Majorityrights News > Category: Russian Politics

Rob Goldstone, left, shown in contact with Trump prior to his son’s meeting with Goldstone that promised high level Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Oh, Wait. Maybe It Was Collusion.

New York Times, Op-Ed Contributors JOHN SIPHER and STEVE HALL, August 2, 2017:

Did the Trump campaign collude with Russian agents trying to manipulate the course of the 2016 election? Some analysts have argued that the media has made too much of the collusion narrative; that Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with Kremlin-linked Russians last year was probably innocent (if ill-advised); or that Russian operatives probably meant for the meeting to be discovered because they were not trying to recruit Mr. Kushner and Mr. Trump as agents, but mainly trying to undermine the American political system.

We disagree with these arguments. We like to think of ourselves as fair-minded and knowledgeable, having between us many years of experience with the C.I.A. dealing with Russian intelligence services. It is our view not only that the Russian government was running some sort of intelligence operation involving the Trump campaign, but also that it is impossible to rule out the possibility of collusion between the two.

The original plan drawn up by the Russian intelligence services was probably multilayered. They could have begun an operation intended to disrupt the presidential campaign, as well as an effort to recruit insiders to help them over time — the two are not mutually exclusive. It is the nature of Russian covert actions (or as the Russians would call them, “active measures”) to adapt over time, providing opportunities for other actions that extend beyond the original intent.

It is entirely plausible, for example, that the original Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers was an effort simply to collect intelligence and get an idea of the plans of the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate. Once derogatory information emerged from that operation, the Russians might then have seen an opportunity for a campaign to influence or disrupt the election. When Donald Trump Jr. responded “I love it” to proffers from a Kremlin-linked intermediary to provide derogatory information obtained by Russia on Hillary Clinton, the Russians might well have thought that they had found an inside source, an ally, a potential agent of influence on the election.

The goal of the Russian spy game is to nudge a person to step over the line into an increasingly conspiratorial relationship. First, for a Russian intelligence recruitment operation to work, they would have had some sense that Donald Trump Jr. was a promising target. Next, as the Russians often do, they made a “soft” approach, setting the bait for their target via the June email sent by Rob Goldstone, a British publicist, on behalf of a Russian pop star, Emin Agalarov.

They then employed a cover story — adoptions — to make it believable to the outside world that there was nothing amiss with the proposed meetings. They bolstered this idea by using cutouts, nonofficial Russians, for the actual meeting, enabling the Trump team to claim — truthfully — that there were no Russian government employees at the meeting and that it was just former business contacts of the Trump empire who were present.

When the Trump associates failed to do the right thing by informing the F.B.I., the Russians probably understood that they could take the next step toward a more conspiratorial relationship. They knew what bait to use and had a plan to reel in the fish once it bit.

While we don’t know for sure whether the email solicitation was part of an intelligence ploy, there are some clues. A month after the June meeting at Trump Tower, WikiLeaks, a veritable Russian front, released a dump of stolen D.N.C. emails. The candidate and campaign surrogates increasingly mouthed talking points that seemed taken directly from Russian propaganda outlets, such as that there had been a terrorist attack on a Turkish military base, when no such attack had occurred. Also, at this time United States intelligence reportedly received indications from European intelligence counterparts about odd meetings between Russians and Trump campaign representatives overseas.

Of course, to determine whether collusion occurred, we would have to know whether the Trump campaign continued to meet with Russian representatives subsequent to the June meeting. The early “courting” stage is almost always somewhat open and discoverable. Only after the Russian intelligence officer develops a level of control can the relationship be moved out of the public eye. John Brennan, the former director of the C.I.A., recently testified, “Frequently, people who go along a treasonous path do not know they are on a treasonous path until it is too late.”

Even intelligence professionals who respect one another and who understand the Russians can and often do disagree. On the Trump collusion question, the difference of opinion comes down to this: Would the Russians use someone like Mr. Goldstone to approach the Trump campaign? Our friend and former colleague Daniel Hoffman argued in this paper that this is unlikely — that the Russians would have relied on trained agents. We respectfully disagree. We believe that the Russians might well have used Mr. Goldstone. We also believe the Russians would have seen very little downside to trying to recruit someone on the Trump team — a big fish. If the fish bit and they were able to reel it in, the email from Mr. Goldstone could remain hidden and, since it was from an acquaintance, would be deniable if found. (Exactly what the Trump team is doing now.)

