Category Archives: Great Britain and United Kingdom

Russian Power (Back) to the Russian People for Russian Democracy, Development, Humanism, Progress, and Rule of Law

24 Saturday Sep 2022

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Europe, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Great Britain and United Kingdom, North America, Northern Europe, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

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This story posted today on YouTube turns out as much about OSINT detective work from within Russia as about the internal brutality of the politically criminal and thoroughly kleptocratic regime of Tsar Vladimir the Small.

Posted by the BBC to YouTube September 24, 2022.

Tweeted earlier this morning —

While the United States has its own Russian infection with Trump’s own anti-democratic and demagogic and delusional fascist nationalist base, he has yet to turn American national and state military defense and police security services into his own personal goons, Americans on the way to mid-term elections are not waiting for him or his cult to amass that kind of power. Trump represents a diminishing base of corrupt or diminished or greedy Americans who crave his “power” — his appearance of it, in any case — in relation to their own damaged psyches and penchants for absolute and sadistic personal and political control — under cover of Christian zealotry, no less — of all that surrounds themselves.

Also on BackChannels

Page: “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation”.

By date published–

A Note on the Demise of the Medieval Rus, May 9, 2022.

FTAC: Russia’s One Big Step Backward-Why Ukraine Must Prevail to the Four Compass Points of Its Pre-Crimean Annexation, June 5, 2022.

Detecting Post-Soviet Russia’s Black Narrative of Revenge for ’89 and ’91,June 19, 2022.

Addendum

UATV #UATV_English #UkraineNews
Destroyed homes and tortured residents: Consequences of Russian occupation of Kupiansk, September 24, 2022.

###

21 Years to September 11, 2022

11 Sunday Sep 2022

Posted by in 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, Great Britain and United Kingdom, Islamic Small Wars, North America

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Start at the beginning: Felix Dzerzhinsky’s Birthday, September 11, 1877.

Move on to the “End of the Cold War”: December 25, 1991.

Pause for Ayman al-Zawahiri’s “detention” in Russia, winter 1996/7.

And take a moment for that indelible Monday morning 8:45 a.m. horror–>

CBS News. Posted to YouTube August 30, 2011.

What American and the world witnessed 21 years ago was an Islamic terrorist attack on two breathtaking office buildings symbolic of western business and political order. At the time, as one country-western singer-songwriter noted–Alan Jackson – “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)”–an ordinary American couldn’t tell the difference between Iraq and Iran.

Perhaps that absence of American and more generalized global political sophistication has changed.

As flesh swells where stung, BackChannels views the September 11 attack on America’s homeland as the installation of the “New Nationalism” to come to the United States and infect several other EU/NATO states–Hungary, Italy, Poland, Turkey–with reversions to dalliance and inroads by authoritarian power.

While the world’s more modern and western institutions for security focused on the “War on Terror”, another decade would deliver another message in Moscow’s inimical back alley manner in absolute thuggish power as an alley declared war on the humanity of his own constituency: on BackChannels, “Syria: The Horror: 2011”. The Syrian Civil War would in disperse millions of refugees into other states in the Middle East (Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt) and into NATO member Turkey (3.6 million) and into Europe (more than 1 million) according to World Vision.

Add yet one more decade to spring 2021 and the winter of 2021/2, for Russia’s positioning for its invasion of Ukraine, which was then initiated on February 24, 2022 (this leaving out Russia’s annexation of Crimea from February to March 2014 in the wake of the Ukraine’s Euromaidan and concomitant Revolution of Dignity

While the public generally views “9/11” as a singular act of Islamic ne “Islamist” terror against the pillars of the western (and majority-Christian) order, it appears in retrospect as a challenge on the part of the still politically absolute medieval world against the more compassionate, humanist, and ordered modern open democracies and their profoundly liberal ends. In fact, the attack appears to fit with a greater and more pernicious narrative arc as Russia was to support the Taliban with arms and materiel through to their taking Kabul in an American retreat first agreed to by former President Trump, a most (allegedly) criminal, devious, disgraceful, and traitorous American President (well, to judge by the latest breaking news).

