Andrei Martyanov — The Russian Peace Threat by Ron Ridenour

Short review of Ron Ridenour's new book. Ridenour is a foreign policy realist.

Reminiscence of the Future
The Russian Peace Threat by Ron Ridenour
Andrei Martyanov

Whitney Webb — Newsguard Turns to EU to Push Controversial Ratings System on Tech Companies, Smears MintPress as “Secretly Supported” by Russia

Censorship watch. Narrative control in full swing. Again, "Putler did it." Haven't these people heard of the story of the boy that called wolf? Or have they forgotten it? It is one of Aesop's fables, after all.

Newsguard co-CEO Steven Brill in Brussels on Tuesday claimed that news sites that have recently criticized Newsguard’s motives — MintPress among them — are “secretly supported” by the Russian government, a claim for which he provided no evidence....

MintPress News
Newsguard Turns to EU to Push Controversial Ratings System on Tech Companies, Smears MintPress as “Secretly Supported” by Russia
Whitney Webb

Not only narrative control.

But "be afraid of Huawei."

Bloomberg
Major DNA Testing Company [Family Tree] Sharing Genetic Data With the FBI
Kristen V Brown

Carl Boggs — Russophobia and the Specter of War

Review of Stephen F. Cohen’s important book, War with Russia?

Counterpunch
Russophobia and the Specter of WarCarl Boggs

Moon of Alabama — Senate Reports On 'Russian Influence Campaign' Fail To Discuss Its Only Known Motive

Both reports look at the usage data and the content themes the IRA run pages provided. Both claim that the intent of the IRA was to influence the election and to sow discord within the U.S. population. But there is no, none, nada, zero evidence in the data that the IRA had such an intent. Nor is their any testimony or statement on it.

In contrast the Muller investigation, which looked into the case, found evidence that the IRA had a commercial intent. Unfortunately this is mentioned neither in the two reports, nor in the current news about them. The only really known motive the IRA had when it created those accounts and filled them with content is simply ignored.

We showed in The "Russian Ads" On Facebook Are Just Another Click-Bait Scheme that the IRA people simply created pages on Facebook and elsewhere to attract as many 'eyeballs' as possible. This so called 'click bait' was used to lead people to webpages on which the IRA sold advertisement space.

This was confirmed when the Muller investigation indicted the IRA as described in Mueller Indictment - The "Russian Influence" Is A Commercial Marketing Scheme. Point 95 of the indictment says in relation to wire fraud accusations:

Defendants and their co-conspirators also used the accounts to receive money from real U.S. persons in exchange for posting promotions and advertisements on the ORGANIZATION-controlled social media pages. Defendants and their co-conspirators typically charged certain U.S. merchants and U.S. social media sites between 25 and 50 U.S. dollars per post for promotional content on their popular false U.S. persona accounts, including Being Patriotic, Defend the 2nd, and Blacktivist.

The IRA wanted to make money.

It therefore naturally concentrated on content themes that took the least effort to create while attracting a maximum numbers of 'eyeballs' which could then be sold to advertisers. That is why some of its pages were about cute puppies. Cute puppies always sell. Using the news value of the election the IRA created pages that were pro-Trump and pages that were anti-Trump. Themes that did not attract enough eye-balls were discarded, those which did well were further promoted. This maximized the numbers of potential eyeballs and thus its advertisement income....

Moon of Alabama
Senate Reports On 'Russian Influence Campaign' Fail To Discuss Its Only Known Motive

Moon of Alabama— How Putin's Russia Weaponizes X

More humor. Did you know that Russia is now weaponizing humor. The BBC just said so.

Moon of Alabama
How Putin's Russia Weaponizes X

See also

Caitlin Johnstone — Rogue Journalist
Don’t Laugh : It’s Giving Putin What He Wants
Caitlin Johnstone

See also  

Russian President Vladimir Putin is surpassing dashing Japanese heartthrobs in 2019 calendar sales thanks to an unexpected legion of young fans.

