I wanted to retract a comment I left on one of your earlier posts, concerning the Red Crescent and them denying an attack. It seems this was a false narrative, with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent’s Lebanon branch say they are unaware of any statement, and that the Red Crescent was not operational in Douma as of the date of the attack. It was not my intention to spread a false story. So I apologize, though I still contend that the media reporting of the story is being done with a certitude that should not be, and that the media seems all to happy to promote an escalation of war.
This was a very interesting article, with specifics concerning which Russian businessmen Trump has had dealings with. It's interesting that no one ever covers this portion of Trump's Russian coverage. However I wonder about this statement near the end of your article:
'The Agalarovs made a deal to build a Trump Hotel in Moscow, and don’t appear to have given up on the idea, though any such project has been significantly delayed. Emin Agalarov is said to have kept in touch with Trump, phoning him from time to time during the primaries and the campaign, on the grounds that an improvement in US-Russian relations is desirable. These contacts almost certainly came at the instance of the Russian state, perhaps even of Putin himself.'
How do you know these contacts came at the instance of the Russian state, or Putin? That seems like a big leap? What is it based on? I find statements like this get put out often, with little to know factual backing. We are just supposed to think that Putin controls everything in Russia, so of course Putin is behind the Agalarovs keeping in contact with Trump.
Putin could be, but do we know, or is it just random speculation?
U.S. intelligence agencies – 17 of them – agree that evidence shows the Russian government hacked the Democratic National Committee and waged a campaign to influence voters in 2016.
This is not actually true. It's a "fact" that gets tossed out but is no truer today than it was when Hillary Clinton made the statement during a debate last Fall. When Hillary made the statement the number of agencies/offices that had "signed" off on this idea was two. Since then that number has increased to three. Far cry from the seventeen that gets bandied about with no factual basis. Even the number three is circumspect in that a large portion of the report had nothing to do with cyber espionage, but supposed biased coverage of RT and Sputnik, and there is little actual evidence, but just conclusions by analysts.
The analysts could be correct, but there's almost no real evidence. The FBI never was granted access to the server that was hacked. The code that CrowdStrike claims to have discovered is over five years old, and available to hackers, so not definitive proof of Russian government hacking. The CIA report had even less physical evidence, its conclusions solely based on analysts interpretations, yet this is treated like hard evidence.
Actually no, the small attacks since 2013 were all chlorine. The only time Sarin was suggested as a weapon was the 2013 attack, which again had many more questions than people want to answer.
Like, why would Syrian forces use Chemical weapons on a strategically unimportant neighborhood, just walking distance from where Chemical Weapons inspectors were staying, having just arrived in the country? Why were rescuers and doctors seen in the videos not affected by the residual of the Sarin gas, considering they were not using protective gear?
Why according to MI-5 analysis of the samples, did the substance not match known Syrian Chemical stores? Why did an MIT study show that the tubes recovered could not have delivered the payload the distance the US government accused?
What exactly do you disagree with? Not challenging, and will accept a link if you have written a response already. I often see people say they believe Assad's government is capable of this attack and are guilty, but disregard all questions that put the attack in question.
1) The Attack was never investigated on the ground. There was no corroboration.
2) Reports on the ground do not suggest Sarin use; there was a cloud observed, a smell reported, and rescuers could be seen operating without required protective gear, all of which points to it not being Sarin.
3) According to Reuters, Russia had informed the United States in advance that there would be a bombing in this town.
4) It's not a practical use of the weapon, to small an attack over to wide an area to be really effective.
5) A United Nations team had certified that the Assad regime had surrendered all chemical weapons.
I also challenge the assertion that the Assad regime has been performing small attacks. They have been accused of performing small attacks using chlorine, but nothing has been proved, and again most of the accusations never made any sense. The public was just led to believe that Syrians are evil, and so would use a very ineffective weapon, that would cause more international condemnation than any tactical gain could hope to recoup.
So, I'm wondering why you believe the Assad regime would make such an obvious strategic blunder for little to no tactical gain?
