Category Archives: Political Spychology

Ukraine – Moscow’s “Active Measures”

28 Friday Oct 2016

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While Russia’s hand in Ukraine has hardly been a secret, the emails, if genuine, provide fine-grained detail of Mr. Surkov’s office in setting up separatist enclaves in Ukraine’s east.

They also shed light on the workaday activity of a propaganda shop, including a rare example of a draft text apparently edited in Mr. Surkov’s office that can be compared with a final version.

The Ukrainian group, calling itself CyberHunta — a mocking reference to the Russian assessment that the Kiev government is a fascist junta — released 2,337 emails from the address prm_surkova@gov.ru, many from 2014 as the eastern Ukrainian separatists established their mini-states.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/world/europe/ukraine-russia-emails.html – 10/27/2016.

BackChannels inclines to trust the Atlantic Council before anything coming out of the maw of Moscow.

Why?

On Soviet Era “Active Measures”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures;

https://www.spymuseum.org/education-programs/news-books-briefings/background-briefings/active-measures/;

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/26/putin-s-wicked-leaks-didn-t-start-with-the-dnc.html;

http://fas.org/irp/world/russia/kgb/su0523.htm;

http://www.statecraft.org.uk/research/russian-active-measures-modernised-tradition

Now Back to the Chaos

Posted by wearepussyriot, October 27, 2016

Posted by WeAreChange, October 27, 2016

Who needs “Active Measures”?

Related (sigh) —

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/08/29/ftac-americas-division-leans-toward-moscow/ – 8/29/2016.

Perhaps most frightening is how Pussy Riot sees Moral America, which is actually pretty good as regards the creation of the civil society that the deeply anti-authoritarian Pussy Riot needs as audience and consumers of its entertainment.  Nonetheless, it too appears to have perceived in Presidential Candidate Donald Trump’s demagoguery similarities with Putin’s now rapidly developing ultra-nationalist politics.

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FTAC – About that Image of Israeli Girls Signing Rockets

27 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philology, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, Russia

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About that picture of Israeli girls signing rockets —

The photograph was taken on July 17, 2006 by AFP photographer Pedro Ugarte or AP photographer Sebastian Scheiner*, who was then covering Israel’s defensive war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

It appears to have been taken up by the Far Left (New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left, has been my trope for a while) in 2012, in which year it was exploited by The Electronic Intifada and others —

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/i-picture-dead-arab-disturbing-video-israeli-childrens-words-echo-indoctrination

http://americantribune.org/?p=14646

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/may082012/israeli-missiles.php (note the anti-Semitic caption — a bald lie — invented for the presentation of the image).

Israel Images may provide the most accurate and blunt caption for the true when-where-and-what: http://www.israelimages.com/see_image_details.php?idi=8814

The image was put to use by “Stop The Wall” on July 20, 2006 and on the next day used in a cynically demonizing “message received” way — with pictures to prove it — by “22dollars” — “Dear Lebanese, Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Christians Kids – Die with love. Yours Truely, (STET) Israeli Kids.”

When The Electronic Intifada had recycled the same image on its site in 2012, the caption had shifted to crediting Pedro Ugarte, possibly a ploy to keep AP and Scheider from noting the later use of the image.

The issue — who took that picture?  — has come up because writer Gal Beckerman, today Editor of The New York Times Book Review, had posted a similarly titled piece about the picture in the Columbia Journalism Review (July 20, 2006): “About Those Photos of Little Girls and Artillery Shells …: Photographs of Israeli children doodling on artillery rockets have inspired strong reactions across the world. But what’s the story behind the photos?”

Gal’s piece says Scheider took the picture.  I believe it.  Those are the captions that appear in 2006.

Related Reference

On Soviet Era “Active Measures”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures;

https://www.spymuseum.org/education-programs/news-books-briefings/background-briefings/active-measures/;

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/26/putin-s-wicked-leaks-didn-t-start-with-the-dnc.html;

http://fas.org/irp/world/russia/kgb/su0523.htm;

http://www.statecraft.org.uk/research/russian-active-measures-modernised-tradition

On the Soviet KGB and the Palestinian Cause

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/03/palestinian-kgb/

 

Also in Media: French Foreign Legion.  ISIS.  Jailbird — “The French Spymaster of ISIS” – The Daily Beast – October 24, 2016

24 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Islamic Small Wars, Political Spychology

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He is not an ethnically European convert to Islam, as one French private intelligence newsletter had it, an assumption apparently based on the lightness of his complexion. Himich is Moroccan, having been born in Rabat in 1989, although it would be more accurate to describe him as a cultural Frenchman, as his kunya, or nom de guerre “Firansi” suggests. He spent the majority of his adolescence and education in Lunel, a southern French town of around 26,000 that has produced as many as two dozen youngish foreign fighters for the Syrian battlefield. Also, he does not appear to have run gyms or fitness centers; instead, he ran drugs. And, typically, before becoming a jihadi, he was a jailbird.

