrine: Unlike Wagner’s purely mercenary facade, the Africa Corps operates as an expeditionary military instrument, integrating counter-insurgency operations, regime protection, state-sponsored information campaigns, and logistics pipelines into a unified posture, as documented in this Russia Post Analysis.

2. Operational Footprint in the Alliance of Sahel States (AES)

The core hub of Russian power projection in West Africa centers on the Alliance of Sahel States (Alliance des États du Sahel – AES), a military-led confederation formed by Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger following their respective military coups.

Mali: Operational and Combat Epicenter

  • Force Deployment: ~1,000–1,500 personnel.
  • Strategic Mission: Acts as the principal offensive combat force alongside the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa), conducting operations against Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and northern separatist coalitions (CSP-DPA).
  • Key Operations: Direct participation in major offensives in northern and central Mali, including contested border sectors near Algeria.

Burkina Faso: Regime Security and Advisory

  • Force Deployment: ~300–500 personnel.
  • Strategic Mission: Primary focus centers on presidential guard duties for junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traoré, capital defense in Ouagadougou, and tactical instruction for local counter-terror units.

Niger: Strategic Infrastructure and Asset Protection

  • Force Deployment: ~100–200 personnel.
  • Strategic Mission: Operational cooperation expanded following the 2023 coup and the subsequent withdrawal of French and U.S. troops. Africa Corps units secure critical airbase facilities and provide strategic monitoring around high-value mining assets, particularly uranium fields.

The formal consolidation of this triad under the Wikipedia Alliance of Sahel States Overview provides Moscow with a contiguous, pro-Russian political and military belt cutting directly across the central Sahel.

3. Supply Lines and Coastal Logistics Corridors

Landlocked deployment in the Sahel presents significant resupply challenges. To mitigate this, Russia maintains a multi-modal logistics strategy:

  • Northern Maritime Bridge: Eastern Libya serves as the primary air and maritime entry point for heavy gear and personnel staged out of the Mediterranean.
  • Coastal Transit Nodes: Resupply convoys increasingly utilize West African port facilities. Military equipment and supplies for Africa Corps units in the AES transit through the Port of Conakry (Guinea) and coastal nodes such as Lomé (Togo), traveling via road convoys through neighboring territories.
  • Integrated Force Projection: Detailed troop tracking in Wikipedia’s Africa Corps Overview highlights how this logistical grid connects Mediterranean staging bases directly to tactical units in sub-Saharan West Africa.

4. Strategic Intent and Resource Reciprocity

The posture of the Africa Corps serves broader geopolitical and economic objectives:

  • Resource Concessions: Security guarantees are paid for through direct access to state-managed natural resources, notably gold extraction in Mali and the Central African Republic, alongside strategic energy and uranium interests in Niger.
  • Information Operations and Soft Power: Deployments are accompanied by state-backed media networks (such as the African Initiative) that promote anti-neocolonial narratives. Russia increasingly frames its military presence through humanitarian and stabilization messaging, as detailed in a Modern Ghana Security Briefing.
  • Geopolitical Leverage: Establishing a permanent military presence along key trans-Saharan migration routes and trade corridors provides Moscow with strategic leverage vis-à-vis Southern Europe and NATO’s southern flank.

5. Vulnerabilities and Strategic Limits

Despite rapid expansion, Russia’s posture in the Sahel faces distinct structural limits:

  1. Force Allocation Limits: The continuous demand for manpower and heavy materiel in Ukraine constrains the total number of regular troops Russia can commit to Africa, capping the Africa Corps well below initial target ambitions.
  2. Tactical Asymmetry: Insurgent groups (JNIM and Tuareg rebels) have adapted to Russian tactical doctrine, delivering costly ambushes and tactical set-backs in remote borderlands.
  3. Local Backlash: Persistent civilian casualties during joint operations risk aggravating local ethnic tensions and undermining long-term operational stability.

ALM Prompt: Provide an intelligence analysis of JNIM and Tuareg insurgent counter-tactics against Africa Corps and FAMa forces in northern Mali.

1. Strategic Context & Operational Pivot

Counter-insurgency operations conducted by the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) alongside Russia’s Africa Corps (formerly Wagner Group) have encountered severe structural resistance across northern Mali. The threat environment is dominated by two primary insurgent vectors: the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Tuareg separatist coalition, operating under the Azawad Liberation Front / Front de Libération de l’Azawad (FLA) (formerly CSP-DPA).

The tactical defeat of Russian and FAMa forces at the Battle of Tinzaouaten near the Algerian border, combined with subsequent operational retreats from key strongholds like Kidal, marked a turning point in northern Mali. Insurgent factions have successfully exploited Russian doctrine, terrain realities, and critical human intelligence (HUMINT) vacuums.

2. Primary Insurgent Counter-Tactics

A. Topographical Funneling and Terrain Exploitation

  • Valley & Wadi Ambush Geometry: Tuareg and JNIM fighters leverage intimate geographic knowledge of the Adrar des Ifoghas and northern desert terrain. Convoys are funneled into low-lying desert valleys (wadis) where armored transport vehicles lose off-road mobility.
  • High-Ground Dominance: Insurgent marksmen and anti-tank teams occupy elevated granite ridges, isolating lead and trail vehicles in column movements before deploying light infantry on fast-moving motorbikes and technicals.
  • Weather-Decoupled Engagements: Ground assaults are frequently timed during seasonal sandstorms (harmattan) or high-heat windows to degrade Russian airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and ground attack capabilities.

B. Asymmetric Counter-ISR and Electromagnetic Evasion

  • Mitigating Technical Intelligence (TECHINT): As analyzed in a Small Wars Journal Assessment, insurgents actively bypass airborne surveillance by dispersing forces into decentralized cell structures, maintaining strict radio silence prior to ambushes, and utilizing multi-axis movements to avoid signals interception.
  • Weaponized Commercial Drones: JNIM has integrated commercial quadcopter drones modified to drop improvised explosive devices (IEDs) directly onto forward operating positions, checkpoints, and armored assets, challenging the air superiority traditionally claimed by state forces, as documented in WAR WATCH Security Filings.

C. Supply Line Interdiction & Heavy IED Operations

  • Logistical Chokepoints: Insurgents prioritize heavy IED deployments along critical supply corridors, such as the Gao-Ansongo axis and desert routes toward Kidal and Tin-Essako. Disabling supply trucks forces FAMa/Africa Corps elements into static defense positions in hostile sectors.
  • Urban & Base Blockades: JNIM systematically applies economic blockades around urban centers and military outposts, cutting off fuel, food, and ground reinforcement pipelines to weaken garrison morale before initiating multi-directional assaults.