The calendar, exclusively sold by popular Japanese chainstore Loft, has reportedly surpassed all other ‘celebrity’ calendars - including those of native superstars.

Villain, — or hero?

RT
Japan’s best-selling calendar star revealed… as Putin (PHOTOS)

Paul Kindlon — The Psychological Origins of American Russophobia

Narrative creation operates based on pattern-recognition and repetition. "Tell a lie big enough and often enough and ….

The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous. — Joseph Goebbles, Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik, quoted in Big Lie at Wikipedia

 Paul Kindlon explains the mechanism.

 The psychological reason behind this trick has to do with “pattern recognition”. Human beings – through evolution – have learned to identify a phenomenon as real and true because it repeats again and again and again. After a while, the mind interprets this consistent pattern as proof of truth value. In psychological terms, “schemata” are created by a layering of memories similar in nature over time so that all events associated with the phenomenon are perceived through a prism of previous repetitions. In other words, even if a certain type of behavior is different from the norm it will still be identified as belonging to the typical pattern regardless. It is literally a trick of the mind…

This process induces the cognitive biases of anchoring and confirmation bias.

Russia Insider
The Psychological Origins of American Russophobia
Paul Kindlon | Professor of Humanities (1994-2017)
Moscow University Touro, Russia

Related

Visual Capitalist
24 Cognitive Biases That Are Warping Your Perception of Reality
Jeff Desjardins

Paul Robinson — LACK OF INTEGRITY

Smackdown.

It’s a common complaint that Russian media are controlled by the state. By contrast, the Western media, and Western opinion formers, such as academics and think tank members, are considered to be independent and impartial. Yet in reality, the relationship between them is often far cozier than people understand, and sometimes far cozier than it ought to be. I’m sure that everybody involved in the Integrity Initiative believes that they are acting for the best. But if they have been secretly working with government officials in pursuit of political objectives, they shouldn’t be surprised that some people don’t trust them. There’s a reason why people turn to sources of information which are accused of peddling ‘fake news’: they don’t believe traditional sources. Projects like the Integrity Initiative help strengthen the impression of secret conspiracies and double standards. Far from solving the problem, therefore, they accentuate it.

Irrussianality
LACK OF INTEGRITYPaul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Moon of Alabama — British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns

Inquiring minds would like to know why the UK is so interested in discrediting the Russian government. It's clearly not just "making the world safe for democracy" or defending Western liberal values and traditions.

Something of this size and intensity suggests only one thing, "Follow the money." What's up with this? Has it something to do with the British financial empire that replaced the British political empire? What else could that be, and if this is it, what is the underlying rationale?

There seems to be little doubt that the US and UK tried to take over Russia after the collapse off the USSR and were added in this by both Russian oligarchs and foreign operatives. Is this an attempt to regain lost territory, mount a new offense to neuter Russia and a power and take over its resources (think Mackinder and Brzezinski) , or are the Russians somehow viewed as a threat to the City and British tax havens where the vast majority of oversees wealth is stored in secrecy?

Moon of Alabama
British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns

See also

Or maybe it's a simple as that the Brits have collectively lost their marbles.

RT

‘I hope they check it for sanity’: Russian FM reacts to UK general’s ‘Moscow worse than ISIS’ remark

On the other hand, the British Empire was instrumental in creating the conditions for both WWI and WWII, both of which were imperialist wars, just as WWIII is shaping up as an imperialist war. While the emperors may be history, imperialism is not. Of course, the British Empire was not the only empire involved in creating the conditions for WWI and WWII, and WWIII will be predicated not only on the Anglo-American Empire as the political successor to the British Empire, but also the resurgence of ancient empires as well as power blocs align and face off — Germany and France in the West, Russia in Eurasia, Ottoman Turkey and Iran in the Middle East, and China and Japan in Asia. And part of the struggle is for control of the countries of the Global South, chiefly Africa and South America.