If the fish didn’t take the bait, the Russians would always have had the option to weaponize the information later to embarrass the Trump team. In addition, if the Russians’ first objective was chaos and disruption, the best way to accomplish that would have been to have someone on the inside helping. It is unlikely that the Russians would not use all the traditional espionage tools available to them.

However, perhaps the most telling piece of information may be the most obvious. Donald Trump himself made numerous statements in support of Russia, Russian intelligence and WikiLeaks during the campaign. At the same time, Mr. Trump and his team have gone out of their way to hide contacts with Russians and lied to the public about it. Likewise, Mr. Trump has attacked those people and institutions that could get to the bottom of the affair. He fired his F.B.I. director James Comey, criticized and bullied his attorney general and deputy attorney general, denigrated the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and assails the news media, labeling anything he dislikes “fake news.” Innocent people don’t tend to behave this way.

The overall Russian intent is clear: disruption of the United States political system and society, a goal that in the Russian view was best served by a Trump presidency. What remains to be determined is whether the Russians also attempted to suborn members of the Trump team in an effort to gain their cooperation. This is why the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, is so important. It is why the F.B.I. counterintelligence investigation, also quietly progressing in the background, is critical. Because while a Russian disruption operation is certainly plausible, it is not inconsistent with a much darker Russian goal: gaining an insider ally at the highest levels of the United States government.

In short, and regrettably, collusion is not off the table.

John Sipher (@john_sipher), a former chief of station for the C.I.A., worked for over 27 years in Russia, Europe and Asia and now writes for The Cipher Brief and works for CrossLead, a consulting company. Steve Hall (@StevenLHall1) is a former C.I.A. chief of Russian operations and a CNN national security analyst.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

The New Republic, “Trump’s Russian Laundromat” July 2017:

How to use Trump Tower and other luxury high-rises to clean dirty money, run an international crime syndicate, and propel a failed real estate developer into the White House.

In 1984, a Russian émigré named David Bogatin went shopping for apartments in New York City. The 38-year-old had arrived in America seven years before, with just $3 in his pocket. But for a former pilot in the Soviet Army—his specialty had been shooting down Americans over North Vietnam—he had clearly done quite well for himself. Bogatin wasn’t hunting for a place in Brighton Beach, the Brooklyn enclave known as “Little Odessa” for its large population of immigrants from the Soviet Union. Instead, he was fixated on the glitziest apartment building on Fifth Avenue, a gaudy, 58-story edifice with gold-plated fixtures and a pink-marble atrium: Trump Tower.

A monument to celebrity and conspicuous consumption, the tower was home to the likes of Johnny Carson, Steven Spielberg, and Sophia Loren. Its brash, 38-year-old developer was something of a tabloid celebrity himself. Donald Trump was just coming into his own as a serious player in Manhattan real estate, and Trump Tower was the crown jewel of his growing empire. From the day it opened, the building was a hit—all but a few dozen of its 263 units had sold in the first few months. But Bogatin wasn’t deterred by the limited availability or the sky-high prices. The Russian plunked down $6 million to buy not one or two, but five luxury condos. The big check apparently caught the attention of the owner. According to Wayne Barrett, who investigated the deal for the Village Voice, Trump personally attended the closing, along with Bogatin.

If the transaction seemed suspicious—multiple apartments for a single buyer who appeared to have no legitimate way to put his hands on that much money—there may have been a reason. At the time, Russian mobsters were beginning to invest in high-end real estate, which offered an ideal vehicle to launder money from their criminal enterprises. “During the ’80s and ’90s, we in the U.S. government repeatedly saw a pattern by which criminals would use condos and high-rises to launder money,” says Jonathan Winer, a deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement in the Clinton administration. “It didn’t matter that you paid too much, because the real estate values would rise, and it was a way of turning dirty money into clean money. It was done very systematically, and it explained why there are so many high-rises where the units were sold but no one is living in them.” When Trump Tower was built, as David Cay Johnston reports in The Making of Donald Trump, it was only the second high-rise in New York that accepted anonymous buyers.