This September 11 anniversary differs quite from Moscow’s authoritarian and criminal vision for the world.

CNN, September 11, 2022.
Posted by IphyAstrid–and the video’s in Indonesian, I think, as well as some English–September 11, 2022.
Posted by RobFuz, September 10, 2022.

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FTAC: On NATO’s Avoidance of Potential Nuclear Exchange Involving Russia’s Emperor Putin

10 Thursday Mar 2022

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Great Britain and United Kingdom, North America, Political Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

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The West had perhaps thought the Cold War over on December 25, 1991 with the announcement at noon of the Soviet Union’s dissolving itself in bankruptcy, but here with are with a post-Soviet KGB/FSB President Putin in power who while demonstrating his idea of logical reasoning repeatedly proves himself barbaric, inhuman, and irrational and only best in his expression of unhelpful and wholly destructive madness. He appears to have no insight as regards his own malign and narcissistic disorder, but his army knows it, his generals see it, his inner circle suffer for it and none appear able to stop him.

It would appear that KGB Lt. Colonel President Emperor Tsar Putin has given himself the power to destroy Russia pretty much on his own through the employ of those he has managed to suborn to himself and who now appear to tremble before him.

For Ukrainians, who are but the latest to catch Tsar Putin’s cross-hairs, the question comes up as to why EU/NATO so far refuses Ukraine offensive weapons sufficient for controlling its air space. The Atlantic Council circulated a germane answer in the form of a survey of experts and simple chi-square chart, and this morning when both plea and question came up on Facebook, I felt bound to respond.

From the Awesome Conversation

In what follows, I’ve added URLs where they would be otherwise absent in plain text.

Out of laziness, perhaps, I’ve chosen to plant surprises, helpful ones, in the URLs and forego the creating of standard reference (a “Related Online” section has been otherwise a BackChannels desktop publishing tradition).

Here’s the thinking regarding NATO’s official avoidance of war with Russia beneath the black cloud of Mutually Assured Destructed attached to any exchange of nuclear weapons and related and possibly out of control (worse: computer-controlled, according to Putin) escalation.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/the-big-story/what-are-the-risks-and-benefits-of-us-nato-military-options-in-ukraine-our-strategic-risk-calculator-has-answers/

Note: Russia boasts two related threat assets: 2000 “tactical nuclear weapons” and fast-and-crooked (rather like Russia’s leadership itself) “hypersonic missiles“. Both may be easily looked up online.

Where the United States has forsworn first use of a nuclear device, Russia’s mafia-style doctrine has gambled on a smaller is larger option–and it is because the world has this smaller-leverages-larger nutcase getting everything he wants predicated on his demonstrations of ability to launch wars by proxy, his show of barbarism, especially in Syria (now Ukraine, and who’s next?), his support for “frozen conflicts” and terrorist organizations, and his employment of methods of political blackmail and compromise (look up Jeffrey Epstein’s visit to Moscow) and intimidation, he presents before all the challenge of shutting down what he would regard as his life’s work, piece of ____t that he is.

The first steps have been to erode his financing, hit his backers, and get Mother Russia — i.e., someone more authentically representing her — to take care of him.

The medieval world hates the modern–and His Malignance hates what he cannot absolutely control and plunder.

Update: An Argument for Increased Ukrainian Surface-to-Air Defenses

Rogoway, Tyler and Thomas Newdick. “Ukraine Needs Ground-Based Air Defenses Way More Than MiGs. Here Are the Best Options.” The Warzone, The Drive, March 10, 2022.

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Putin the Pirate

24 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by in 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, Great Britain and United Kingdom, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Ukraine, United States of America

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Well, he stole Robert Kraft’s Sacred Superbowl Ring, so what wouldn’t he steal?

Kraft’s ring now appears on display in the Kremlin’s library, quite a trophy brought home to Moscow by Russia’s Boss of Bosses.