Perhaps this is just a continuation of that historical dialectic entering a new stage productive of new conflicts.

Paul Robinson — Assumptions

Assumptions are extremely important. If they’re wrong, everything which follows is probably wrong too. So when analysts don’t make their assumptions clear to policy makers, but instead try to pass them off as facts, there’s a great danger that poor decisions will result.

What brings this to mind is a new report by Duncan Allan, published by Chatham House and entitled Managed Confrontation: UK Policy Towards Russia After the Salisbury Attack....

While what professor Robinson says is clearly correct, I assume, on the other hand, that his analysis is mooted. That is to say, the British elite are fully aware of this and that the report is simply a propaganda piece churned out by Chatham House to drum up of Anglo-American confrontation with Russia.

The Europeans would be wise to see the UK go rather than have a snake in their midst.

Irrussianality
AssumptionsPaul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Stephen F. Cohen — More Cold War Extremism and Crises

The crazies gets crazier. President Trump seems to have lost control of them, prompting the question, who is the president now anyway.

Just as with Iraq and WMD, the New Times and the Washington Post are driving the crazy.

The Nation
More Cold War Extremism and Crises
Stephen F. Cohen | Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies, History, and Politics at New York University and Princeton University

See also

As the United States squeezes China economically through an escalating trade war, it is simultaneously ramping up military efforts to challenge Beijing’s recent strategic gains in the contested South China Sea.

The tit-for-tat punitive exchanges on economic and strategic fronts has effectively commenced what some analysts now see as a new Cold War pitting America versus China, a contest that is spiraling dangerously towards a possible armed conflict at sea.…

Is the US probing to determine whether China really has a carrier-killer?

Astute News
US, China Thrusting Towards a New Cold War

Asif Aziz

Must read if those interested in preserving the republic.

Watch the short video clip in the post. It's only 2:25 minutes and it's gripping.

Joe Lauria sees the coup launched even prior to Donal Trump's election, when he got the nomination, coming to a head.

On the other hand, Lauria notes that the president is also a wild cartd in the deck and sometimes benefits from "supervision," like an unruly adolescent who does not yet know the implications and possible consequences of what he is doing.

Is this a flaw in the concept of a democratic republic. Is a deep state a needed corrective?

Consortium News
Seven Days in September

Joe Lauria

See also

One of the most significant themes heading into 2019, is the new US-China Cold War. Recent tit-for-tat exchanges on economic, political and strategic fronts threaten to escalate into a full-blown conflict between both superpowers.

As Washington squeezes Beijing economically through an escalating trade war, it simultaneously uses Freedom of navigation (FON) to sail its warships and or fly its nuclear-capable Boeing B-52 bombers dangerously close to Beijing's militarized islands in the heavily disputed South China Sea. This high-stakes game of chicken is now spiraling out of control and could lead to a possible military conflict....

The tit-for-tat exchanges between US-China on economic, political and strategic fronts increases the probability that a full-blown conflict between the superpowers is on the horizon, likely to start in the South China Sea.

Zero Hedge
US, China Diving Into A New Cold War; Jack Ma Warns: "When Trade Stops, Sometimes War Starts"

Tyler Durden

Paul Robinson — Living in wacko-land

Reading all this, one feels like one is living in wacko-land. And it’s just the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

I read some of this stuff for laughs. Unfortunately, it passes for truth in corporate media and is apparently taken seriously in policy circles.

Irrussianality

Living in wacko-land

Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Elias Hazou — The Magnitsky affair: the confession of a hustled hack

Before getting down to brass tacks, let me say that I loathe penning articles like this; loathe writing about myself or in the first person, because a reporter should report the news, not be the news. Yet I grudgingly make this exception because, ironically, it happens to be newsworthy. To cut to the chase, it concerns Anglo-American financier Bill Browder and the Sergei Magnitsky affair. I, like others in the news business I’d venture to guess, feel led astray by Browder.

