Tag Archives: Trump

FTAC – Syria and the Checking of Feudal Political Absolutism

07 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology

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Leave the Left (and Far Right) alone!

Post-Soviet “Active Measures” and related infiltration into EU / NATO intellectual assets may account for the promotion of polarized “Brown v Red-Green” politics.

The post-Cold War narrative arc spans American Administrations, but the general public (I’ve become accidentally a little bit specialized) tends to see the moment, i.e., a span of months to years, when it should be seeing decades of process in removing the holdovers from the Soviet Era.  For good reasons, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi are gone, but it’s at Assad’s Syria, the gateway to Iran in the old politics coming apart, that Putin visibly returned to the old KGB walk and the reinforcement of old relationships. As no one in the west has wanted another “cold war” or a strong “Moscow” on the tracks that it’s on, the purchase of time combined with sanctions and deflated oil pricing has substantially weakened the Moscow-Damascus-Tehran (more truly, “Moscow-Tehran” axis).

Now: enter Trump.

Just so it’s known: Moscow’s cash reserves have been deeply drawn down not only by years of reduced oil revenues and political sanctions but by the regime’s own abuse of the nascent Russian business system and the flight of capital from it. Most of what isn’t at hand has been parked in the western (rule-of-law) banking system or similarly stable high-value assets (most obviously real estate), and that may add to the discouragement of Moscow’s propensity for armed aggression. However, Putin is a bit of a wildcard as regards his own behavior, and he knows that when faced with a nuclear gambit, the United States will stand firm but elide the issue, returning that aspect of war to equilibrium.

For the Cold War days, moving “Jupiter rockets” sufficed to fully resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis. http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/moment.htm

In this day, NATO may have forward dual use conventional-nuclear warheads, giving paranoid Moscow perhaps some legitimate fits as regards its own state of risk. Here is the kind of article one runs into when encountering the nuclear arms control field:

http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/02/07/progress_on_strategic_arms_control_110760.html

To stay (in the old sense of that word) the course toward nuclear exchange, diplomacy and indirect confrontation have held off the contemplation of direct conflict engagement between Russian and NATO and western forces, but as history tells time and again with despots, that kind of leadership busts through its own boundaries, internal, psychological, external, political until firmly checked.

I think what you’re going to see in Syria will be the “checking” of Moscow’s revanchist (Soviet-style) ambitions and encouragement for it to engage the west in a once again responsible fashion.

It may help to keep in mind, whatever conclusions may be drawn here, that Russia has its own robust internal politics now forming up some challenge to the regime even though the regime holds the strong hand in its expression of absolute power.

The Obama Administration for both political and practical purposes put off confrontation in the field with the “phantoms of the Soviet” most likely to buy time, encourage change, and both financially and politically weaken the regimes that require politics in the feudal mode to sustain their own kleptocracies (“Different Talks — Same Walk!” is the BackChannels trope for how those relationships hold together).

Arguments about the legitimacy of political power are arguments about the future:

“What is to be done?”

“How are we to live?”

“Moscow”, the metonym for the Russian State as devised and held together by President Putin, knows how to make itself look good in superficial ways, but its less remarked positions have not been so wonderful.

Web search “Russia, Economy” brought up these three news pieces a few minutes ago:

http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/07/news/economy/russia-us-syria-economy-sanctions/

http://rbth.com/business/2017/04/05/poll-the-economy-is-now-more-important-to-russians-than-crimea_735282

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/feb/21/anthony-tata/how-have-sanctions-impacted-russias-economy/

Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/08/12/also-in-media-an-economy-that-did-not-want-to-grow-the-russia-file-kennan-institute-blog/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/16/russias-nuclear-scarum/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/09/09/russias-pr-cocktail-new-nationalism-meets-falling-reserves-with-religion/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/08/21/russia-flexes-and-goes-hungry/

Related Opinion

http://www.russia-direct.org/opinion/why-does-russia-continue-protect-assad-syria 4/20/2016

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Private Domain: USA: A Note on “Proprietary Government”

21 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Journalism

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Read as I do.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was poised to ride this momentum into Northeast Asia last week, but instead sustained a series of self-inflicted wounds. Before even departing Washington, he broke tradition by not inviting the State Department press corps on his plane, needlessly damaging relations with the media and forgoing the opportunity to better explain the contours of his mission. (“I’m not a big media press access person,” he said later, as if the only purpose of talking to reporters would be to serve his own agenda. “I personally don’t need it.”)