Semion Mogilevich.

In 1987, just three years after he attended the closing with Trump, Bogatin pleaded guilty to taking part in a massive gasoline-bootlegging scheme with Russian mobsters. After he fled the country, the government seized his five condos at Trump Tower, saying that he had purchased them to “launder money, to shelter and hide assets.” A Senate investigation into organized crime later revealed that Bogatin was a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York. His family ties, in fact, led straight to the top: His brother ran a $150 million stock scam with none other than Semion Mogilevich, whom the FBI considers the “boss of bosses” of the Russian mafia. At the time, Mogilevich—feared even by his fellow gangsters as “the most powerful mobster in the world”—was expanding his multibillion-dollar international criminal syndicate into America.

In 1987, on his first trip to Russia, Trump visited the Winter Palace with Ivana. The Soviets flew him to Moscow—all expenses paid—to discuss building a luxury hotel across from the Kremlin. Maxim Blokhin/TASS

Full article at New Republic

        Rubrics:

- Trump made his first trip to Russia in 1987, only a few years before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

- Throughout the 1990s, untold millions from the former Soviet Union flowed into Trump’s luxury developments and Atlantic City casinos.

- Trump Taj Mahal paid the largest fine ever levied against a casino for having “willfully violated” anti-money-laundering rules.

- The influx of Russian money did more than save Trump’s business from ruin—it set the stage for the next phase of his career. By 2004, to the outside world, it appeared that Trump was back on top after his failures in Atlantic City. That January, flush with the appearance of success, Trump launched his newly burnished brand…

- Russians spent at least $98 million on Trump’s properties in Florida—and another third of the units were bought by shadowy shell companies.

- In 2013, police burst into Unit 63A of Trump Tower and rounded up 29 suspects in a $100 million money-laundering scheme.

- In April 2013, a little more than two years before Trump rode the escalator to the ground floor of Trump Tower to kick off his presidential campaign, police burst into Unit 63A of the high-rise and rounded up 29 suspects in two gambling rings.

        Concluding paragraphs:

Semion Mogilevich, the Russian mob’s “boss of bosses,” also declined to respond to questions from the New Republic. “My ideas are not important to anybody,” Mogilevich said in a statement provided by his attorney. “Whatever I know, I am a private person.” Mogilevich, the attorney added, “has nothing to do with President Trump. He doesn’t believe that anybody associated with him lives in Trump Tower. He has no ties to America or American citizens.”

Back in 1999, the year before Trump staged his first run for president, Mogilevich gave a rare interview to the BBC. Living up to his reputation for cleverness, the mafia boss mostly joked and double-spoke his way around his criminal activities. (Q: “Why did you set up companies in the Channel Islands?” A: “The problem was that I didn’t know any other islands. When they taught us geography at school, I was sick that day.”) But when the exasperated interviewer asked, “Do you believe there is any Russian organized crime?” the “brainy don” turned half-serious.

“How can you say that there is a Russian mafia in America?” he demanded. “The word mafia, as far as I understand the word, means a criminal group that is connected with the political organs, the police and the administration. I don’t know of a single Russian in the U.S. Senate, a single Russian in the U.S. Congress, a single Russian in the U.S. government. Where are the connections with the Russians? How can there be a Russian mafia in America? Where are their connections?”

Two decades later, we finally have an answer to Mogilevich’s question.

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The web connecting the Trump administration to Russia

From Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to former campaign director Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s allies have business and personal connections to Russia. As Congress and the FBI look into Russia’s involvement with the 2016 election, those connect (Natalie Fertig and Patrick Gleason McClatchy).

McClatchy DC, “Trump-Russia investigators probe Jared Kushner-run digital operation”, 12 July 2017:

WASHINGTON

Investigators at the House and Senate Intelligence committees and the Justice Department are examining whether the Trump campaign’s digital operation – overseen by Jared Kushner – helped guide Russia’s sophisticated voter targeting and fake news attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Congressional and Justice Department investigators are focusing on whether Trump’s campaign pointed Russian cyber operatives to certain voting jurisdictions in key states – areas where Trump’s digital team and Republican operatives were spotting unexpected weakness in voter support for Hillary Clinton, according to several people familiar with the parallel inquiries.