This is no excuse. I didn’t do my due diligence, and take full responsibility for erroneous information printed under my name. For that, I apologize to readers. I refer to two articles of mine published in a Cypriot publication, dated December 25, 2015 and January 6, 2016....

The truth is seeping out.

The Duran
The Magnitsky affair: the confession of a hustled hack

Elias Hazou

See also

Behind the Curtain
The Suppression of Truth in the Land of Lies: An Oxymoron
Edward Curtin

See also

FAIR — Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Facebook’s New Propaganda Partners

Alan MacLeod | Glasgow University Media Group

Publius Tacitus — America's Persistent Russia Delusion by Publius Tacitus

How long can American citizens continue to display such an astonishing degree of ignorance when it comes to the topic of Russia and meddling in political affairs? The media is pounding away like a hyperactive child with a new drum--bang, bang, bang--insisting that Russia is every where in our political system and is controlling our destiny. This kind of bald faced lie goes beyond egregious. It is diabolical. It has only one purpose--provoke confrontation with a nuclear power. If that does not qualify as the true definition of insanity, then you are beyond the reach of reason.

The deviant fantasy that has enveloped the weak minds of most Americans with respect to Russia conjure the image of a gleeful Putin, keen on conquering the world, lusting for blood and running a global criminal syndicate. And there stands Ma and Pa Kettle, our mom and dad, our brother and sister. It is up to us, the humble, peaceful Americans, who must lead the charge in thwarting this malevolent tyrant. This is the bullshit that is drowning the media in the United States and most appear quite willing to imbibe this toxic sludge.

Let us start with some very simple facts:...

Sic Semper Tyrannis
America's Persistent Russia Delusion by Publius Tacitus
Publius Tacitus

Philip Giraldi — Is Bill Browder the Most Dangerous Man in the World?

The darling of the war party needs to answer some questions

Update: The link to the film exposing Browder provided in this article has been taken down.

Unz Review
Is Bill Browder the Most Dangerous Man in the World?

Philip Giraldi, former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, now Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

CJ Hopkins — Confession of a Putin-Nazi Denialist

Sticking the dagger in and twisting it.

Counterpunch
Confession of a Putin-Nazi Denialist
CJ Hopkins, author and playwright

Matfey Shaheen — Marine Le Pen: I know the EU is waging a Cold War against Russia – Here’s Why

“It’s a strategy of building a wall separating Russia and the European Union. I know from my own experience of work in the European Parliament that the European Union is conducting a real Cold War against Russia,” Le Pen said....

Russia Feed
Marine Le Pen: I know the EU is waging a Cold War against Russia – Here’s Why

Matfey Shaheen

John Helmer — The Blood Libel Of The British Government (Sic)

Prime Minister Theresa May committed a blood libel against Russians in the House of Commons last week. This was the allegation that the Russian state and all Russians are murderers.

May has subsequently asked the Foreign Secretary and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to correct the record by charging that only one Russian, President Vladimir Putin, is a murderer.

The Canadian Government was also requested by the British to urgently correct the record May has been making in refusing to allow the international rules of the Chemical Weapons Convention to decide what happened in the poison attack in Salisbury on March 4. 

According to the new Canadian statement, coordinated with the British, the international convention can be suspended by Prime Minister May in order to make her blood libel stick.

If this is reminding you of Adolph Hitler’s blood libel against the Jews, followed by Austrian support after the Anschluss (union) with Germany of 1938, it should.

A blood libel is an allegation of murder against a race of people. Its history is ancient; it’s most familiar today as the charge of ritual murder against Jews. Hitler and the Nazis followed many others over a thousand years of European history....

Russophobia gone mad (sociopathic).

The UK has a long history of this and Winston Churchill was a poster child for it.

Blood libel has indeed a long history and the US has not escaped it in its history either, beginning with Native American, resulting in genocide, and continuing with non-whites to the present. It would not be exaggeration to say that many of the most serious issues that the US faces today result from this sociopathy.

Dances with Bears
The Blood Libel Of The British Government (Sic)
John Helmer

See also

"Last" means "final," not "previous."