Source: The French Spymaster of ISIS – The Daily Beast – 10/24/2016 – by Michael Weiss.

The ‘War on Terror’ – Not ‘Sacred’ – Practical

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

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Patriarch Kirill urges all countries to unite in sacred war on terrorism

London, October 18, Interfax – The war on terrorism is a sacred war, and must be a common cause of all countries, not just Russia, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia told a press conference at London’s Luton Airport after his visit to the United Kingdom.

“I regret that my words were misread. I never spoke about a sacred war in Syria, I spoke about a sacred war on terrorism. I think very many victims of terrorism in Europe could subscribe to these words. Suffice to recall all that happened comparatively recently in France, in Belgium,” the patriarch said, responding to reporters’ questions about the military operation in Syria.

Who is “running” the terrorists?

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/09/14/isil-groomed-for-a-role-in-assad-vs-the-terrorists/ – 9/14/2016.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/russia-says-hezbollah-hamas-not-terror-groups/ – 11/16/2015

https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/how-russia-manipulates-islamic-terrorism/ – 9/8/2015

Perhaps more important than merely noting the framing applied by Patriarch Kirill to confronting the evidently Moscow-manipulated terrorists —

For good measure:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/23/russia-s-playing-a-double-game-with-islamic-terror0.html – 8/23/2015.

http://www.businessinsider.com/russias-war-on-terror-not-what-it-seems-2015-8 – 8/25/2015.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439060/vladimir-putin-1999-russian-apartment-house-bombings-was-putin-responsible – 8/17/2016.

— may be the promotion of the medieval worldview.

In effect, Kirill suggests to the Russian people and others that they may know nothing and that the conflict is religious as painted by the al-Qaeda types against the “crusader west” or Christianity in general.

What say ye, mainstream, moderate, and modern Muslim?

Or Christian?

Is the modern “Other” too much for co-existence and pervasively so?

If the answer is “No”, then the medieval framing — the “holy war” on terrorism that has been used to depopulate and destroy a fair part of Syria — falls away and what is left looks only archaic, barbaric, and evil.

The real war on “Islamist” and other terrorism may involve the combined law enforcement and research practices that have long been applied in the west to extremist violence: accurate comprehension of terrorist motivation; detection of intent to commit a crime accompanied by investigation; interdiction.

There is nothing “holy” about the business of combating extremism and related criminal activity, but may God bless those who authentically engage in diminishing the threat posed to others by the same.

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Also in Media: From 2012 – “A new Cold War” – by Pacepa 

14 Friday Oct 2016

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In 1972, I had a breakfast with then-KGB chairman Yury Andropov in Moscow. The Kremlin, he told me, had decided to transform Arab anti-Semitism into an anti-American doctrine for the whole Muslim world. The idea was to portray the United States as a war-mongering, Zionist country financed by Jewish money and run by a rapacious “Council of the Elders of Zion” (the KGB’s derisive epithet for the U.S. Congress) intent on transforming the rest of the world into a Jewish fiefdom. Andropov made the point that one billion adversaries could cause far greater damage than could a mere 150 million. Even Muhammad, he said, had not limited his religion to Arab countries.The KGB boss described the Muslim world as a waiting petri dish

Source: A new Cold War  – 9/23/2012.

Ion Mihai Pacepa’s comments are, of course, historical as are the impressions made by the nonfiction works in the “Russian Section” of BackChannel’s in-house library, including the 2013 volume detailing the KGB “framing” of Pope Pius XII: Pacepa, Ion Mihai and Rychlak, Ronald J. Disinformation. Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2013.

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Also in Media – On the Soviet and IRA – 1925! – History Ireland

03 Monday Oct 2016

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The IRA was in contact with Red Army intelligence officers in London and New York, and it was in the former that the monthly stipend was handed over. The IRA’s senior officer in London passed along military intelligence, including specifications of British submarine detection sonar and aeroplane engines for bombers, military journals and manuals, and gas masks. In addition he arranged false passports for Soviet agents and even for a communist operative to travel to Romania in the guise of an Irish woollens salesman! It was in New York, however, that the Soviets got the most valuable information, from an IRA agent code-named ‘Mr Jones’. Jones’s sources likely included serving members of the US military, as he was able to provide reports of the army’s chemical weapons service, state-of-the-art gas masks, machine-gun and aeroplane engine specifications, and reports from the navy, air service and army. In Jones’s estimation, Soviet intelligence in the US would have been ‘helpless’ without the information he supplied.