Also under scrutiny is the question of whether Trump associates or campaign aides had any role in assisting the Russians in publicly releasing thousands of emails, hacked from the accounts of top Democrats, at turning points in the presidential race, mainly through the London-based transparency web site WikiLeaks.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told McClatchy he wants to know whether Russia’s “fake or damaging news stories” were “coordinated in any way in terms of targeting or in terms of timing or in terms of any other measure … with the (Trump) campaign.”

By Election Day, an automated Kremlin cyberattack of unprecedented scale and sophistication had delivered critical and phony news about the Democratic presidential nominee to the Twitter and Facebook accounts of millions of voters. Some investigators suspect the Russians targeted voters in swing states, even in key precincts.

Russia’s operation used computer commands knowns as “bots” to collect and dramatically heighten the reach of negative or fabricated news about Clinton, including a story in the final days of the campaign accusing her of running a pedophile ring at a Washington pizzeria.

One source familiar with Justice’s criminal probe said investigators doubt Russian operatives controlling the so-called robotic cyber commands that fetched and distributed fake news stories could have independently “known where to specifically target … to which high-impact states and districts in those states.”

All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation, led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is confidential.

Top Democrats on the committees investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election have signaled the same.

Schiff said he wants the House panel to determine whether Trump aides helped Russia time its cyberattacks or target certain voters and whether there was “any exchange of information, any financial support funneled to organizations that were doing this kind of work.”

Trump son-in-law Kushner, now a senior adviser to the president and the only current White House aide known to be deemed a “person of interest” in the Justice Department investigation, appears to be under the microscope in several respects. His real estate finances and December meetings with Russia’s ambassador and the head of a sanctioned, state-controlled bank are also being examined.

Kushner’s “role as a possible cut-out or conduit for Moscow’s influence operations in the elections,” including his niche overseeing the digital operations, will be closely looked at, said the source knowledgeable about the Justice Department inquiry.

Kushner joined Donald Trump Jr. and Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort at a newly disclosed June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in New York.. The meeting, revealed by The New York Times, followed emails in which Trump Jr. was told the lawyer for the Russian government would provide him with incriminating information on Clinton and he replied “If it’s what you say I love it.”

That disclosure could only serve to heighten interest in whether there was digital collaboration.

Mike Carpenter, who in January left a senior Pentagon post where he worked on Russia matters, also has suspicions about collaboration between the campaign and Russia’s cyber operatives.

“There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.

Trump has repeatedly repudiated or equivocated about the finding of four key intelligence agencies – the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and the Directorate of National Intelligence – that Russian cyber operatives meddled with the U.S. election.

Last Friday, during their first face-to-face meeting, Trump questioned Putin about Russia’s role in the election meddling and Putin denied culpability, said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was present. Trump then said the two countries should find ways to move forward in their relationship, Tillerson said.

A Russian official who was at the meeting said the two sides agreed to form a working group to address cybersecurity, including interference in other countries’ internal affairs. However, Trump backtracked Sunday night, saying in a tweet that he doesn’t believe such an effort can happen.

As more has been learned about the breadth of the Russian cyber onslaught, congressional Democrats have shown growing resolve to demand that the Republican-controlled intelligence committees fully investigate ways in which Trump associates may have conspired with the Russians.

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ITV, “Donald Trump Jr releases Russian meeting emails”, 11 July 2017:

Donald Trump’s eldest son was offered a meeting with a Russian lawyer to get damaging information on Hillary Clinton as part of a Kremlin-sponsored effort to boost Mr Trump’s presidential campaign, according to documents released today.

      He replied: “If it’s what you say I love it”.

Donald Trump Jr published what he said were the full transcripts of his emails with a businessman who offered to set up the meeting in the run-up to the 2016 elections which took his father to victory.

It comes as he faces growing scrutiny over what appears to be strongest evidence yet of direct Russian links to the Trump presidential campaign at the highest levels.

The transcripts show Mr Trump Jr, who was deeply involved in his father’s presidential campaign, was told he was being passed the contact as “part of Russia and it’s Government’s support for Mr Trump”.

Russian Oligarch’s son, Rob Goldstone

The transcripts indicate that Mr Trump Jr was contacted in early June 2016 by music publicist Rob Goldstone, whom he had met at a 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Russia.