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/tillerson-bumbles-around-asia-214936 – 3/20/2017

It appears President Trump’s Administration wishes to be seen as imperious as well.

Within the past month, it has managed to slight the most impartial BBC and others by excluding the targeted similar in bona fides from an informal “press gaggle” before moving on to the direct insult that is the cry of “Fake News!”, that insults the reading and broadly discerning public.

As all against Bashar al-Assad are in Assad’s estimation “The Terrorists”, it appears that all news not fitting President Trump’s image or ends becomes “Fake News!”.  From being held to standards over the scale of the inauguration turnout (which news turned up wildly varying estimates — to Trump it looked like 1.5 million; by the estimates of authorities, fewer than a million were expected — without any official observation and measurement available to settle the score) to “kompromat” and the Christopher Steele dossier; Manafort-Yanukovych–Millian–Kilimnick; and the FBI’s investigation of the 2016 election hack and potential related relationships, all would seem to fit the “Fake News!” concept or serve (“the whole Russian thing”) as a ruse (but for what and for whom)?

“People knew that he represented various countries, but I don’t think he represented Russia, but represented various countries,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference in February. “That’s what he does. People know that. That’s Mr. Manafort, by the way, a respected man, a respected man, but I think he represented the Ukraine or Ukraine government or somebody, but everybody knew that.”

BackChannels thought the comment obfuscating and vague, the verbal equivalent of a bully’s shrug (“I don’t know nothin’ about it; I didn’t do nothin'”).

Here’s the source of the quotation:

And here is a little bit more about the very respected Paul Manafort:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/paul_manafort_isn_t_a_gop_retread_he_s_made_a_career_of_reinventing_tyrants.html – 4/28/2016.

If you click on the link — or either of the links in this section — you may soon know more about Paul Manafort than the dissembling President of the United States a) either knows or b) cares to share with the public.

Here’s a potential positive spin: could Manafort have been urging his clients away from “political absolutism” and toward the graces of the modern democratic and rule-of-law world?

Anything’s possible — but how would the public know with the curtain drawn closed with mumbles?

Let’s move on to something thornier.

In its apprehension of geography and history, where is America’s voting public?

How ignorant a people are we?

How well informed?

Should the public know so many of the details of deals — like “Uranium One”, which took years to form during a period in which Moscow and Washington appeared to be at peace and not running headlong into a Cold War sequal — and policies that well  may not be so much a part of its daily cultural (and intellectual) experience?

Or is the public sufficiently active and informed in all of the dimensions of public interest and well deserving of engagement with its Administration by way of responsible 24/7 press coverage?

If the ignorance proves vast, well then perhaps Americans deserve the development of a “privatized government” in the hands of “people who know best” and who need not be forthcoming as regards their goals, ideas, strategies, or tactics.

In fact, is there anything wrong with the idea of a paternal government packed with powerful actors — CEOs and generals — that within its own ranks chooses to operate with autonomy behind a curtain of increasing silence?

The question is trick: ask Orwell — there’s a lot wrong with the notion of government left to unchecked elites, and it’s that thought prompted the title of this post (and as generally true around here, a title a little larger than the content intended to support it).  Sigh.

Back to Tillerson’s comment at the top of the post — here’s another tack and one especially appropriate to relations between Moscow and Washington, both nerve centers attached to the prospect of nuclear war: perhaps for Tillerson and others, private no-access space is of necessity for national security as well as consideration and quiet.  After all, the press appears welcome to hound officials at their destinations.  Getting cozy, getting the scoop, getting the inside skinny in flight — do the “journos” or public need that unknown moment so badly?

Give it break, guys and gals, and let the real “Fake News!” people, the writers of fiction, have their turn.

Journalism affords practitioners flexibility in methods of attribution.  The most general options involving acquisition or interview for information are these:

  • On the record (for dissemination) / off the record (for background only)
  • For attribution (use the name) / not with attribution (use “official” or “spokesman”)

For a sophisticated businessman to complain that that a news item lacked a named source would seem not only disingenuous but contemptuous of the audience as well.

Posted to YouTube February 24, 2017.

A similar clip appeared in Real Clear Politics —  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/02/24/president_trump_fake_news_media_making_up_anonymous_wh_sources.html – on February 24 and readers will find there a transcript of much of the above address.

Another suggested BackChannels question: who is — who was — “they”?

And when will we know that “they” have cleaned up their respective acts?

BackChannels readers may keep in mind that the editor interprets America’s political polarization with the model “Brown v Red-Green” and with that division between Republican “New Nationalists” and Democratic “Old Comrades and Neo-Islamists”, the use of so much polemic would seem of equal opportunity.