Source: History Ireland

Palestinian KGB

03 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, Russia

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The document, which the University of Cambridge’s Churchill Archives Centre confirmed was authentic, was smuggled in to the UK by a defector called Vasily Mitrokhin.

It is entitled “KGB developments – Year 1983” and Mr Abbas identifies him by the codename “Krotov” or “mole”.

“‘Krotov’ – Abbas, Mahmoud, born 1935, origin Palestine, member of the executive committee of Fatah, PLO, Damascus, agent of the KGB,” says the brief entry.

BBC News.  “Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ‘was KGB agent'”.  September 8, 2016.

The KGB, when I was still connected with it, went to great lengths to transform an Egyptian born Marxist, Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, nom de guerre Abu Ammar, into a Palestinian-born Yasser Arafat.  It took the KGB — and my DIE — many years to endow Arafat with a credible Palestinian birth certificate and other identity documents, to build him a new past, and to train him at the KGB Balashikha special-operations training school east of Moscow.

Pacepa, Ion Mihai and Rychlak, Ronald J.  Disinformation.  P. 289.  Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2013.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/28/a-short-page-referencing-works-by-or-associated-with-ion-mihai-pacepa/ – 11/28/2016.

For those who may read in Russian, the Wilson Center hosts the Mitrohkin Archive at this address:

http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/52/mitrokhin-archive

How much of the intellectual poison delivered by Soviet-borne misinformation persists today in the Middle East Conflict?

Considering the looks of Syria, the miserable psychology shared between the dictatorships — on this blog, have a glance at the “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation” — and the horrific results, a side by side glance at Hamas behavior in Gaza (x human rights) suggests the same malign narcissistic values continues to course through the governance in both locations.

There may be no longer a need to wonder why.

Reference – Abbas, KGB Coverage

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/17/palestine-s-prez-was-once-a-kgb-mole.html – 9/17/2016.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/08/world/soviet-papers-palestinian-president-was-a-kgb-agent/ – 9/8/2016.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37305953 – 9/8/2016.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/world/middleeast/mahmoud-abbas-israel-palestine-kgb.html – 9/7/2016.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-abbas-idUSKCN11E1U0 – 9/8/2016.

Bergman, Judith.  “The Soviet-Palestinian Lie.”  Gatestone Institute, October 16, 2016: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9090/soviet-union-palestinians 

Reference – Arafat, KGB

Before I defected to America from Romania, leaving my post as chief of Romanian intelligence, I was responsible for giving Arafat about $200,000 in laundered cash every month throughout the 1970s. I also sent two cargo planes to Beirut a week, stuffed with uniforms and supplies. Other Soviet bloc states did much the same. Terrorism has been extremely profitable for Arafat. According to Forbes magazine, he is today the sixth wealthiest among the world’s “kings, queens & despots,” with more than $300 million stashed in Swiss bank accounts.

Pacepa, Ion Mihai.  “The KGB’s Man.”  The Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2003.

A little more than four months before the news this week that tests on Arafat’s body in a Swiss investigation showed “unexpected high activity” of polonium, a book co-authored by former Romanian spy chief Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa was published documenting Arafat’s training by the communist Soviet Union and pointing out that the only other known case of polonium-210 poisoning was the death of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.

WND.  “New Evidence Suggests Kremlin Poisoned Arafat.”  November 7, 2013.

Related

Their report concluded that Arafat’s remains showed levels of polonium 18 times higher than normal.

Arafat’s widow, Suha, has reaffirmed to the BBC her belief that their report proves he was assassinated.

But she said she could not directly accuse anyone, saying that he had many enemies around the world.

BBC. “Arafat polonium findings confirmed by Swiss scientists.”  November 7, 2013.

Al Jazeera Investigative Unit.  “Swiss forensic report on Arafat’s death.” Document, 108-pages.  November 6, 2013.

http://honestreporting.com/plo-still-lying-about-arafats-legacy/ – 8/5/2015.