D. Operational Convergence & Strategic Information Warfare

  • Tactical Coordination: While ideologically distinct, jihadist JNIM elements and secular Tuareg/FLA separatists have engaged in ad-hoc operational coordination, sharing real-time tracking of joint FAMa-Russian troop movements and synchronizing pressure along northern fronts.
  • Information Warfare & Narrative Disruption: Following tactical engagements, insurgents immediately publish high-definition drone footage and ground imagery of destroyed armor, captured military equipment, and casualties. According to an African Security Analysis Report, this strategy effectively destroys Bamako’s narrative of territorial recovery and severely degrades the strategic prestige of Russian security assistance.

3. Strategic Adaptation and Russian Force Limits

In response to sustained insurgent counter-tactics, Africa Corps posture has undergone significant operational shifts:

  • Transition to Standoff Air Posture: To limit high-profile casualties among Russian personnel, ground patrols in deep desert sectors have been reduced, shifting reliance toward standoff drone strikes and aviation sorties, as detailed in an ADF Security Briefing.
  • HUMINT Deficit & Local Resistance: As noted by the Lansing Institute, heavy-handed punitive operations against civilian communities have driven rural populations directly toward insurgent protection networks. This reliance on coercion over community trust has deprived joint military operations of reliable ground intelligence, leaving expeditionary units vulnerable to tactical surprises.

ALM Prompt: Provide an intelligence analysis of JNIM and Tuareg insurgent counter-tactics against Africa Corps and FAMa forces in northern Mali.

1. Strategic Context & Operational Pivot

Counter-insurgency operations conducted by the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) alongside Russia’s Africa Corps (formerly Wagner Group) have encountered severe structural resistance across northern Mali. The threat environment is dominated by two primary insurgent vectors: the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Tuareg separatist coalition, operating under the Azawad Liberation Front / Front de Libération de l’Azawad (FLA) (formerly CSP-DPA).

The tactical defeat of Russian and FAMa forces at the Battle of Tinzaouaten near the Algerian border, combined with subsequent operational retreats from key strongholds like Kidal, marked a turning point in northern Mali. Insurgent factions have successfully exploited Russian doctrine, terrain realities, and critical human intelligence (HUMINT) vacuums.

2. Primary Insurgent Counter-Tactics

A. Topographical Funneling and Terrain Exploitation

  • Valley & Wadi Ambush Geometry: Tuareg and JNIM fighters leverage intimate geographic knowledge of the Adrar des Ifoghas and northern desert terrain. Convoys are funneled into low-lying desert valleys (wadis) where armored transport vehicles lose off-road mobility.
  • High-Ground Dominance: Insurgent marksmen and anti-tank teams occupy elevated granite ridges, isolating lead and trail vehicles in column movements before deploying light infantry on fast-moving motorbikes and technicals.
  • Weather-Decoupled Engagements: Ground assaults are frequently timed during seasonal sandstorms (harmattan) or high-heat windows to degrade Russian airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and ground attack capabilities.

B. Asymmetric Counter-ISR and Electromagnetic Evasion

  • Mitigating Technical Intelligence (TECHINT): As analyzed in a Small Wars Journal Assessment, insurgents actively bypass airborne surveillance by dispersing forces into decentralized cell structures, maintaining strict radio silence prior to ambushes, and utilizing multi-axis movements to avoid signals interception.
  • Weaponized Commercial Drones: JNIM has integrated commercial quadcopter drones modified to drop improvised explosive devices (IEDs) directly onto forward operating positions, checkpoints, and armored assets, challenging the air superiority traditionally claimed by state forces, as documented in WAR WATCH Security Filings.

C. Supply Line Interdiction & Heavy IED Operations

  • Logistical Chokepoints: Insurgents prioritize heavy IED deployments along critical supply corridors, such as the Gao-Ansongo axis and desert routes toward Kidal and Tin-Essako. Disabling supply trucks forces FAMa/Africa Corps elements into static defense positions in hostile sectors.
  • Urban & Base Blockades: JNIM systematically applies economic blockades around urban centers and military outposts, cutting off fuel, food, and ground reinforcement pipelines to weaken garrison morale before initiating multi-directional assaults.

D. Operational Convergence & Strategic Information Warfare

  • Tactical Coordination: While ideologically distinct, jihadist JNIM elements and secular Tuareg/FLA separatists have engaged in ad-hoc operational coordination, sharing real-time tracking of joint FAMa-Russian troop movements and synchronizing pressure along northern fronts.
  • Information Warfare & Narrative Disruption: Following tactical engagements, insurgents immediately publish high-definition drone footage and ground imagery of destroyed armor, captured military equipment, and casualties. According to an African Security Analysis Report, this strategy effectively destroys Bamako’s narrative of territorial recovery and severely degrades the strategic prestige of Russian security assistance.

3. Strategic Adaptation and Russian Force Limits

In response to sustained insurgent counter-tactics, Africa Corps posture has undergone significant operational shifts:

  • Transition to Standoff Air Posture: To limit high-profile casualties among Russian personnel, ground patrols in deep desert sectors have been reduced, shifting reliance toward standoff drone strikes and aviation sorties, as detailed in an ADF Security Briefing.
  • HUMINT Deficit & Local Resistance: As noted by the Lansing Institute, heavy-handed punitive operations against civilian communities have driven rural populations directly toward insurgent protection networks. This reliance on coercion over community trust has deprived joint military operations of reliable ground intelligence, leaving expeditionary units vulnerable to tactical surprises.

ALM Prompt: Provide a security and intelligence analysis of Algeria’s diplomatic and border security posture regarding FAMa and Africa Corps operations in northern Mali.

Algeria’s posture toward northern Mali has shifted from diplomatic mediation to active border enforcement. The termination of the 2015 peace framework, combined with joint combat operations by the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and Russia’s Africa Corps along the shared 1,400-kilometer border, has driven Algiers to enforce a military containment strategy aimed at preventing cross-border spillover.