It offered to put him in contact with a Russian lawyer who he said had information that would “incriminate” rival presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

         

“This is obviously very high-level and sensitive information but it is part of Russia and it’s Government’s support for Mr Trump,” the message said.

It added the information “would be very useful to your father”.

“If it’s what you say I love it, especially later in the summer,” Trump Jr. replied to Goldstone in the exchanges which he posted to Twitter.

The emails say the alleged leak came via the “Crown Prosecutor of Russia”. That is a position that does not exist, though Russia does have a Prosecutor General.

Mr Trump Jr has acknowledged that a meeting with the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, did subsequently take place at Trump Tower.

He insisted that in fact no information on Clinton was given to him, and the supposed leak was “the most inane nonsense I ever heard”.

The Trump Jr. delegation was actually disappointed with Veselnitskaya. They had sought more dirt on Hillary Clinton.

The growing concern over the contact comes after allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to benefit Mr Trump.

Those claims are currently the subject of an ongoing politically-charged investigation in the US.

Mr Trump has firmly denied that there was any contact between his campaign and the Russian government.

Last updated Tue 11 Jul 2017

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Trump would try to stop election hacking by working with the man who has turned election hacking into an art form

Vox, 9 July 2017:  No, really.

“Trump wants to work with Putin to fight election hacking.”

President Donald Trump began his high-profile Europe trip by publicly questioning the US intelligence community’s unanimous conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. He used a one-one-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to make clear Moscow wouldn’t be punished for the hack.

Then, on Sunday, Trump capped his time at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, with an announcement that he and Putin had agreed to create “an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things” will be prevented.

Trump, if he sticks with the plan, will be trying to stop election hacking by working with the man who has turned election hacking into an art form.

The announcement stunned lawmakers from both parties, with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham describing it as “pretty close” to the “dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.” Graham also blasted Trump for his continued refusal to acknowledge the Russian hacking campaign.

“He is literally the only person I know of who doesn’t believe Russia attacked our election in 2016,” Graham said on NBC News’s Meet the Press.

With criticism pouring in, Trump tried to slightly distance himself from the idea late Sunday night, with a tweet that said the “fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn’t mean I think it can happen. It can’t-but a ceasefire can, and did!”

Trump’s quasi-denial aside, there was something genuinely startling about his first announcement. Trump left for the G20 summit with his presidency engulfed in an array of Russia-related scandals, including a criminal investigation into whether his campaign knowingly colluded with Kremlin hackers.

That meant there was one major question hanging over Trump as he prepared for his face-to-face meeting with Putin: whether he would hold the Russian leader accountable for directing what US spies describe as a systematic hacking campaign designed to hurt Hillary Clinton and help him win the White House.

On Sunday, Trump appeared to answer that question with a resounding “no.”

The summit was a win for Putin and a loss for everyone else.

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Visigrad Post, “Three Seas Initiative: Trump in Warsaw supports the project”, 8 July 2017:

Poland, Warsaw – Poland received the US President Trump alongside with representatives of the countries of the Three Seas Initiative, a recent Central European project. An “incredibly successful” meeting, according to Donald Trump.

For his first press conference abroad, US President Donald Trump came on July 5 and 6 to the Polish capital city of Warsaw. He attended the meeting of the Three Seas Initiative – reuniting the Baltic countries, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria-, organized by Poland.

“America is eager to expand our partnership with you. We welcome stronger ties of trade and commerce as you grow your economies and we are committed to securing your access to alternate sources of energy so Poland and its neighbors are never again held hostage to a single supplier of energy,” told the US President referring to the former Russian monopoly of gaz supplying in the region.

From an economical project to a political one?

Poland and Croatia initiated the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) a year ago. All the twelve members of the 3SI were – except for Austria – under the rule of USSR until the fall of the iron curtain. Since 2007, all of them are part of the European Union, but remain less rich and developed than western member states. Also most of the critical roads, pipelines and rail services run on an east-west corridor, mainly due to former Soviet and current German dominance.

The 3SI’s goal is therefore to improve infrastructure and trade and to develop more and better connections in energy, transportation and digital communications along a north-south axis, so the members of the group might benefit from more mutual exchanges and investments, while strengthening their ties and getting more cohesive.