Yasir Arafat claims that he was born in Jerusalem, but he was actually born in Cairo. He claims to belong to the prominent Jerusalem family of Husseini, but he is at best only distantly related to it. He claims that he turned down a chance to go to the University of Texas, but according to one biographer, the Palestinian-born writer Saïd K. Aburish, it is highly unlikely that he was ever accepted. He claims to have disabled ten Israeli armored personnel carriers in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, but Israel didn’t even have ten APCs in the sector he was in. He claims to have made millions as a businessman in Kuwait, but this, too, is almost certainly untrue.

Obviously, Arafat is a congenital liar. But there’s more to it than that: his lies are all designed to create an aura of romance around himself and the Palestinian people.

Brooks, David.  “A Brief History of Yasir Arafat: The PLO leader is a terrible administrator but a brilliant image crafter.”  The Atlantic, July/August 2002.

Reference – Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat

The history of Palestine–Russia (and between 1917–1991, Palestine–Soviet Union) relations has been long and complex. For a number of historical and political reasons, it has been deeply interwoven with Russian (and between 1917–1991, Soviet) relations with the Zionist-Israeli enterprise, Palestinian nationalism, and Third World national liberation movements in general. However, at the same time, particularly between 1956 and 1990, Soviet-Palestinian relations were also part and parcel of the then ongoing Soviet-American confrontation, and even after the Cold War ended, the international and ideological role and importance of the Russian-Palestinian relationship always far exceeded its local and regional limitations. This relationship has continued even today. Russia remains an important player in the Middle East peace process and is a member of the Middle East Quartet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine%E2%80%93Russia_relations

The leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, established close collaboration with the Romanian Securitate service and the Soviet KGB in the beginning of the 1970s.[9] The secret training of PLO guerrillas was provided by the KGB.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_and_the_Soviet_Union

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_for_the_Liberation_of_Palestine

According to Vasili Mitrokhin, a senior KGB archivist who defected to the UK in 1992, in early 1970 Haddad was recruited by the KGB as an agent, codenamed NATSIONALIST. Thereafter, in deep secrecy the Soviets helped to fund and arm the PFLP. The KGB had warning of its major operations and almost certainly sanctioned the most significant, such as the September 1970 hijackings. Haddad remained a highly valued agent till his death in 1978.

A letter by Yuri Andropov allegedly confirming Haddad’s role as an agent was independently discovered in Soviet archives by Vladimir Bukovsky and has since been published.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadie_Haddad

Reference – Gaza, Iran, Syria

http://armamentresearch.com/assessment-of-the-khaibar-1-rockets-captured-by-the-idf/ – 3/12/2014.

The Khaibar-1 (Arabic: خيبر-1‎‎) is a Syrian-made 302 mm [1] artillery rocket used by Hezbollah against targets in northern Israel. The name of the rocket was first revealed on July 28, 2006 by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a speech on Al-Manar television station.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaibar-1

Related: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/05/world/meast/israel-intercepted-weapons/ – 3/6/2014.

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russia-says-hezbollah-hamas-arent-terrorist-groups-50783 – 11/16/2015.

Web search “Moscow, PFLP” also produces results.

Related

In July, Russia’s Federal Security Service, successor agency to the KGB, released a list of 17 organizations the Russian Supreme Court had identified as “terrorist.” The FSB’s counterterrorism chief described all 17 groups as a threat to the Russian state and noted that almost all were linked in some way to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the 17. Hamas, however, was not listed, though it openly describes itself as the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood and frequently features deceased Brotherhood dignitaries like Hassan al-Banna and Abdullah Azzam alongside Hamas leaders on its posters and pamphlets. The reason for not listing Hamas, the counterterrorism chief explained, was that Hamas was not engaged in violent activity in Russia, nor was it linked to illegal armed groups operating in the North Caucasus. But Hamas supporters do maintain a presence in Russia, and the group does express solidarity with Chechen fighters, including suicide bombers.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/putins-new-friends-moscow-hosts-hamas – 3/19/2007.

http://www.rferl.org/a/soviet-islamist-terrorism-israel-america-disinformation-pacepa/25034290.html – 7/2/2013.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9090/soviet-union-palestinians – 10/16/2016.

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Also in Media: Czech intelligence alarmed by Russian ‘threat’

05 Monday Sep 2016

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“Intelligence officers under diplomatic cover were active also at the embassies of other states; however, the number of Russian intelligence officials was much higher. Unlike intelligence officials of partner states, Russian (and some other) intelligence officers did not declare their status to the BIS”, it added.“Such clandestine behaviour, concealing the affiliation to an intelligence service, clearly signals activities threatening the security and other interests of the Czech Republic”.

Read more at Czech intelligence alarmed by Russian ‘threat’, EUObserver, September 2, 2016.

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