From CNN:

The 4.94-carat ring is in the Kremlin’s library, where all official state gifts are kept, he said. It is worth more than $25,000, according to multiple reports from 2005.

A Kraft spokesman said Sunday the story is a humorous anecdote that Kraft “retells for laughs.”

“He loves that the ring is at the Kremlin and, as he stated back in 2005, he continues to have great respect for Russia and the leadership of President Putin,” said Stacey James, a spokesman for The Kraft Group.

Eshchenko, Alla and Faith Karimi. “Russian president: I did not steal Super Bowl ring.” CNN, June 17, 2013.

No. Putin didn’t steal it. It was a gift!

🙄

***

Will Ukraine be a gift too?

***

Putin the Pirate has done a few things under the table upside-down and sideways over decades to weaken western political coherence, cohesion, and resolve. Start with the KGB’s handling of Zawahiri over the winter of 1996/7. In connect-the-dots fashion, I believe that stay led to the attack by jet hijacking Islamists on 9/11 that in turn goosed the pride of western states in their Christian and independent political cultures and led to what has been referred to as the “New Nationalism”.

When bees sting and flesh swells, the response has not been called “proud flesh” for nothing.

The popular western response in enmity and fear regarding Islam has not been misplaced in relation to Islamic Extremism and related Islamist Terror, but the same has given rise to blood-and-soil nationalism, authoritarianism, and actual autocracy in some EU/NATO states. Hungary, Italy, Poland, Turkey, and the United States (one nation under Trump for a while) have each seen their open democracies challenged by demagoguery or political perversion.

We may also take note of the “01s” in dates: 1991-dissolve of the Soviet Union in bankruptcy following American intercession opposite the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (from which Russia was forced to retreat in 1989); 2001-the September 11 attacks took place on Felix Dzerzhinsky’s birthday, quite a gift for a Moscow bent on revenge for its losses in Afghanistan-and, no, Putin didn’t do it–it was obviously radical Muslims assembled and deployed by Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama Bin Laden; 2011-The Horror taking off in Syria that would send millions of refugees into NATO (Turkey, which today hosts about 3.68 million Syrian refugees), the European Union (0.7 million-Germany), and Scandinavia (0.3 million), another goad for the defense of the rightly ethnolinguistic state cultures settled and enjoying the benefits of, well, being themselves, the only problem being a concomitant drift toward the same feudal-medieval worldviews and fascination with authority held by Bashar al-Assad, Ali Khamenei, and Vladimir Putin; 2021-Russia’s repeated threats by military feint against Ukraine, a young democratic state seeking NATO accession, and, by extension, NATO itself, but not quite as Ukraine remains without accession.

So hey, Bob (Kraft), George and George, Jr. (Bush), where are you today with Putin (the thief)?

***

Where and when are dictatorships to be stopped?

Is it when one or another has engaged in political repression and breathtaking plunder at home?

Should it be when the security service agents and agent provocateur show up within the borders of one’s democratic state?

Should it be when the tanks roll into a neighboring state struggling for its own sovereignty against barbaric force and the possibility of a return to corrupt, kleptocratic, and tyrannical governance?

Reference

Amante, Angelo and Crispian Balmer. “Analysis: Italy’s Salvini struggles as rightist ally grows stronger.” Reuters, May 10, 2021.

Bertrand, Natasha and Devan Cole. “Blinken says ‘a single additional Russian force’ entering Ukraine would trigger US response.” CNN, January 23, 2022.

Christophersen, Erik. “These 10 countries receive the most refugees.” Norwegian Refugee Council.

Cummings, William. “‘I am a nationalist’: Trump’s embrace of controversial label sparks uproar.” USA Today, October 24, 2018.

Duffin, Erin. “Nationalism in the U.S. – Statistics & Facts.” Statista, March 11, 2021.

Ellyatt, Holly. “If war is coming, the West must decide how far it will go to defend Ukraine against Russia.” CNBC, January 24, 2022.