Most likely, elements in the press would have dogged Clinton too, and she would have bit back.

It so happens, the “New Nationalist” won, and what he’s doing in the above video is not slamming lowly bloggers cutting and pasting cyberspace junk from  remote shores but calling out CNN and similar others and thereby degrading confidence in the reporting and opining of the strongest part of the Fourth Estate.

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Also in Media: “The Refugee as Cassandra in the Shining City” – Medium — February 20 2017

24 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, American Domestic Affairs, Political Psychology, Politics

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Indeed, recent events — from the Trump election to the Brexit referendum — have shown liberal democratic regimes and their citizens to be remarkably incapable of confronting extremist currents within their own midst. The consequences of normalizing reactionary movements are understandably hazy in societies where genuine chaos and strife are subjects for science fiction and historical drama. By comparison, the voice of the refugee may sound shrill but it is the voice of Cassandra, come to warn the citizens of the shining city.

Source: The Refugee as Cassandra in the Shining City – Medium

–33–

FTAC – On the Taming of the Wild Press

17 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation

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Unlike Sputnik, which serves Moscow, the American press is free and not in the flattery business.

Many journalists who achieve a decent wage from a major newspaper have done so on their investigative doggedness and straightness.

American presidents both craft but also inadvertently create their own image – and thinking Americans (aye, there’s the rub) don’t rely on just one news presentation or “cut” on an important story to produced in their own minds at least a seemingly reliable image of a state of affairs.

In government, of course, the stakes rise and the accuracy of intelligence becomes even more critical to power.

In Moscow: for President Putin, the world is – or is made – as he wishes to see it, and he himself is seen as he would have the public know him. There the press has been intimidated, steered, and trained, and from time to time “disciplined” by murder.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/05/ten-years-putin-press-kremlin-grip-russia-media-tightens

Elementary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/russia (2015)
http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/06/28/putin-now-seeking-to-intimidate-journalists-into-not-covering-his-opponents/ – 6/28/2016
http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/06/20/putin-rebuilding-the-iron-curtain-in-his-typical-hybrid-fashion/ – 6/20/2015
http://www.gq.com/story/journalism-in-vladimir-putins-russia – 1/13/2017

“The situation in Khimki is not normal; this is a kind of military dictatorship,” says Yevgeniya Chirikova, a member of In Defense of Khimki Forest, a local environmental group. “Journalists and public figures are constantly being threatened. It’s as if our local authorities cannot accept any different way of thinking.”

Over the past year there has been a series of violent attacks on independent journalists here, culminating in the controversial death in late March of newspaper designer Sergei Protazanov, who had been preparing an issue of the oppositionist Grazhdanskoye Soglasiye devoted to electoral fraud in Khimki’s March 1 mayoral contest. That election was won by the candidate of the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party.

Weir, Fred.  “Russian Journalists Face Violence, Intimidation.”  The Christian Science Monitor, April 28, 2009.

Addendum

When asked by journalists of contacts between his presidential campaign and Russian operatives, he deflected the questions and put the focus instead on what he described as “illegal” government leaks and “dishonest” media coverage.

“The press is out of control,” he said. “The level of dishonesty is out of control,”

After weeks of disclosures in newspapers over turmoil in his administration, he told one reporter to “sit down” for a rambling question.

“Tomorrow, they will say: ‘Donald Trump rants and raves at the press,'” Trump said. “I’m not ranting and raving. I’m just telling you. You know, you’re dishonest people . . . .”

Holland, Steve.  “‘I’m not ranting and raving.’  Trump on defensive in first solo news conference.”  Reuters, February 17, 2017.

In a Twitter rant that extended into work hours, Mr. Trump at once dismissed the entire Russia story as “fake” and made up, and pledged to hunt down the officials in the government who have supplied the details. He demanded an apology from the “failing” New York Times and accused the news media of making up stories and sources, even as he said he wanted those sources apprehended.

Weisman, Jonathan.  “Trump Denounces ‘Low-Life Leakers,’ Pledging to Hunt Them Down.”  The New York Times, February 16, 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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Trump’s Alleged “Kompromat”

11 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Journalism, Philology, Political Spychology, Politics

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A spokesman for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Wednesday denied Russia has collected compromising information on Trump and dismissed news reports as a “complete fabrication and utter nonsense”.  Dmitry Peskov insisted that the Kremlin “does not engage in collecting compromising material”.