1. Diplomatic Rupture and Collapse of the Algiers Framework

For nearly a decade, Algiers served as the primary mediator between Bamako and northern Tuareg coalitions. That architecture broke down completely following key developments:

  • Termination of the Peace Accord: In January 2024, Mali’s military junta formally annulled the 2015 Algiers Accords, accusing Algeria of interfering in Malian internal affairs and providing safe harbor to Tuareg political figures.
  • Multilateral Recriminations at the UN: Following heavy civilian casualties from FAMa and Africa Corps drone strikes in border towns like Tinzaouaten, Algeria’s UN delegation publicly demanded international accountability. Bamako responded by accusing Algiers of spreading “terrorist propaganda”.
  • Alliance of Sahel States (AES) Estrangement: Political escalation culminated in diplomatic recalls between Algeria and the AES bloc (Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger), severing traditional intelligence-sharing channels across the central Sahel.

2. Border Security Posture and Kinetic Air Defense Enforcement

To insulate its southern territory—specifically the 6th Military Region headquartered at Tamanrasset—the Algerian People’s National Army (ANP) has implemented a rigid air defense perimeter along the border:

  • Airspace Incursion Countermeasures: Following repeated border-adjacent drone operations by FAMa, Algerian air defense units shot down a Turkish-made Malian military drone near Tinzaouaten after it crossed into Algerian airspace. Algiers asserted its zero-tolerance policy against unauthorized aerial platforms operating near its borders.
  • Forward Troop Deployments: The ANP has reinforced border posts, deploying mechanized infantry, signal intelligence (SIGINT) units, and air defense systems to secure the frontier against armed groups, fleeing insurgents, or advancing mercenary columns.
  • Humanitarian and Migration Buffer: Algiers is enforcing strict border control to manage forced displacement resulting from joint FAMa-Africa Corps offensives, seeking to prevent humanitarian surges into its southern Wilayas.

3. Strategic Dilemma: Tuareg Cushion vs. Russian Mercenary Expansion

Algeria’s security calculation balances two main concerns:

  1. Preserving Tuareg Buffers: Algiers views the Tuareg population of northern Azawad as a vital sociological buffer against violent extremist organizations like Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and Islamic State Sahel Province (IS-SP). The military neutralizing of Tuareg secular factions risks leaving a power vacuum easily exploited by jihadist networks right on Algeria’s border.
  2. Opposition to Foreign Mercenary Forces: While maintaining macro-level strategic and military purchasing ties with Moscow, Algiers views the tactical presence of state-backed private military operators like the Africa Corps on its immediate perimeter as an unpredictable element. The uncoordinated use of kinetic force by non-state Russian actors is seen in Algiers as a primary driver of regional instability.

4. Security Outlook

The situation along the border presents several structural risks:

  • High Air Defense Friction: Continued drone surveillance and air strikes by FAMa and Africa Corps along the border elevate the likelihood of further kinetic engagements by Algerian air defense forces.
  • Intelligence Isolation: Without formal diplomatic mediation between Algiers and the AES junta, crisis communication channels remain closed, increasing the potential for tactical misunderstandings during border-adjacent engagements.

Speaking as the human out of the loop but under whose aegis Ai La Mer works, I must leave to the reader some reverse engineering for image-perfect factual and tactical veracity. For analysts and journalist (and bloggers) the tests for truth involve multiple methods and sources that when examined for corroboration and overlaid keep turning up the same data and similar analytical interpretation. With that epistemology noted, I’ve stopped the AI about here because the full rank of online conflict watchers, solvers, enthusiasts, and professional have now similar capability and may and will follow their own curiosity. One may hope to see as much done with courage and curiosity and a greater ethics and integrity than known to brigands, extremists, and terrorists whose own ends and interests appear often less than cognizant, evolved, and noble. —J. S. Oppenheim

###

A Dark Mirror in Language II

16 Wednesday Oct 2024

Posted by in 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, OnX, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Psychology

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Given a decent theory of the process by which malignant narcissists become so, it follows that denial covers the initiating or repeated narcissistic mortification–whatever imparted the humiliation never happened–and false claims and other lies abet the invention of an undamaged unassailable courageous-heroic self and related projected image. That image becomes the narcissists identity and self-concept with all contrary evidence dismissible–and the same may be and must be accepted by the narcissist’s agents, associates, employees, envoys, family, and friends.

Before one starts playing, “Who’s a narcissists?”–“You’re a narcissist!”–No, you are the narcissist!” and so on, it may be noted that the malignant narcissist has rejected one social reality, that which caused him emotional damage, for another in which he may not only play the hero in his own show, but it’s he who creates the show as an illusion in which innumerable others become party to his madness. The (#)”MaligNarc”–as I refer to the type on X–creates his own theater, and that stage and his centrality in it become his reality. This differs from the normal pride on may take in one’s “powers” as defined by one’s knowledge, skills, abilities, and talents plus energies over time, i.e., the normal endowment of a healthy person. Add a few course corrections and character-shaping habits good or bad for both a normal and successful or, alas, less so but honest sense of reality.

In my first approach to “A Dark Mirror in Language”, I relayed with it the context of Russia’s war of conquest and cultural annihilation taking place in Ukraine. My intent here is to produce a short description not attached to a present–and soon to be historical–fact of life.

First composed on X:

For the narcissist, there is a dark mirror in language. He looks at his reflection in the pond, sees the sky behind him, and he believes he is gazing up toward heaven-and he goes on living in his own reflection.

The beautiful Narcissus of Greek mythology had perhaps youthful cause to enjoy his singular existence and self-absorbed obsession, and before even the existence of the myth the storytellers the loving grace to see in the plant the poetic cause of its form.

The malignant “Narcissus”, more Dorian Gray than innocent youth, may have other cause to view his life as seen in a mirror but lived in the black cold water beneath, a literal “underworld” for fear of the hazards of the reality around him that first imparted his own traumatic humiliation and shame. How much more fit to be admired, agreed with, obeyed for possessing the power to ruthlessly destroy any detractor and richly reward the properly admiring.

Behold the malignant narcissus, criminal, degrading, and ignoble but speaking and strutting as if an admired king, appropriately groomed, wise in the world, and responsive to his cultivated portion of the world’s most responsible advisors, that is a good king and leader, a philosopher-king and an admirable son of the language and soil of his birth. The malignant would not be so lucky as to be authentic but rather presents a fraud, imposter, usurper whose chief recommendations may be ill-gotten wealth and related criminal ruthlessness.