Fearnow, Benjamin. “Donald Trump Urges Americans to Bring ‘Nationalism’ Back Into the Mainstream.” Newsweek, November 19, 2019.

Gross, Terry. “Manafort’s Guilty Plea Details His Entanglement with Russian-Backed Oligarchs.” NPR, September 19, 2018.

Harding, Luke. “Former Trump aide approved ‘black ops’ to help Ukraine president.” The Guardian, April 5, 2018.

Hemon, Aleksandar. “Trump’s Nationalism Advances on a Predictable Trajectory to Violence. His Supporters Will Kill When They’re Told To.” The Intercept, May 2, 2020.

Kajta, Justyna. “From street to state: How radical nationalists gained power in Poland.” Open Democracy, April 1, 2021.

Musharbash, Yassin. “The Globalization of Far-Right Extremism: An Investigative Report.” CTC Sentinel, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, 14:6, July/August 2021.

Oppenheim, James S. “Syria: The Horror: 2011.” BackChannels, December 29, 2017.

Oppenheim, James S. “Trump’s America in Retrospect: Russian Real Estate Entanglements.” BackChannels, October 9, 2021.

Oppenheim, James S. “Ukraine: A Reminder.” BackChannels, December 7, 2021.

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

Schindler, John. “Exploring Al Qaeda’s Murky Connection to Russian Intelligence.” Business Insider, June 10, 2014.

Schuster, Simon. “How Paul Manafort Helped Elect Russia’s Man in Ukraine.” Time, October 31, 2017.

Smith, Deyscha. “New details shed light on the Robert Kraft-Vladimir Putin Super Bowl ring controversy.” Boston, September 10, 2020.

Statista. “Ranking of the largest Syria refugee-hosting countries in 2020”.

Stewart, Katherine. “Christian Nationalism Is One of Trump’s Most Powerful Weapons.” The New York Times, January 6, 2022.

The New York Times. “Gerald L. K. Smith Dead; Anti-Communist Crusader.” April 16, 1976.

Troaianovski, Anton and David E. Sanger. “Russia Issues Subtle Threats More Far-Reaching Than a Ukraine Invasion.” The New York Times, January 16, 2022.

Turner, Lauren. “Ukraine: Boris Johnson warns Russian invasion would be disastrous.” BBC, January 24, 2022.

UNHCR. “Syria Refugee Crisis–Globally, in Europe and in Cyprus.” March 18, 2021.

VOA. “Russia Threatens to Deploy Tactical Nuclear Weapons.” December 14, 2021.

Wikipedia. “America First Party (1943)”.

Wikipedia. “Ayman al-Zawahiri”.

Wikipedia. “Felix Dzerzhinsky”.

Wikipedia. “Gerald L. K. Smith”.

Wikipedia. “Osama bin Laden”.

Wikipedia. “Putin’s Kleptocracy”.

Wikipedia. “Russo-Ukrainian War”.

Posted to YouTube by WGN News, January 24, 2022.

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For the Defense of British Dignity, Justice, Freedom

08 Wednesday Dec 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Great Britain and United Kingdom, Political Spychology, Ukraine

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Published December 7, 2021.

Quadratics:

1) three-way “superpower” hypersonic missile race between China (Totalitarian), Russia (Autocratic Mafia State), and the United States (Democracy in Disarray);

2) serious East-West Rivalry for global influence and control of other states, whether criminal, elitist, and thuggish or rooted in democratically distributed power and reliably humanist, lawful, open, and secular;

3) Ukraine invaded and now threatened again by blunt Russian force and related brutish and corrupt business and political practices;

4) A test of the strength of the the West’s civilizational commitment to democratic, egalitarian, secular ethics, principles, and values against corruption and dictatorship, whether communist, fascist, nationalist, or socialist.