In the material quoted, the URL goes directly to The Guardian article in which both denials appeared.

Well, here’s a still recent header that contradicts the point: “Foes of Russia Say Child Pornography Is Planted to Ruin Them” (The New York Times, December 9, 2016).

“The whole affair is Kafkaesque,” Mr. Bukovsky said in an interview. “You not only have to prove you are not guilty but that you are innocent.” He insisted that he was the victim of a new and particularly noxious form of an old K.G.B. dirty trick known as kompromat, the fabrication and planting of compromising or illegal material.

Old-style kompromat featured doctored photographs, planted drugs, grainy videos of liaisons with prostitutes hired by the K.G.B., and a wide range of other primitive entrapment techniques.

In Reference, the RAND article, “Beyond the Headlines: RAND’s Christopher Paul Discusses the Russian ‘Firehose of Falsehood'”, December 13, 2017, contains a summary of KGB/(FSB) methods in Russia’s massive perversion of information intended to scramble reasoning and politically divide and diminish political coherence in the EU and NATO states.

Incidentally, BackChannel’s sources have suggested the Kremlin employs more than 800,000 Russians in its Information Warfare capacity.  What that may mean for those invested in integrity and truth-telling worldwide, and whether for business, government, or personal conscience, is that Russia maintains a veritable army of professed liars whose paid mission is to confuse, disinform, and disrupt the processes of reason itself in each mind across hundreds of millions of souls.

For near corroboration of the above-cited figure, BackChannels directs the reader to Owen Matthews article in Politico: “Vladimir Putin resurrects the KGB” (September 28, 2016).

Shadows

In the world in which the latest Trump scandal is unfolding, there appears both a natural limit to what the public may know with certainty and a stranger-than-fiction aspect that fairly begs credulity.  Nonetheless: as regards President Elect Trump, the American electorate certainly heard the ” . . . grab them by the pussy” comment released as an information grenade only weeks before the general election, and it has by now accumulated awareness of the President’s character in business in ways possibly unsurpassed in history.  If ever an American President were examined like an organism, this one has been diced, sliced, smeared, and laid out on the slide bed of the highest resolution political microscope ever imagined.

The multiple images of damage — offhand remarks; a relationship with the world’s foremost political consultant to dictatorships (Paul Manafort); family relationships that go back to the Soviet Era and include fluency in Russian — then too, the family is immensely gifted with multilingual talent; possible Russian real estate interests as a matter of “business empire” deeply invested in real estate development — may continue to accumulate even though the truth remains sketchy — or held close by governments plunged into a different kind of war.

Trump’s “Russian Phantoms” — Manafort, Manafort-Kilimnik (relationship), Millian and any related business that has or may come to light — have already dogged the incoming Administration, and more may come to light as the Inauguration approaches.

Searches applied while developing this post: “KGB, Kompromat”; “Russian Influence Operations”; “Trump, Compromised”; “Trump, Russian Fluency”; “Trump Family, Russian Fluency”.

Reference

Bilingual Kidspot.  “President Donald Trump and his Multilingual Family.”  November 9, 2016.

Borger, Julian.  “John McCain passes dossier alleging secret Trump-Russia contacts to FBI.”  The Guardian, January 11, 2017.

“The ultimate goal of Kremlin hostile influence and disinformation operations is to weaken its opponents’ will to resist,” Jakub Janda, deputy director of nonpartisan think tank European Values, explained in an email from Prague. “Simply to manipulate the West, its politicians and its societies to stop resisting invasions of the Russian Federation to foreign countries.

In Europe, the East StratCom Task Force issues a “Disinformation Review” every week, giving a round-up of pro-Kremlin disinformation in Europe and beyond.

Eakin, Britain.  “Experts Dissect Russian Disinformation in the U.S. Election.”  Courthouse News, January 10, 2017.

In its most lurid allegation, the report alleges that Trump defiled a hotel suite in which the Obamas had stayed during a Moscow visit. Trump allegedly brought prostitutes to the Ritz Carlton suite, bugged by the FSB, the KGB’s successor. There, Trump allegedly ordered the prostitutes to perform “golden showers” in front of him.

Groll, Elias.  “Explosive, But Unsubstantiated, Intel Dossier Alleges Russia has “Kompromat” on Trump.”  The Cable, Foreign Policy, January 10, 2017.

“The whole affair is Kafkaesque,” Mr. Bukovsky said in an interview. “You not only have to prove you are not guilty but that you are innocent.” He insisted that he was the victim of a new and particularly noxious form of an old K.G.B. dirty trick known as kompromat, the fabrication and planting of compromising or illegal material.