The Malignant Narcissist Lies

As noted, the malignant narcissist needs must lie to cover the memory of his own early and traumatic instance or continuing experience of humiliation and shame. The monster has options:

-Baseless Accusations, Defamations, Slanders
-Claims Without Merit
-Conspiracy to Commit Crimes
-Defamations, Libels, Slanders
-Deflections of Attention In Relation to Crimes
-Denials of Culpability
-Disinformation
-Disingenuous and Fallacious Arguments
-Fabrications & False Framing
-Incitements to Violence
-Sins of Omission

Whatever awful thing happened to him . . . just didn’t. Capiche?

Whatever the crime, he didn’t do it. Someone else must have done it, don’t you agree?

Everything he does is the best, the greatest, over-the-top, platinum, and outshines the sun–bask in his beneficence, nay his glory and magnificence–or be gone!

In his own theater, the malignant narcissist has become the world, and no one else can do what he can do or even really matters much at all.

Contemporary Irrational Actors, Diagnoses and Prognoses

I have circulated on X what follows as part of the day to day combat with–call it what is is–evil.

Signal: delusional, grandiose, messianic ideation absent of normal boundaries and limits, i.e., the parameters of normal conscience.

Process: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/10/malignant-narcissistic-process-distilled/

Ramifications–>

Putin–https://conflict-backchannels.com/2023/05/03/reference-journalist-alexander-zhilin-operation-storm-in-moscow-aka-moscow-apartment-bombings/; https://conflict-backchannels.com/2023/01/20/ftac-why-putin-wont-stop-until-stopped/.

Trump—https://conflict-backchannels.com/2024/04/22/trump-delusional-and-innocent/; https://conflict-backchannels.com/2024/05/20/a-last-note-about-the-malignarc/.

#Authoritarianism #DelusionalParanoid #Dictatorship #MalignantNarcissism #MaligNarcs #PoliticalAbsolutism #PolitCrims #PoliSci #PoliPsy #Trump #TrumpPutin

Malignant and Reparative Narcissism

With the advent of affordable and popular “broadband Internet”, I chose to “see” the world in English through the foreign publications published in that lingua franca. The experience has been as inseparable from the study of conflict as it has been edifying and expansive. One desktop : one mind. In relation to conflict and malignant narcissism, the theme most evident across the world’s conflicts–we have a bloody busy and busy bloody world everywhere (may most–one would wish all–avoid the worst)–has been what I characterize as “Medieval v. Modern”, i.e., politically absolute systems of power poised against systems of distributed political power–so: Absolute Feudal-Medieval Cultures v. Democratic Modern Cultures. While all private businesses are in their own way absolute, feudal, and medieval in their cultural and social structures, generally speaking, the compacts with governments and the interests of governments have become increasingly integrated and sophisticated in ways requiring greater levels of cooperation in respect to communications and trade. There are no “globalists”, and we are all well defined by where we have been born–the culture of our birth and our language–and who we have become by our own design and by the forces–cultural, financial, political, social–that are a part of our existence individually. In the world of the once mortified malignant personality–someone taught him or her a lesson, I guess–there may be only defense. Lies cover shame; money puts up barriers of all sorts and helps make friends–or hire greater defensive talent–as well. Somehow in our natural mix, we are not all so damaged, or if so have sought solace and strength elsewhere to become more contributing in life than destructive.

Note: I regard myself as reparative and blame that on isolation and spoiling, an odd combination which history I will not divulge, but I may say I’ve had a life with books, cameras, and musical instruments, and being able to say that (close to 70) and for the time being comfortable (at home in an apartment), there’s not much room for anger and complaint. Would that I could change the past with the potential natural decade or two ahead, but have for late stage wealth the ownership of my time. Discretionary time. Free time. And freedom of that sort let’s us do things we choose for our own esteem or pleasure.

Back to theme (my “weave”) . . . .

Take it as a trope: modernity worldwide already involves advanced complex integrated large and sensitive systems demanding interpersonal and interstate cooperation in the appreciation of their existence and related benefits.

In fact, international laws and standards apply and bear down on absolutely every facet of business and related exchange while the space left to criminals, frauds, isolationists, and marauders grows smaller by the day. On the other hand, the presence of the malignant and their role in greater conflict and desperation appears to be growing, and all that really keeps the lid on, where that is possible, are the reparative. That’s a heady thing for me to say, but take mine as a voice from the sidelines. The greater in contribution have presence as responsible academics, diplomats, executives, and researchers who help everything else connect and work. They are modern people in a world engaged not only in trading across boundaries but in addressing a full suite of basic issues and challenges involving hazards and process that have as phenomenon–contagion, earthquakes, hurricanes–only biology or physics for what they do–never conscience. And then there are the malignant who in positions of power behave similarly to natural dangers in their absence of conscience. As a breed born accustomed to punishment, denying it, and holding power ruthlessly so as not to again suffer the same themselves, some become rather their own “forces of nature” acting wholly without conscience and devoid of compassion.

Name the capitals; note the closed, criminal, and dark; consider the malignant–always attacking because always cowardly, defensive, and weak–and consider the possibility that the modern and those who would be modern engage in repairs and the securing of their work primarily to establish a greater good that is not about power and wealth so much as the encouragement and greening of a healthy planet at peace.

–33–

#AmericanTraitor #DonaldJohnTrump

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Europe, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, North America, United States of America

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After years of blogging defined by “collect, select, and opine”, I have found with the national and global obsessions with “#FeloniousTrump” (“#4FelonyCases91Counts”)–so I frequently refer to him on Elon Musk’s X post-Twitter platform–a certain saturation. I have tired of Donald John Trump’s image and voice, his skewed anti-democratic American political stances, his now infamously malign and surreal (delusional, grandiose, messianic) narcissistic psychology, his paranoia and related lies and lying, and the uncritical and other than Christian self-righteous viciousness of his fan base. 

I have seen enough as well of the Hitler-Stalin Trump-Puntin (#TrumpPutin) dance and related intents, and would wish not only fellow Americans but Europeans and others free of them and all similar political criminals and elevated crackpots. 

Instead of writing (much), I’ve chosen to produce a page of reference with two of Liz Cheney’s YouTube videos at the base. Before one reaches them: excerpts form suggested reference.

Motivation

Donald Trump has failed perhaps more than his share of bank loans and debts, and he has had to deal with a rough world, one often lawless beyond his own reach. The pressures must get “up there” with always incessant needs for cash. Well, he found his cash, and much of it in concentration.

Trump’s Business and Banking Failures; Trump Rescued by Russian Money; Trump’s Russian Real Estate Entanglements; Trump’s Malignant Narcissism.