The post-WWII order has been weakened by decades of nefarious effort on Moscow’s part to destabilize EU/NATO with every disingenuous and, frankly, evil method at its disposal, Active Measures (agitprop; cyberwarfare; disinformation; infiltrations of spies online and off; etc.) and broadest spectrum Hybrid Warfare (starting with False Flag Operations and Little Green Men) but moving also to dominance in Energy and political leverage through it, control of a North Pole air base and related potential threat projection. Moscow’s presence in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America and its innumerable “Frozen Conflicts” plus its relations with Iran and Syria and terrorist enterprises (see “Mikhail Bogdanov, Hamas” or “Russian arms, Taliban”) tell of the kind of world Moscow runs already and would love to sustain with Western complicity.

Well, score one for the British breakthrough and deployment in the Hypersonic Missile arena — and for Great Britain’s possession of a still strong spine.

“The U.K. is very clear: any military incursion by Russia into Ukraine would be a strategic mistake,” she said. “The Russian government should expect significant strategic consequences. The cost of an invasion would be catastrophically high.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson last night held a video call with U.S. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi as Western fears grow.

The videoconference sought to present a “united front” among NATO leaders before Biden holds a call with Putin later Tuesday in which he will warn him against starting another war in Eastern Europe.

Gallardo, Cristina. “UK to Russia: Invading Ukraine would have ‘catastrophically high’ consequences.” Politico, December 7, 2021.

AP. “Russian Navy test-fires hypersonic missile in the White Sea.” Defense News. November 29, 2021.

“British Army’s Royal Artillery receives Sky Sabre air defence system.” Army Technology, December 7, 2021.

Gramer, Robbie and Jack Detsch. “Russia Goes Hypersonic: The Russian navy is getting hypersonic missiles in 2022 in a bid to outpace Washington in the next missile race.” Foreign Policy, November 4, 2021.

Madhani, Aamer and Dasha Litvinova. “Biden, Putin square off as tension grows on Ukraine border.” AP, December 8, 2021.

Wikipedia. “3M22 Zircon”.

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FTAC: Obama, State Secrets, Public Apprehension, and BREXIT

21 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Great Britain and United Kingdom, Journalism, Middle East, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Syria, United States of America

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Inspiration: Josh Meyer’s “The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook” (Politico, circa January 2018) and the idea that using the article as mud pie material for the Obama Administration may be invalidated by the lifespan and volume of state secrets migrating across Administrations. This was the question: “Reporting how Obama shut down a Major Hizbullah investigation is ‘slinging mud’?”

Because . . . state secrets span Administrations.

” . . . requires a public that can access, understand, and use the information . . . ” https://www.nfoic.org/transparency-obama-administration —

The problem is with “understand“.

In the way of professional journalism, much condensed and simplified, every editor and reporter must ask about his story: “Is it clear? Is it accurate? Is it complete?”

All authoritarian / autocratic / dictatorial governments diminish the power of the press because . . . they are keeping secrets and intend not to share the reality of their political space with their subjugated populations.

How honest, for example, can Maduro be with Venezuelans when he is operating a criminal state?

He can’t share anything having to do with his circles of criminal enterprise. Instead, he has to tell the people fairy tales in a loud voice.

However, and in defense of secrets keeping and to criticize popular democratic self-determination — or perhaps point out the limits of the same — the British governing class got a strong lesson when it allowed nationalist forces, induced by Moscow-backed Islamic Terrorism and Migration — I “read” Syria as a deliberate underhanded assault on Europe — to make an issue of integration with the European Union, which has been Great Britain’s nearest and greater market and trading partner. Some part of the voting public had had no idea about where its state really was. Instead, they were focused on the degrading of British life by jihadists and needy migrants coming out of the middle east. They chose to lower the portcullis in an attempt to insulate themselves from what they believed was happening in Europe and happening to them because of a unified Europe. They’re now on the cusp of paying for their misjudgment.

Related: Graff, Garrett M. “The Government Secrets Trump Is About to Discover.” Politico, January/February 2017.

