The Eagle and the Bear 


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(Or how a Lame Duck quacks under the pressure of "Fake News")

Can anyone doubt that in the latest spat between America and Russia, or more accurately Obama and Putin, the latter has come off best?

Fresh from driving a coach and horses (was it Wells Fargo?) through all the best made plans of mice and men in Syria - for which read the Americans, the British, the French, the Israelis, the Saudis, the Qataris, to name but a few - and you must decide who are the mice and who are the men amongst this coterie of the unwilling - the action by Obama to expel numerous Russian diplomats and close a number of their missions, has the unmistakable smell of childish pique about it. 

In a cunning series of moves, Putin has made sure it will be viewed that way, for not only with no help from the West has he out-manoeuvred the America in Syria by his victory in Aleppo, he has apparently sealed it with a peace deal that gives the prospect of a cessation of violence in that war torn land. Putin is basking in the achievement and can afford to be magnanimous. His refusal to replicate the expulsions places him yet again on the moral high ground and paints Obama, with less than three weeks to go, as the petulant child. This from an historical point of view,  is probably how he will be remembered, a position no American President wants to be in.

Obama has made a tactical mistake, the latest of many and one wonders why he was persuaded to do it? Presumably he wanted to go out on the high of looking tough. Instead it will be seen as the very opposite, because not only has America yet again been humiliated in the Middle East, the grounds stated for the action can be seen to be flimsy at best. Not only does it miss the basic point that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party was beaten because the American public did not trust her and preferred a buffoon to a marionette, but the claim that it was the Russians that "done it for her" by hacking and publishing private E-mails, is clearly ludicrous. At best his action will be seen as "sour grapes", at worst proof that he is complicit in trying to deflect from all the damaging "Pizzagate" revelations.

Clinton could not survive the scandal of her personal server and her lies about it. She may escape the gaol sentence that would be meted out to any other citizen who had done the same - namely kept top secret documents on a private and insecure server - but she cannot avoid the opprobrium. And of course this is not the worst of the Clinton crimes that are gradually being revealed centring on the "Clinton Foundation", that raked in huge sums from foreign donors, for what can only be assumed to be favours from the Secretary of State.

No wonder Edward Snowden and Julian Assange have been painted as traitors or enemies who Clinton herself appeared to support being murdered, for they have facilitated not so called "fake news" but the truth about the way America is governed, and it does not make easy reading. Head honchos have been clearly implicated not only in fraud but also in the deeply damaging subject of child trafficking, abuse and even murder, claims that as far as I am aware, have never been flatly denied.

What we have actually seen has been a national press largely supportive of the Clintons and Democrats, merely pouring scorn on the very idea the suggestions rife in the Internet that "Pizzagate" could happen or did, and refusing to run with or investigate the allegations. There is little doubt in my mind that this had an impact on the Presidential race and that therefore both Internet and Wikileaks played a part, but placing the blame on Russia completely misses the point. It is but the latest in an orchestrated strategy of blaming Russia for everything and increasing tensions between the two. Europe, as in so much else, has acted as docile poodle and subject to damaging measures both financial (cite the huge fines on BP and European banks in contrast to those levied on American ones) if it has shown any reluctance to follow the American line. 


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I thought this was a good analysis of the justification for Russian culpability, that I came across in an Internet discussion.

Matthew Hitchens "You need to learn the difference between a detailed crime analysis report and the public release report you are referring to .Are you kidding me ? I am a liberal and Obama supporter but I'm also a Cybersecurity SME and that report offers NO "proof" the APTs are linked to the Kremlin . ON PAGE 2 it labels the APTs as part of the Russian Intelligence- this is flat out incorrect and many members of the IC have said so . Those APTs are criminal hacker groups much like Anonymous , in fact Fancy Bear is part of Anonymous. Second there is not evidence to show a link between the APTs and the Kremlin! Is there a possibility? Yes - was there a possibility WMDs were in Iraq - yup , but did we find them -? Nope . It is a fallacy of false correlation and a bogus report . next the remaining 11 pages is a get well plan and way forward - citing over basic practices that should have been followed according to the NIST guidelines that the public sector is REQUIRED to follow anyway . IN FACT .. does it even mention the NIST guidelines ? What we have here is a smokescreen - something to justify sanctions when there is not enough actual evidence . It's bullshit . And the POTUS should be reviewing how he messed up cyber reform this past 8 years - by bitching out and not pushing on regulation and standard practices for both the private and public sector --- we have damn government employees opening suspicious emails and becoming victims of spear phishing ( something a 12 year old can crank out) . The APTs did NOT crack anything - WE LET THEM IN . Our Piss poor Cybersecurity practices and education . They knocked and we virtually opened the door . Stop scapegoating and point ☝ the finger and the real issue - the one in the mirror"

It is impossible not to view all the incidents of so-called ISIS terror in the same light. Gradually and inexorably the public is becoming aware of the lengths to which America and Western Countries have been prepared to go to pursue an essentially Israeli agenda in the Middle East that has brought utter chaos on it and on Europe. On so many fronts the so-called "democracies" have allowed themselves to sink into a morass of deceit and moral turpitude, that in the dying days of Obama's Administration is seeing itself reflected in gestures of this kind, hoping it will deflect from and bury the truth. "Fake News" and Russian responsibility are the result. 

Meanwhile Kerry's speech on Israel settlement policy might have been impressive were it not viewed against a background of the reality of the last eight years and longer. It can only be viewed as gesture politics. Words without meaning or purpose. The last gasp of the dying man to persuade us he has stood up against tyranny and repression in a foreign land, from which the multiple evils have flowed. The grant of thirty eight billion revealed the true position in that, as have the Wikileaks revelations, the disturbing underlying causes. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. Whether anything will change is another matter. A wounded animal is more dangerous for it. "Making America great again" can have many interpretations and they are not necessarily all good for the world or the people in it. That is you and me.