The 3SI has already some big plans; The Via Carpathia, a huge highway connecting the Baltic Sea ( Kalipedia, Lithuania ) to the Aegean Sea ( Thessaloniki, Greece ); The LNG terminals connecting pipeline, from Croatia to Poland (Croatia plans to finish the construction of its LNG terminal in Krk in 2019); And the construction of the pipeline from the Black Sea through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria. All these heavy infrastructure projects are also pleasing China, which invests more and more in the region and takes also part in some of the improvements of infrastructure, for both Central European and Chinese interests.

Though, some critics rise their voices regarding the 3SI. As the core fo the 3SI, V4 (the Visegrád group: Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary) leads an anti-federalization fight and refuse the EU’s migrant policy, observers fear that the 3SI would become an extension of the V4 and would lead the EU to split.

US plan? Polish dominance scheme? Response to the two-speed Europe?

The summit of Warsaw, attended by Donald Trump, raised many questions. The 3SI is quite close to the Polish project of Miedzymore (Between the Seas) known as Intermarium. As such, some political observers see this new project, led by the current conservative PiS (Law and Justice) Polish government – which is close to Trump and its policies, and distrusts neo-cons – as a way to achieve regional domination with the support of the USA. Poland is the biggest military in Central Europe, and the main economics.

It is also recalled by commentators that the Intermarium is a kind of anti-Russian geopolitical device. Proposed during the interwar period, the Intermarium was aimed to block and counter the Soviet Union, and therefore one important thing is to be noted: while the Intermarium included nowadays Ukraine, the 3SI does not, and extends more towards the West, covering all Central Europe and Eastern Balkans; And adding another shore to the project.

Poland and Croatia are also known to have long-term good relations with the USA. It is therefore suspected that since the 3SI is a project initiated by both Croatia – and more exactly by its current President, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, senior officer of NATO – and Poland – one of the most ardent partisan of NATO – the 3SI might be planned also to serve US interests.

Even if the relation between the USA and Russia shows a relative improvement since the beginning of the Trump presidency, many suspect the USA to still wish to dispose of a European buffer zone at the gates of Russia. And they argue their point by recalling the recent American missile complex established in Poland and Romania and the current conflict in Ukraine.

During his speech, Trump expressed his satisfaction for the opening of the Polish LNG terminal to US suppliers of gaz. “The United States is proud to see that our abundant energy resources are already helping the Three Seas Nations achieve much-needed energy diversification,” told Donald Trump in front of the leaders of the 3SI, still mainly dependent on Russian gaz. He then quickly continued his speech by inciting CEEC to invest in US technology and weapons. Polish President Duda said he hopes for a long-term contract regarding supplying of liquid gaz.

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Unz Review, 19 June 2017: “Russia and Islam: Connecting the Dots and Discerning the Future.”

Russian nationalists (as opposed to Russian patriots) did try their best to infect Russia with her own brand of Islamophobia, but that movement was defeated by an absolutely uncompromising stance by Vladimir Putin himself:

I need to say that, as I have repeated many times before, from its beginning Russia had formed as a multiconfessional and multiethnic state. You are aware that we practice Eastern Christianity called Orthodoxy. And some theorists of religion say that Orthodoxy is in many ways closer to Islam than to Catholicism. I don’t want to evaluate how true this statement is, but in general the coexistence of these main religions was carried out in Russia for many centuries. Over the centuries we have developed a specific culture of interaction, that might be somewhat forgotten in the last few decades. We should now recall those our national roots.”

Clearly, as long as Putin and those who support him remain in power, Islamophobia will have no future whatsoever in Russia. Russia will have to become the place where the Islamophobic myths will debunked ..

This site, Unz Review, is being treated by the Alt-Right as being in its friendly orbit.

True, the site does provide occasional useful information from which arguments for White interests can be derived, such as the study showing Harvard’s massive discriminatory bias against Asians (from which bias against Whites can be inferred also if you recognize and parse out the fact that Jews are not White), or the demographic projections that (((Steve Sailer))) puts up of Africa’s horrifying birth trajectory compared to Europeans, but you must look beyond, to the site’s chutzpah in projecting influence and goals upon the Alt-Right.