Moscow is in Russia; Little Moscow: Miami Beach, Florida.

Malice Aforethought: Trump’s Fake Electors Scheme

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/28/politics/recordings-trump-team-fake-elector-ballots/index.html; https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/22/trump-fake-elector-scheme-case-tracker; https://apnews.com/article/trump-georgia-electors-205d1fc6a02e1225c8c51214980a1232; https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-jan-6-investigation-fake-electors-608932d4771f6e2e3c5efb3fdcd8fcce; https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/us/politics/fake-electors-explained-trump-jan-6.html. Addendum: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-supreme-court-immunity-arizona-fake-electors-rcna149359.

Malice Aforethought: Trump Compromises Capitol Defense for January 6, 2021

https://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-hindered-dc-national-guard-response-to-insurrection-attempt-report-2021-1; https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-report-details-sweeping-failures-around-jan-6-attack; https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/us/politics/capitol-riot-security.html; https://www.npr.org/2021/01/15/956842958/what-we-know-so-far-a-timeline-of-security-at-the-capitol-on-january-6; https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/january-6-senate-investigation/2021/06/08/a8cc5b1e-c7d4-11eb-81b1-34796c7393af_story.html; https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/january-6-senate-investigation/2021/06/08/a8cc5b1e-c7d4-11eb-81b1-34796c7393af_story.html; https://apnews.com/article/capitol-riots-hearing-security-officials-a9ecf8efd4d76f02d5ab9c7a01c5bdb1;

Trumpolini #Jan6

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-capitol-probes-season-finale-focus-trump-supporters-three-hour-rage-2022-07-21; https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/08/politics/fact-check-trump-january-6/index.html; https://abcnews.go.com/US/special-counsel-probe-uncovers-new-details-trumps-inaction/story?id=106131854; https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2023/09/17/trump-refuses-to-say-what-he-did-during-the-jan–6-attack-unfolded-at-the-u-s–capitol; https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2022/7/21/jan-6-live-news-panel-to-examine-trumps-conduct-during-riots; https://time.com/6199490/trump-jan-6-oath-dereliction-duty/; https://www.courthousenews.com/jan-6-hearing-to-focus-on-trumps-inaction-during-capitol-riot/; https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-panel-hearing-3e3dc618ed8cee37147cf6a792c0c0fa; https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/21/us/politics/trump-jan-6.html; https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-lit-that-fire-of-capitol-insurrection-jan-6-committee-report-says; https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64071723; https://www.voanews.com/a/final-report-on-jan-6-attack-points-finger-at-trump-/6888552.html; https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/21/jan-6-panel-trump-attack-00047130.

2020 Election Affirmation

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/2021/01/06/trumps-failed-efforts-overturn-election-numbers/4130307001; https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/14/politics/2020-election-electoral-college-vote/index.html; https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-2020-election-results/2020/11/19/936647882/georgia-releases-hand-recount-results-affirming-bidens-lead; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/us/politics/biden-electoral-college.html; https://www.michigan.gov/sos/resources/news/2021/02/12/statewide-election-audit-process-affirms-presidential-election-outcome; https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/maricopa-county-election-cyber-ninjas-fraud-trump-senate/2022/01/05/9bc64ace-6e50-11ec-aaa8-35d1865a6977_story.html; https://madison.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/wisconsin-fake-electors-settlement/article_69073b5a-9452-11ee-a516-37d30bea32bc.html; etc.

2020 Election Denial

For former President of the United States Trump: https://apnews.com/article/trump-2020-election-lies-debunked-4fc26546b07962fdbf9d66e739fbb50d; https://www.reuters.com/world/us/who-allegedly-conspired-with-trump-overturn-2020-election-2023-08-02/; https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/us/politics/trump-election-lies-fact-check.html; https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-repeats-false-election-fraud-claims-during-speech-in-washington; https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/07/trump-refuses-to-accept-election-results-says-it-is-far-from-over.html;

For present Speaker of the House Mike Johnson: https://apnews.com/article/congress-house-speaker-2024-election-certification-8cd7c5a9e6ae69635bbb4624cc78e5c5; https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/25/mike-johnson-trump-january-6-democracy-threat-election-denier; https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/07/johnson-election-denier-nonsense-biden-2020-election-00134184; https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-trump-who-denied-2020-election-loss-announces-new-white-house-run;

As a bipartisan effort, the report does not delve into the root causes of the attack, including Trump’s role as he called for his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat that day. It does not call the attack an insurrection, even though it was. And it comes two weeks after Republicans blocked a bipartisan, independent commission that would investigate the insurrection more broadly.

“This report is important in the fact that it allows us to make some immediate improvements to the security situation here in the Capitol,” said Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which conducted the probe along with the Senate Rules Committee. “But it does not answer some of the bigger questions that we need to face, quite frankly, as a country and as a democracy.”

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-report-details-sweeping-failures-around-jan-6-attack

But the DHS and the FBI do not create an intelligence report focused specifically on the upcoming pro-Trump rally. That’s important because these reports go beyond raw intelligence — they validate information and put it into context that would help local law enforcement develop a plan. These threat assessments or intelligence bulletins are typically written as a matter of course ahead of high-profile events. It’s not clear why this didn’t happen.

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/15/956842958/what-we-know-so-far-a-timeline-of-security-at-the-capitol-on-january-6

“There were significant, widespread and unacceptable breakdowns in the intelligence gathering. .?.?. The failure to adequately assess the threat of violence on that day contributed significantly to the breach of the Capitol,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), chairman of the homeland security panel, told reporters. “The attack was, quite frankly, planned in plain sight.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/january-6-senate-investigation/2021/06/08/a8cc5b1e-c7d4-11eb-81b1-34796c7393af_story.html

Sources said Scavino told Smith’s investigators that as the violence began to escalate that day, Trump “was just not interested” in doing more to stop it.

Sources also said former Trump aide Nick Luna told federal investigators that when Trump was informed that then-Vice President Mike Pence had to be rushed to a secure location, Trump responded, “So what?” — which sources said Luna saw as an unexpected willingness by Trump to let potential harm come to a longtime loyalist.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/special-counsel-probe-uncovers-new-details-trumps-inaction/story?id=106131854

As he pushed to overturn the election, Trump relied on a band of outside allies who undertook what federal prosecutors have called a “criminal scheme” to fraudulently overturn the 2020 results instead of relying on the advice of attorneys in the White House who urged him to accept his loss to Biden./Trump was asked in the interview why he didn’t listen to those lawyers.