Defend Democracy Press

The Last World War

Sergei Glazyev

See also

I met Anastasia Barannikova this last December when I visited the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia. I was there to participate in discussions with eight of the university’s regional security experts about the situation in Korea, only a few hundred kilometers distant from where we sat. In my notes I circled Anastasia Barannikova’s name. Her colleagues mentioned that she had the best set of contacts with North Koreans.

After I returned to my home in Boston, I contacted Barannikova and was able to arrange an interview. She is Russian, but her perspective should not be equated with that of the Kremlin. Rather it is an assessment from an informed young academic living 9,000 kilometers east of Moscow, active in international non-proliferation circles, and benefiting as a researcher from her hard-won independent relationships with North Koreans as primary sources.

We conducted the interview on February 18, and since then there have been many new and important developments in Korea. Nonetheless, what she has to say remains highly relevant to understanding and assessing the statements of officials and the reporting by the press regarding both diplomacy and war posturing in the coming months....

LobeLog
A Russian Perspective On Korean Denuclearization

Charles Knight, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy interviews Anastasia Barannikova, research fellow and doctoral candidate at the Center for Maritime International Studies, Admiral Nevelskoy Maritime State University, Vladivostok, Russia

See also

Handwaving.

Craig Murray Blog
Boris Johnson Attempt to Refute My Sources on Porton Down the Most Hilarious Fail

Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Also

With the kind of post-imperial arrogance befitting of a nation state that lacks an independent foreign policy, Theresa May demanded that Russia explain the deaths of Mr Skripal and his daughter to her satisfaction. But amid all of the media hyperbole over the last week, what the corporate media omitted to report to the public was the fact that under the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) to which the UK is a signatory, the UK government was obliged to provide Russia with a sample of the nerve agent used, along with all related evidence uncovered in the course of the investigation.…

Suspicions that the UK’s role in the crisis is not that of the honest broker were further heightened after it was revealed that on March 14, the country blocked a Russia-drafted UN Security Council statement calling for an urgent inquiry into the incident....

A significant Middle East ally and regional player is, of course, Israel which has major undeclared stocks of chemical weapons but has refused to ratify the CWC. It is perfectly reasonable under these circumstances to point the finger for the poisoning of Mr Skripal and his daughter at either Mossad, the CIA or M15....

Renegade, Inc.

Is the ‘Novichok’ story the UKs latest WMD scam?
Daniel Margrain

also

In short, we should be extremely sceptical of this sudden new information that Boris Johnson has produced out of a hat. If the UK was in possession of intelligence about a secret Russian chemical weapons programme, it was not under a legal obligation to tell Andrew Marr, but it was under a legal obligation to tell the OPCW. Not only did the UK fail to do that, the UK Ambassador Sir Geoffrey Adams was last year fulsomely congratulating the OPCW on the completion of the destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons stocks, without a single hint or reservation entered that Russia may have undeclared or secret stocks.

On the Andrew Marr programme, Boris Johnson appeared to say for the first time that the nerve agent in Salisbury was actually made in Russia. But this is a major divergence from the published FCO statement, which very markedly does not say this. Boris Johnson was therefore almost certainly reverting to his reflex lying.…

It does not need me to point out, that if Porton Down had identified the nerve agent as made in Russia, the FCO would not have added that paragraph. Plainly they cannot say it was made in Russia.

The Soviet Chemical Weapons programme was based in Nukus in Uzbekistan. It was the Americans who dismantled and studied it and destroyed and removed the equipment. I visited it as Ambassador to Uzbekistan shortly after they had finished – I recall it as desolate, tiled and very cold, nothing to look at really. The above paragraph seeks to hold the Russians responsible for anything that came out of Nukus, when it was the Americans who actually took it....

Either the UK leadership is lying or violating it's treaty obligation. Take your pick. I would bet on lying given past behavior.