First, the black dress that they lay-out for our funeral:

Unz Review, “Will Sub-Saharan Africa’s Population Hit 10 Billion? 15 Billion?”, 27 June 2017:

Over at VDARE.com, a demographer points out that all my scary graphs lately have been based on the U.N. Population Division’s optimistic-sounding “medium fertility variant” in which total fertility rates magically converge toward 1.85 babies per woman by the end of the century.

But what if Africans just go on doing what comes natural? The correspondent points out that 10 billion is within reach under the assumption of constant fertility and mortality rates. Indeed, the UN offers a “constant fertility” table with, I believe, declining mortality due to technological advances in health care in which Sub-Saharan Africa’s population in 2100 is 15,175,708,000.

Fifteen billion Sub-Saharans is really not likely to happen, but my main point is: I’m not making these numbers up. These all come from the United Nations, not me.

Also, the UN offers a super optimistic “instant replacement fertility” table in which the total fertility rate drops to replacement today and remains that for the rest of the century. Due to demographic momentum, the population of sub-Saharan Africa still grows from 969 million in 2015 to 1,237 million* in 2035 to 1,444 million* in 2050 to 1,731 million in 2100.

        * He meant to write “billion” (but maybe getting nervous).

       
It’s easy to get blinded like a deer in the headlights by something like this. Take it to heart as a massive weapon that can be used against us, but don’t lose site of who’s taking the aim, the array of “equipment” (other people besides blacks) that they deploy and just how mean they are in doing it. Don’t be distracted into thinking they are on our side: Look under the dress -

We’ll provide this example and then treat this as an ongoing roller, as we say, to monitor just what the Unz Review is up to in its chutzpah. Have a closer look again at this first:

Unz Review, 19 June 2017: “Russia and Islam: Connecting the Dots and Discerning the Future”

Russia only has an observer status in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) due to the fact that she is not a majority Muslim country. Russia is also a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which brings together China, Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , Russia , Tajikistan , Uzbekistan , India and Pakistan. Let’s look at the approximate number of Muslims in the SCO countries: China 40,000,000 , Kazakhstan 9,000,000, Kyrgyzstan 5,000,000, Russia 10,000,000, Tajikistan 6,000,000 , Uzbekistan 26,000,000, India 180,000,000, Pakistan 195,000,000. That’s a grand total of 471 million Muslims.



Add to this figure the 75’000’000 Iranians which will join the SCO in the near future (bringing the grand total to 546’000’000) and you will see this stunning contrast: while the West has more or less declared war in 1.8 billion Muslims, Russia has quietly forged an alliance with just over half a billion Muslims!

Russian nationalists (as opposed to Russian patriots) did try their best to infect Russia with her own brand of Islamophobia, but that movement was defeated by an absolutely uncompromising stance by Vladimir Putin himself who went as far as stating that:

I need to say that, as I have repeated many times before, from its beginning Russia had formed as a multiconfessional and multiethnic state. You are aware that we practice Eastern Christianity called Orthodoxy. And some theorists of religion say that Orthodoxy is in many ways closer to Islam than to Catholicism. I don’t want to evaluate how true this statement is, but in general the coexistence of these main religions was carried out in Russia for many centuries. Over the centuries we have developed a specific culture of interaction, that might be somewhat forgotten in the last few decades. We should now recall those our national roots.”

Clearly, as long as Putin and those who support him remain in power, Islamophobia will have no future whatsoever in Russia. [...] Russia will have to become the place where the Islamophobic myths will debunked and a different, truly multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic civilizational model offered as an alternative to the monolithic Hegemony dominating the world today.

Modern secularist ideologies have given mankind nothing except violence, oppression, wars and even genocides. It is high time to kick them into the trash heaps of history were they belong…

Ah yes, “Russia and Islam: Connecting the Dots and Discerning the Future” ... connecting the dots…Islam and Russia, the blood, bread and s/oil resource behind Israel/Judaism, they’ll protect us from “Islamophobia” ....they have given us nothing but peace ...and Christianity will keep us real, protect us from violence. ...let us pray together (not think together).

Do you believe this stuff is being circulated flagrantly among the Alternative Right!?!