“I didn’t respect them,” Trump said.

https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2023/09/17/trump-refuses-to-say-what-he-did-during-the-jan–6-attack-unfolded-at-the-u-s–capitol

In public, he made more than 800 inaccurate claims about the election from the time the polls began closing on Nov. 3, 2020, to the end of his presidency, according to a database compiled by The Washington Post. Dozens of times, he simply characterized the election as “rigged,” “stolen” or “a hoax,” and flatly and falsely declared he had won — even as a mountain of evidence proved otherwise. Other falsehoods were more specific about the voting and ballot-counting process, contained unproven allegations and promoted conspiracy theories.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/us/politics/trump-election-lies-fact-check.html

Also Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/02/02/united-states-of-america-basic-training/; https://conflict-backchannels.com/2024/01/19/gop-and-the-ridiculous-traitorous-mister-trump/.

On YouTube, July 27, 2021.
On YouTube July 12, 2022.
On YouTube November 11, 2020

Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection and Other Rights

  Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-14/section-3/

Addendum-Additional Reference Online-From March 28, 2024 and Forward

Protess, Ben, Alan Feuer, Danny Hakim. “Catch Up on Where the Trump Investigations Stand.” The New York Times, March 20, 2024.

–33–

GOP and the Ridiculous Traitorous Mister Trump

19 Friday Jan 2024

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Political Psychology, United States of America

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Donald John Trump may not think of himself as a cowardly and smarmy con man, felon, mafia chief, or traitor to his nation in light of his own delusional, grandiose, and messianic character and apparent absence of conscience. However, all indicators point back toward cooperation with Vladimir Putin in relation to seeing himself installed in power–with immunity from felony-level wrongdoing, no less–by an overwhelmingly White Christian American Nationalist Front that itself appears to have America’s Republican Party leveraged away from its traditional adult, civil, Constitutional, lawful, and responsible navigation.

When FBI arrested Russian mafia engaged in money laundering operations at Trump Tower, we, more or less Americans who read the news, gave him a pass.

When Trump covered for Putin in the now infamous “Helsinki Moment”, mainstream media and moderate cognizant and good Americans were shocked but then gave that moment two minutes of squawking before some other drama displaced it.

Here, copied verbatim, is what Trump said in that now hideous and signal moment:

***

all I can do is ask the question my people came to me dan coates came to me and some others they said they think it’s Russia I have president putin he just said it’s not russia i will say this i don’t see any reason why it would be I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today and what he did is an incredible offer he offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the people I think that’s an incredible offer

Guardian News. “Key moments from the Trump-Putin press conference.” Start: 0:0:07.  Transcript machine generated.  July 16, 2018.

***

And there Trump is, no different back then than he is today: inveigling, lying, infantilizing, pandering and far gone in the sordid business of trading country–and American law–for the lowest in the way of criminal, corrupt, and ruthless power.

And where has been the GOP in relation to Trump?

***

…Trump and company don’t simply want to “deconstruct the administrative state,” as Trump whisperer Steve Bannon famously said. They want to remake the state to concentrate political and economic power in the hands of themselves and their wealthy friends. That requires removing the checks on executive power that are embedded in the federal bureaucracy.

Basically, Trump wants to transform a system that already tilts dangerously in the direction of oligopoly into a full-blown patronage state along the lines of what Viktor Orbán has done in Hungary and Vladimir Putin has accomplished in Russia.

Feffer, John. ”What Will the World Look Like if Trump Wins?” Fair Observer, December 18, 2023

***

In X-speak, has #America tired of #FeloniousTrump #4FelonyCases91Counts?

Today, Americans know that Trump knew he had lost the 2020 election and with premeditation chose to lie to his base, which may now be considered either gullible or just plain traitorous and vicious, and then he drove a violent portion to insurrection in an attempted coup. Those whom Trump betrayed and inveigled in his madness should be especially angry with him.

Call him “Trumpolini” and hope America–the vast majority of Americans–will find the courage to defend their nation, its revolutionary Constitution and spirit, and be finished with him as well.

Related On BackChannels

Oppenheim, James S. “Mafia ‘Don’? Laundering the Authoritarian President’s Image.” BackChannels, September 7, 2018.

Oppenheim, James S. ”Trump and the Question of Insurrection.” BackChannels, January 9, 2021.

Oppenheim, James S. ”Trump’s Russian Collusion: No Delusion (Probably).” BackChannels, December 7, 2023.

Also Related Online

Cheney, Liz. Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning. Little, Brown and Company, December 5, 2023..

Desjardins, Lisa. ”Key takeaways from the Jan. 6 committee report summary.” PBS. December 19, 2022.

Feffer, John. “Trump’s Dirty Money.” Foreign Policy in Focus, December 18, 2023.

Feffer, John. ”What Will the World Look Like if Trump Wins?” Fair Observer, December 18, 2023. 

“Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.” PDF or Text. GovInfo, December 22, 2022.

Frum, David. “They Do It for Trump: Behind the GOP’s shifting excuses for abandoning Ukraine.” The Atlantic, December 18, 2023.

Gellman, Barton. “The Election That Could Break America.” The Atlantic. November 2020.

Hansen, Claire. ”To Russia, With Love: The GOP Divide on Putin and Ukraine.” U.S. News and World Report, April 11, 2023.

Harding, Luke. ”The Hidden History of Trump’s First Trip to Moscow.” Politico, November 19, 2017.

Houghtaling, Ellie Quinlan. ”Russia Celebrates Republicans Blocking Aid to Ukraine With a Missile Barrage.” The New Republic (TNR), December 8, 2023.

Illing, Sean. ”Trump’s ties to the Russian mafia go back 3 decades.” Vox, January 12, 2019.

Jeffries, Hakeem. ”Hakeem Jeffries singles out Republican ‘pro-Putin caucus’ opposing Ukraine aid.” The Guardian, December 13, 2023.

Kelly, Laura. ”Biden says GOP giving Putin ‘the greatest gift’ in stonewalling Ukraine funding.” The Hill. December 6, 2023.

Leonhardt, David. ”The G.O.P.s ‘Putin Wing’.” The New York Times, April 7, 2022.

Murphy, Chris. (U.S. Senator, D-Conn.). ”Murphy: The Republicans Lifting Up Putin Are the Same Ones Trying to Destroy Democracy.” February 17, 2023.