# # #

Syrian Protesting Chemical Attacks, Lauding Trump’s Countermeasure, Shouted Down – Links to Soviet Era Antecedents

09 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Great Britain and United Kingdom, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Syria

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Greater awareness of the Soviet Era history of the Far Left may help make greater sense of Hassan Akkad’s recent experience.

In relation to yesteryear:

According to Stanislav Lunev, GRU alone spent more than $1 billion for the peace movements against the Vietnam War, which was a “hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost”.[3] Lunev claimed that “the GRU and the KGB helped to fund just about every antiwar movement and organization in America and abroad”.[3]

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

Lunev, Stanislav and Ira Winkler. Through the Eyes of the Enemy: Russia’s highest ranking military defector reveals why Russia is more dangerous than ever. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1998.

In relation to now:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/

Perhaps Great Britain’s version of America’s New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left should wish to recover the memory of it’s being played by Moscow.

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

Vladimir Putin’s fascist nationalist revanche — that thing once again anchored by secret police, the adulation of a Great Leader, and the reappearance of deeply patronized (and compromised) aristocracy — appears to have proven George Orwell as relevant today as back when.

Have another look at the silencing of the one lone protester for Syrian lives at the British “Stop the War UK” event:

After a video of the encounter video was shared widely online, Mr Akkad told the BBC: “I didn’t see them protesting against the chemical attacks, I didn’t see them protesting against Putin bombing Syria for the last two years.

“I wanted to go to that protest and I wanted to observe.

“I went to the protest and I saw a group of 30 people with placards, not a single mention of Assad.

“All the placards are against Donald Trump and they’re repeating baseless slogans with their megaphones.”

Fisher, Megan.  “Syrian refugee ‘felt oppressed’ by Stop the War protest.”  BBC, April 9, 2017.

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Trump vs Steele – An Emerging Credibility Gap

14 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Great Britain and United Kingdom, Journalism, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics

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Fusion GPS had been hired by Republican opponents of Mr Trump in September 2015. In June 2016 Mr Steele came on the team. He was, and continues to be, highly regarded in the intelligence world. In July, Mr Trump won the Republican nomination and the Democrats became new employers of Mr Steele and Fusion GPS.

In the same month Mr Steele produced a memo, which went to the FBI, stating that Mr Trump’s campaign team had agreed to a Russian request to dilute attention on Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine. Four days later Mr Trump stated that he would recognise Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. A month later officials involved in his campaign asked the Republican party’s election platform to remove a pledge for military assistance to the Ukrainian government against separatist rebels in the east of the country.

Sengupta, Kim.  “Former MI6 agent Christopher Steele’s frustration as FBI sat on Donald Trump Russia file for months.”  Independent, January 14, 2016.

This scandal that has come out of the shadows — by way of the findings of the former MI6 agent Christopher Steele as a consultant of highest repute; by way of the associated imprimatur of the highly experienced and respected former British ambassador Sir Andrew Wood — may not be returned to them.

The story appears to be taking off, a BackChannels’ opinion based on so many options for searching up the “Trump Kompromat” story.

The political mobs, among other interests, seldom appreciate hearing how they have been snookered, but they may have to hear as much as more comes to light.

As well acknowledged by the press, American President Elect Trump has moved to dismiss Steele’s report as fiction concocted by his political enemies, first within the Republican Party, and after his nomination, then in the Democratic Party that picked up on the availability of the consulting firm Fusion GPS (URL references Daily Mail, January 13, 2017).

Be that as it may, British MI6 — in fiction and film, James Bond’s outfit — has, as may America’s CIA, the deepest imaginable investment in producing for the state’s highest and most information privileged officials, clear, accurate, and complete intelligence in service to the state’s defense and interests.  The highest integrity — and loyalty — may be expected of such agents.  It is against that tradition that Trump throws chafe.

Trump and others may have been better off citing Moscow’s KGB history of “Active Measures” and “Disinformation” as a potential cause for Steele’s findings, i.e, Steele had been “played” by Moscow.  That  would have taken the story into the parallel universe of espionage and just as well — at the some future date — into the theaters.