Though he does a very admirable job of exposing Israeli misdeeds, it’s almost as if former CIA officer Philip Giraldi has been flipped to Active Measures. The site that he writes for, Unz Review, acts suspiciously like an organ thereof. Image, Philip Giraldi by Gage Skidmore.jpg

There is a saying that “the darkest spot - and therefore the best place to hide - is directly beneath the light.” It is apparent that many Jewish interests are in diaspora and they hide directly beneath the light of anti-Zionism.

This article at Unz Review, “How Israel Manages Its Message: A new app enables instant pushback,” provides significant insight into Hasbara‘s power and influence in the war of perception. But its author, Philip Giraldi, is wasting his insider insight (he’s former CIA officer) at the Unz Review. And it is apparent that he is welcome there because with Giraldi, as ever, the issue with Jews is strictly a matter of Zionism - which he criticizes very well, but apparently at the price of letting their diaspora influence to flee to Russia, the US and elsewhere - allowing their nefarious influence to go uncritiqued in diaspora, while their cover there is protected and deepened - for example, in collusion with The Russian Federation’s Active Measures in its infiltration of the European and American Right Wing.

Philip Giraldi, at Unz Review, 27 June 2017:

“How Israel Manages Its Message: A new app enables instant pushback”

Those of us who are highly critical of Israel’s ability to manipulate U.S. foreign policy frequently note how sites that permit comments on our articles are almost immediately inundated with hostile postings that are remarkably similar in both tone and substance. Given that it is unlikely that large numbers of visitors to the sites read the offending piece more-or-less simultaneously, react similarly to its content, and then go on to express their disgust in very similar language, many of us have come to the conclusion that the Israeli government or some of the groups dedicated to advancing Israeli interests turn loose supporters who are dedicated to combating and refuting anything and everything that casts Israel in a negative light.

The fact is that Israel is extremely active in an enterprise that falls in the gray area between covert operations and overt governmental activity. Many governments seek to respond to negative commentary in the media, but they normally do it openly with an ambassador or press officer countering criticism by sending in a letter, writing an op-ed, or appearing on a talk show. Such activity is generally described as public diplomacy when it is done openly by a recognized government official and the information itself is both plausible and verifiable, at least within reasonable limits. Israel does indeed do that, but it also engages in other activities that are not so transparent and which are aimed at spreading false information.

When an intelligence organization seeks to influence opinion by creating and deliberately circulating “false news,” it is referred to as a “disinformation operation.” But Israel has refined the art of something that expands upon that, what might be referred to more accurately as “perception management” or “influence operations” in which it only very rarely shows its hand overtly, in many cases paying students as part-time bloggers or exploiting diaspora Jews as volunteers to get its message out. The practice is so systemic, involving recruitment, training, Foreign Ministry-prepared information sheets, and internet alerts to potential targets, that it is frequently described by its Hebrew name, hasbara, which means literally “public explanation.” It is essentially an internet-focused “information war” that parallels and supports the military action whenever Israel enters into conflict with any of its neighbors or seeks to influence public opinion in the United States and Europe.

The hasbara onslaught inevitably cranks up when Israel is being strongly criticized. There were notable surges in activity when Israel attacked Gaza in 2009 and 2012, as well as when it hijacked the Turkish humanitarian relief ship the Mavi Marmara in 2011. The devastating 2014 Gaza fighting inevitably followed suit, producing a perfect storm of pro-Israel commentary contesting any published piece that in any way sympathized with the Palestinians. The comments tend to appear in large numbers on websites where moderation and registration requirements are minimal, including Yahoo! News, or Facebook and Twitter.

The hasbara comments are noticeable as they tend to sound like boilerplate, and run contrary to or even ignore what other contributors to the site are writing. They often include spelling and syntactical hints that the writer is not natively fluent in English. As is the practice at corporate customer support call centers in Asia, the commenters generally go by American-sounding names and use fake email addresses. They never indicate that they are Israelis or working on behalf of the Israeli government and they tend to repeat over and over again sound bites of pseudo-information, as when they falsely insist that Hamas was solely responsible for the recent Gazan wars and that Israel was only defending itself. The commenters operate in the belief that if something is repeated often enough in many different places it will ipso facto gain some credibility and create doubts regarding contrary points of view.

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