PBS. ”Mitch McConnell, standing apart in a shifting GOP), digs in on his decades-long push against Russia.” PBS, November 10, 2023.

Porter, Tom. ”Putin was gloating in public after Republican moves to block US aid for Ukraine.” Business Insider, December 14, 2023.

Sipher, John. ”Piling up incriminating information about Trump’s Russian connections.” The Washington Post, January 29, 2021.

Smith, David. ”‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy.” The Guardian, January 29, 2021.

Unger, Craig. House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia. New York: Dutton, 2018.

Unger, Craig. ”Trump’s businesses are full of dirty Russian money. The scandal is that it’s legal.” The Washington Post, March 29, 2019. 

Unger, Craig. “Trump’s Russian Laundromat.” The New Republic, July 13, 2017.

Will, George, F. ”Is the House GOP about to give Putin a pat on the back for his barbarism?” The Washington Post, November 3, 2023.

Winters, Michael Sean. ”The GOP does Putin’s bidding.” National Catholic Reporter, December 15, 2023.

Addendum to Reference

Cheney, Kyle. “Docs reveal new details of Trump lawyer’s fringe push to overturn 2020 election.” Politico, March 5, 2024.

Winer, Jonathan M. “Countering the Threat of a Contingent Election.” The Washington Spectator, February 23, 2024.

–Donald John Trump, American Traitor–

-33-

X-Pression: American Fascist Nationalist GOP

27 Friday Oct 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, United States of America

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Updated and revised post from October 26, 2023

I had had three X tweets here, but they were not showing to my satisfaction, so I have recreated the one that matters most.

A responsible #RepublicanParty would end #Denialism and the sustained entertainment of #FeloniousTrump as a potential #AmericanPresidentialCandidate–but your assembly of Americans-In-Name-Only appear unable to question #DJT‘s #AbsoluteReactionaryDemagoguery. For that, it appears you have chosen to destroy your nation.

#GOP #MikeJohnson #Trumpsters->#AmericansInNameOnly #AINOS

Posted to X on October 26, 2023 by J. S. Oppenheim.

I have found “X-pression” becoming pointless as the forest wakes up, all of the birdies go tweet tweet tweet and one’s own expression drowns in the cacophony. Nonetheless, X interaction feels engaging and here serves as part of a morning routine involving strong coffee, access to a portion of the world’s best journalism online, and, sigh, also a collection of voices practically medieval in their bludgeoning unreason.

–33–

A Note on Elon Musk, His X Commons, and An Online Society Without Boundaries

17 Sunday Sep 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Epistemology

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The Anti-Defamation League and Elon Musk have been sparring over the fate of hate speech on Musk’s “Digital Commons”, so I call it–#DigitalCommons–on X. The ADL appears to believe Musk is a publisher who should be responsible for the content of his web site while Musk appears devoted to the broadest legal freedom of speech concept and feel the obligation to sustain X uncensored. In the way of X, I’ve weighed in. Clearly, Musk neither authors nor edits the platform he administers in his role as a technologist. Forthwith, my opinion at X address https://x.com/JS_Oppenheim/status/1703418994139566319 –>

#IntegrityMatters #ResponsiveAndResponsibleGovernanceMatters

Single platform publishing has eliminated the boundaries that once sustained mainstream, fringe, and marginal communities in each their own domains. Today, the #DigitalCommons offers all everything at once in one place. That would not be a problem but for #AgitProp #Conspiracy #Disinformation #Incitement and #Recruitment into organizations or movements criminal or once marginalized by paper-based distribution.

Rx. Defenders of laws and within bounds civil behavior may have to go direct to their antagonists. Conspiracy, defamation, incitement (to crime) needs must be fielded, and the #DigitalCommons may not be itself the policing element.

Note: in the United States, not all speech has been protected under the First Amendment. Defamation, libel, and slander may be brought to court by suit or tort; conspiracy to commit crime or incitement to violence may be detected and met by the power of the State through its law enforcement agencies.

Related Online

Anti-Defamation League.

Oppenheim, James S. “FTAC: Endemic Russian Anti-Semitism–A Note”. BackChannels, February 1, 2021.

Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation. “Russian Imperial Movement”.

–33–

Elon Musk ISO Self-Navigating Soul

08 Friday Sep 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

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Have these emperors no clothes?

Putin has turned out a monster fairly bathing in blood; Trump has been all but declared a felon several times over–his image will lose the “alleged” before the charges against him; and here Musk, the world’s wealthiest industrialist appears ill-informed and lacking in insight. The first two I would cast as feudal-medieval thugs and in modern parlance “malignant narcissists”; the third has expressed concern for his fellow travelers in the most democratic terms, but while his platform, literally, and stature give him a mighty voice, he appears without background for the world he may view, also literally, from outer space.

Here follow three brief X-Riposte (I guess) to his callous and naive suggestion on Russia’s ethnocide in Ukraine: “Both sides should agree to a truce.”–>

I know I know my little bit of history in relation to Russia but am no match for Ph.D’s in Russian Studies–and to my own disadvantage, don’t speak a word of the language. On the other hand, inflection points and nodes may emerge from broad and general knowledge (plus boundless curiosity), and that much I have enjoyed in abundance. With respect to Russian history, I do know that those who crossed from what is today Scandinavia found the northern soil of the new continent thin and consequently would roam south for more fertile land (credit the thought to Pipes, Richard.  Russia Under the Old Regime: The History of Civilization.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974).

For vision, it helps to have background, engagement over time, an understanding of historic as well as present issues, and awareness–sometimes in depth–of variables contributing mightily to the way things look and, in fact, appear real and true with high confidence.

For Elon Musk and others, Russia has behaved in the manner of a criminal enterprise since the early mid-1990s. It’s leader’s malign narcissistic psychology has been expressed through especially cruel and sadistic operations in service to his development of political power. He hasn’t Russia’s better interests in mind but rather the defense of his own projected and sustained heroic image, and given his underlying fear of humiliation–or related cowardice–has no reverse gear, however irrational the prospect of his own continued success may appear.

Over time, BackChannels has covered Russia’s establishment of its anti-Semitic beliefs and traditions, its transfer of related thought to Adolph Hitler, and its yoking of the Palestinians to its own hate and related political paradigms.

Packaged here for compression, all cited URL’s may be unpacked but perhaps not in a simple hour or a day, but to any devoted to seeing how things work and have worked, what matters a little more time?