Craig Murray Blog
Boris Johnson Issues Completely New Story on “Russian Novichoks”Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Also

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had a moment of clarity once. He famously said, “When things get serious, you have to lie.”

Given the state of affairs in his beloved European Union right now Mr. Juncker and company are doing a lot of lying....

Russia Insider
Things Must Be Serious, Everyone’s Lying
Tom Luongo

Nafeez Ahmed — The British government’s Russia nerve agent claims are bullshit

On Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May announced that former Russian spy, Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia, were poisoned with “a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia” known as ‘Novichok’.

The chemical agent was identified by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down. May referred to the British government’s “knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing so” as a basis to conclude that Russia’s culpability in the attack “is highly likely.”

On these grounds, she claimed that only two scenarios are possible:

“Either this was a direct act by the Russian State against our country. Or the Russian government lost control of this potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.”

The British government’s line has been chorused uncritically by the entire global press corps, with little scrutiny of its plausibility.

But there is a problem: far from offering a clear-cut evidence-trail to Vladimir Putin’s chemical warfare labs, the use of Novichok in the nerve gas attack on UK soil points to a wider set of potential suspects, of which Russia is in fact the least likely....

It may turn out that Russia did indeed carry out the Novichok attack. But at this time, the British state has no real basis to presume that. Which implies that the state has already decided that it wants to manufacture a path to heightened hostilities with Russia, regardless of the evidence. And that does not bode well.

INSURGE intelligence - Medium

The British government’s Russia nerve agent claims are bullshit
Nafeez Ahmed

Also

Craig Murray
Russian to Judgement

Craig Murray | British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010

Also

In short, both parties appear to be doing everything in their power to get as many people killed as possible, and nobody seems to have their foot anywhere near the brake pedal. Heads up.

The Greanville Post
Trump Promotes Longtime Russia Hawk Just As Russiagate Loses Momentum

Caitlin Johnstone

Zero Hedge — Senate Democrats: US Should "Urgently Engage" With Russia To Avoid A Military "Miscalculation"

Democrats deciding that Russia-baiting isn't such a good idea after all?

I guess Putin's message came across that poking the bear's liar is not a great idea.

Zero Hedge

Senate Democrats: US Should "Urgently Engage" With Russia To Avoid A Military "Miscalculation"

Tyler Durden

See also

Southfront
US Defense Undersecretary for Policy Confirms Russia Has Sensational Nuclear Weapons Technology

Moon of Alabama No. Russians Did Not Hack The FCC Comments.

Looks to be the result of ignorance rather than manufacturing fake news. But still bad from the POV of professional journalism.

Moon of Alabama
No. Russians Did Not Hack The FCC Comments.
b

See also

This is a different story. It involves ignorance but on the public's part about intelligence in order to sell a lie.

Americans tend to be a trusting lot. When they hear a high level government official, like former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper, state that Russia’s Vladimir ordered and monitored a Russian cyber attack on the 2016 Presidential election, those trusting souls believe him. For experienced intelligence professionals, who know how the process of gathering and analyzing intelligence works, they detect a troubling omission in Clapper’s presentation and, upon examining the so-called “Intelligence Community Assessment,” discover that document is a deceptive fraud. It lacks actual evidence that Putin and the Russians did what they are accused of doing. More troubling—and this is inside baseball—is the fact that two critical members of the Intelligence Community—the DIA and State INR—were not asked to coordinate/clear on the assessment.
You should not feel stupid if you do not understand or appreciate the last point. That is something only people who actually have produced a Community Assessment would understand. I need to take you behind the scenes and ensure you understand what is intelligence and how analysts assess and process that intelligence. Once you understand that then you will be able to see the flaws and inadequacies in the report released by Jim Clapper in January 2017....

Sic Semper Tyrannis
The Intel Community Lie About Russian Meddling

Publius Tacitus

also

Zero Hedge
Matt Taibbi Exposes The Sheer Absurdity Of The Ongoing Russian Witch Hunt

Tyler Durden