This day may be too late for merely dumping Steele’s outrageous claims — ah, but Steele has behind him a terrific reputation for integrity — on Moscow’s prowess at playing “Spy vs Spy”.

President Elect Trump may be counted on to play “Trust me” with his developing authority as an American president, but there’s an old guard too of Federal government employees and an American Press — the “Fourth Estate” — known for its extraordinary tenacity when challenged by an especially curious political scandal and mystery.

Reference

The response to the information from the FBI, he recalled, was “shock and horror.” After a few weeks, the bureau asked him for information on his sources and their reliability and on how he had obtained his reports. He was also asked to continue to send copies of his subsequent reports to the bureau. These reports were not written, he noted, as finished work products; they were updates on what he was learning from his various sources. But he said, “My track record as a professional is second to no one.”

Corn, David. “The Spy Who Wrote the Trump-Russia Memos: “Hair-Raising” Stuff.”  Mother Jones, January 13, 2017.

Goodman, Alana.  “Meet the espionage firm which ordered Trump ‘dirty dossier’ – a secretive D.C. firm which has aided Planned Parenthood and attacked Mitt Romney’s friends.”  Daily Mail UK, January 13, 2017.

After he left the spy service, Steele supplied the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation with information on corruption at FIFA, international soccer’s governing body.

It was his work on corruption in international soccer that lent credence to his reporting on Trump’s entanglements in Russia, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

Hosenball, Mark.  “Former MI6 spy known to U.S. agencies is author of reports on Trump in Russia.”  Reuters, January 12, 2017.

Hughes, Laura.  “Former British ambassador to Russia warned US of Donald Trump ‘dirty dossier’.”  The Telegraph, January 13, 2016.

To some, the dossier’s errors and far-out claims stand in stark contrast to Steele’s usual approach to intelligence-gathering. West noted that only one intelligence officer was listed as a direct source.

“Nobody is saying he believes in any of this,” West said. “What he was hired to do was write a series of reports based on info he could glean from his contacts. His contacts are very good but they’re more in the business community than the intel community.”

Neubert, Michele, Ken Dilanian, Cassandra Vinograd, and Tracy Connor.  “Christopher Steele, Trump Dossier Author, Is a Real-Life James Bond.”  NBC News, January 13, 2017.

The talk comes from writer Nigel West, the nom de pen of Rupert Allason, whose Wikipedia entry notes the following:

In 2001 Allason sued Random House, the publishers of The Enigma Spy, the autobiography of the former Soviet agent John Cairncross. Allason claimed he had ghostwritten The Enigma Spy in return for the copyright and 50 per cent of the proceeds. However, Allason lost the case and was ordered to pay costs of around £200,000. In passing judgment the trial judge said that Allason was “a profoundly dishonest man” and “one of the most dishonest witnesses I have ever seen”.[9][10][11] In September 2005, Allason was threatened with prison for contempt of court in relation to paying the damages from the 2001 case.[12][13][14]

Sigh.

In an alarming Twitter post, the Russian embassy in London suggested Steele was still working for MI6 and ‘briefing both ways’ against Mr Trump and Moscow.
A Russian embassy spokesman said the tweet – which said ‘MI6 officers are never ex’ – ‘reflected the mood in Russia’.

Robinson, Martin.  “‘I don’t think he made it up… but he doesn’t always draw the correct judgement’: Ex-UK Moscow ambassador admits he was middle man who tipped off John McCain to Trump ‘dirty dossier’.”  Daily Mail, January 12, 2017.

Sengupta, Kim.  “Former MI6 agent Christopher Steele’s frustration as FBI sat on Donald Trump Russia file for months.”  Independent, January 14, 2016.

Townsend, Mark and David Smith.  “Senior British politicians ‘targeted by Kremlin’ for smear campaigns.”  The Guardian, January 14, 2017.

BackChannels Thematic Update

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/01/17/address-christopher-steeles-2016-report-involving-president-elect-donald-j-trump/

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