For the technology-enabled future of greatest benefit to humanity, both Putin and Trump must be defeated as the anachronistic and far bent personalities each has become. For Ukraine, there will be no security for Russia left as a politically intact and ever ruthless and vicious kleptocracy with imperial ambitions; for the United States, there should be no drift into criminal horse dealing of its own and the compromising of the privileges, prerogatives, and rights of citizenship without bounds of the nation’s Constitution and established political and social ideals, processes, and traditions.

# # #

Reference: Journalist, Alexander Zhilin, Operation Storm In Moscow AKA Moscow Apartment Bombings

03 Wednesday May 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Political Psychology, Political Spychology

≈ 13 Comments

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Fake News?

If only it existed in the Mainstream Press (Fox News excepted at present).

Fake Presidents?

At least two exist and both have represented rival superpowers.

One has been putting on a clown show in the United States.

One remains in power in Russia.

Meanwhile others in Moscow are still wondering whether there is a domestic political aspect to the crisis and whether rogue elements of the security forces are in some way involved in an attempt to provoke a state of emergency in Russia or the cancellation of elections.

There is absolutely no proof of this, but a little noticed article in the Moscow newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda by a respectable journalist Alexander Zhilin is now attracting attention.

Zhilin wrote on 25 August that President Yeltsin’s health was failing and that a plan with the codename “Storm in Moscow” was being hatched in the Kremlin . . . .

Zhilin’s article is interesting because it was written before the bomb explosions.

Waal, Tom de. “World: Europe: Russia’s bombs: Who is to blame?” BBC News, September 30, 1998.

During this fateful summer when Moscow was awash with rumors, I was friendly with a Russian political operative who was well connected to the higher levels of Russian power. When I met him, he told me about the growing fear in the Kremlin about the possibility of losing power and the indications that Moscow would be the scene of a huge provocation. He said that the issue was the security of Yeltsin and his family in the case of a handover of power. He said that if there was no agreement on terms, “they will blow up half of Moscow.”

I sensed the uneasiness but did not know how to assess the prediction of my friend. I had no illusions about Yeltsin and his cronies but it was hard to imagine that a man who came to power as a result of a peaceful anti-communist revolution with massive public support would be willing to murder his own people to hold onto power. Developing events, however, were to change my mind.

At 9:40 p.m. on September 4, a truck bomb exploded in Buinaksk, Dagestan’s second-largest city. It destroyed a five story apartment building, which housed soldiers from the 136th Motor Rifle Brigade.

Satter, David. “How Putin Became President.” American Interest, Hudson, May 19, 2016.

In a curious twist to the story, the liberal bi-weekly Novaya Gazeta published an investigation on Monday into a bomb discovered in the city of Ryazan last year. The FSB eventually said it had planted the bomb but that it was a fake and the incident was part of a training exercise. Local eyewitnesses said the timer and explosives were real.

Cockburn, Patrick. “Russian intelligence produces apartment bombing evidence.” Independent, March 17, 2000.

I’ve ordered John B. Dunlop’s book The Moscow Bombings of September 1999: Examinations of Russian Terrorist Attacks at the Onset of Vladimir Putin’s Rule (Stuttgart: Ibidem Press, 2014) and expect to find some “lovely” devils in the details but no change in the thesis relayed by the above quotations: power in Moscow, Yeltsin’s or Putin’s–or as controlled by Russia’s secret political police, the FSB–has proven itself criminal, ruthless, and unconscionable by bombing apartment buildings in the dead of night while Russian families slept in peace, and they did it in the interests not of real power, but of a display of power, i.e., of their own narcissistic image as controlled in a theater of their own making.

The false-flag operation, “Storm in Moscow”, supported the election of Vladimir Putin (for the length of his life, apparently) and the launching of a barbaric war featuring most of all the brutalizing of Chechen villages, sending the men into the ranks of rebels and putting in control the warlord Ramzan Kadyrov.

The betrayal of ordinary Russian people: unfathomable.

And perhaps ordinary Russians should know the truth.

Cited or Related Online

About Operation “Storm in Moscow” AKA “Moscow Apartment Bombings”

Cockburn, Patrick. “Russian intelligence produces apartment bombing evidence.” Independent, March 17, 2000.

Knight, Amy. “Finally, We Know About the Moscow Bombings.”The New York Review, November 22, 2012.

Satter, David. “How America Helped Make Vladimir Putin Dictator for Life. Tablet Magazine, Hudson, August 30, 2017.

Satter, David. “How Putin Became President.” American Interest, Hudson, May 19, 2016.

Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016.

Waal, Tom de. “World: Europe: Russia’s bombs: Who is to blame?” BBC News, September 30, 1998.

About the Barbaric and Malign Narcissistic Character of Russian State Ambition

Olear, Greg. “Vladimir the Terrible.” Prevail. June 12, 2020.

Politkovskaya, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Nekrasov, Andrey. Director. Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File AKA The Murder of Litvinenko.

On BackChannels

Oppenheim, James S. “A Note on Tweeting Up Russia’s Barbaric Feudal-Medieval Revanche.” BackChannels, April 12, 2023.

Oppenheim, James S. “Detecting Post-Soviet Russia’s Black Narrative of Revenge for ’89 and ’91.” BackChannels, July 19, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “Malignant Narcissism.” BackChannels web page.

Oppenheim, James S. “Malignant Narcissistic Process Distilled.” BackChannels, July 10, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation.” BackChannels web page.

Russian power appears to lie first and foremost to Russians while maintaining for itself the burden of truths about which it cannot and dare not speak–at least not until found out. Given the work of many journalists possess of abundant curiosity and integrity, Russia’s powerful have been today well observed, investigated, and reported on extensively, and for the top rank, the same would seem today fully found out.

A few brave individuals did try to investigate the Ryazan incident. When the State Duma, which was controlled by the regime, voted three times against opening an inquiry into the incident, an independent social commission was created that included several deputies, among them, Sergei Yushchenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, an investigative journalist with the independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. Yushchenkov was shot dead outside his apartment building on April 17, 2003. Shchekochikhin was poisoned in July 2003. Litvinenko and Politkovskaya also investigated the bombings only to be killed. In the wake of these murders, a curtain of fear descended in Russia over the issue of how Putin came to power.

Satter, David. “How America Helped Make Vladimir Putin Dictator for Life. Tablet Magazine, Hudson, August 30, 2017

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