Old-style kompromat featured doctored photographs, planted drugs, grainy videos of liaisons with prostitutes hired by the K.G.B., and a wide range of other primitive entrapment techniques.

Higgens, Andrew.  “Foes of Russia Say Child Pornography Is Planted to Ruin Them.”  The New York Times, December 9, 2016.

Holland, Steve.  “Trump says Russia did not try to compromise him, assails spy agencies.”  Reuters, January 11, 2017.

Landay, Jonathan and John Walcott.  “Trump given unverified reports that Russia had damaging details about him.”  Reuters, January 11, 2017.

Levitz, Eric.  “Intel Chiefs Presented Trump With Claims That Russia Has “Compromised” Him.” New York, January 10, 2017.

Matthews, Owen.  “Vladimir Putin resurrects the KGB.”  Politico, September 28, 2016.

RAND Corporation.  “Information Operations” & “Beyond the Headlines: RAND’s Christopher Paul Discusses the Russian ‘Firehose of Falsehood'”, December 13, 2017.

West, Tara.  “Melania Trump Makes History as First Immigrant First Lady, Fluent in Five Languages.”  Inquisitor, November 9, 2016.

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FTAC – Trump – What If Moscow Were Indulged?

09 Friday Dec 2016

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

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The balloon: The thought that Trump might cede Crimea for piffle in debts or other trade.

Ridiculous.

Welcome to the New Dark Ages.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/08/ftac-trumps-choice-and-moscow/

I could wag the finger all day in the direction of Putin and his inner circle and the Phantoms of the Cold War (arisen from the Grave of Communism as Ultra-Nationalist Fascists), and I would still have to deal with the resistance posed by 15 years of the greater population dwelling on “Islamic Terrorism” with nary a look back at the Cold War, much less a look forward to Russia’s transformation into an ultra-national neo-imperial state.

BackChannels achieves some compression of ideas and observations, and it has broad reach — it’s accessed annually from more than 140 nations — but it barely “pings” in the Foreign Affairs, International Relations, Political Science] communities . . .

Although no one knows how Trump will embark on his newly informed foreign affairs journey, everyone knows that this may be Trump’s first “real job” in a long time, and it’s not, as we say here in the U.S., “at will”: the President will be stuck with the Oval Office and answering to a government far greater and more powerful than himself, not to mention the people it represents.

My glance at the headlines suggests you may have been disinformed.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/309509-senators-urge-trump-to-be-tough-on-russia-in-ukraine

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/12/08/senators-urge-trump-to-provide-lethal-aid-to-ukraine/

It looks to me like Tass has been typing with rose-colored glasses:

http://tass.com/world/917932

It really underestimates how well the American professional political community — analysts, scholars, politicians — see Moscow as Putin has rebuilt it and sustained so much Soviet Era baggage and its inability to chart a middle course anywhere — but it may please those less engaged in politics.

This morning, I glanced at a Foreign Policy (Magazine) headline on how democracies fall apart. I should get to that article, but the official state remains quite robust. Trump may do the right great American things despite himself and, to lay in Churchill’s observation, without having to try all the wrong ones first.

This is a dangerous period for everyone as Putin with Khamenei and through Assad has chosen to demonstrate a depth in callousness, cruelty, dishonesty, and madness in Syria beyond anything witnessed anywhere else in the world in recent memory.

For five years or so I have seen repeated in untold visual analogs the image of a child’s hand gripping a mother’s forearm — no bodies — in relation to the indiscriminate bombing of noncombatants in Syria. Such murderers seem to be begging to be stopped — and maybe that would be a mercy — but the just poking along western response has been to watch the Russian economy wither while Assad burns Syria into an unsustainable nothing — except, perhaps, as a base for Russian military presence — and neither Moscow nor Tehran get anywhere with horrifying the world.

I’ll probably copy my response to an “FTAC” post on the blog. It has in it the prayer that the state prove stronger than its leading statesman, and I think the odds fair that it will do that if a President — any at any time — embarks on a dictator’s mission.

 

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Also in Media: “Trump wants to split time between DC and NY: report” | TheHill | November 12, 2016

12 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Political Psychology

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Trump has also expressed interest in continuing to hold large rallies as he did throughout the campaign for “the instant gratification and adulation that the cheering crowds provide,” the Times wrote.

Source: Trump wants to split time between DC and NY: report | TheHill

The quotation has been picked up numerous times over the day.

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