It's in response to the Seymour Hersh article that purports that US intelligence knew there was not a chemical attack by the Syrian Air Force. Can't have Trump's signature "Presidential" moment marred by the fact that Syria didn't drop chemical weapons, and the intelligence shown to him confirmed this.
If you believe what the US military is saying. It must be pointed out, Turkish forces have bombed Kurdish forces on numerous occasions and not had their planes shot down.
The US military doesn't even claim that the Syrian forces were bombing Kurdish forces. Their statement read “dropped bombs near SDF fighters south of Tabqah” How near? According to their official statement it was two kilometers.
Which SDF forces? Were they Kurdish, or one of the more militant groups that have come to be under this nebulous umbrella? No Kurdish group has claimed they were being bombed. Only the US has claimed it was Kurdish groups.
The US has officially stated they "contacted its Russian counterparts by telephone via an established "de-confliction line" to de-escalate the situation and stop the firing." However Russians have released recordings of a call, and in it the US only informs that they will have a plane in the area.
I think more likely, just as the US has bombed Syrian allied units in recent weeks to slow their advances, this plane was shot down as a measured step to hopefully forestall Syrian military advances.
No, I pointed out I don't believe I have ever read a Sputnik article. I have never gone to it's site. But I would also point out, name me something that was actually revealed in the Podesta emails. Does anyone even remember what was in the emails? It gets brought up that there were emails released, but what earth shattering news was in them? Are we to believe that just the release of emails by Wikileaks changed enough minds in the Midwest to change the election?
Also, Fox and CNN covered the release of the Podesta emails. Why would Breitbart need Sputnik? Why not just get the emails directly from Wikileaks? Again we seem to be letting Breitbart off the hook. They have for years created 'Fake news' why now are we saying they were dependent on Russia?
Which stories did RT push about Hillary Clinton? The only one I can remember was her near collapse when she was getting into one of her security vehicles, and the coverage seemed in line with what CNN and Fox reported, maybe leaning more towards Fox.
I keep seeing RT put up as if it had any effect on the election, but no one ever says what the stories were. RT also has Ed Schultz, Tom Hartman, and Larry King on their network, who gave Hillary a lot of positive coverage and negative Trump. So why does RT get brought up? Have you actually ever watched it? It actually gives voice to a lot of progressive ideas, and alternative view points on world events. I have not seen any in depth coverage of Israeli occupation through settlements on the West Bank on CNN or MSNBC, but RT has had a couple of documentaries on the issues, giving Palestinians voice. Did you know that one of the reasons RT was included in the December report was it had broadcast documentaries on the hazards of Fracking? Being Anti-Fracking was seen as proof the Russian government working against the United States. Wait, we're supposed to Hate RT because they showed an Anti-Fracking documentary?
On top of this, how may Americans even watch RT? A couple hundred thousand? What power does it really have?
And I'm not even sure I have ever seen a Sputnik article. I have a feeling Breitbart, Fox, and InfoWars had no trouble coming up with their own garbage about Hillary Clinton. For some reason we are now trying to push the idea that really all those ugly memes were Russian in origin. Really? Are we not just letting Republican and ultra conservatives off the hook for the crap they create?
Last, I have to ask, no one has been able to tell me, what exactly the Russians did that changed the election? If it's true that the Russians hacked the DNC, (actually very little evidence of this) how did that change the election? Did it suppress votes in Milwaukee? No that was Republicans. Did spear phishing John Podesta's emails (even less physical evidence, just the assumption that if the Russians hacked the DNC, they must be behind this), and giving them to Wikileaks change people's minds in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but not California?
No one has ever connected the dots of how this has all played out. We just see reports that Russians interfered, and are left to look at this rather nebulous plot that looks huge, but doesn't have much substance.
I get using the whole Russiagate thing as club to try to beat back the Republicans, and to try and derail their agenda, but it's not working. Republicans are using it as cover to push through some heinous changes in government, and no one is covering it, because all eyes are on Russiagate.
I do think Trump has connections to Russian Oligarchs, I think he managed to stay afloat as a really bad business man because of access to money from Russian's looking to stash cash overseas, but the whole Russian government interfered with our election is rather flimsy.
Russia and Putin have just become the latest Emmanuel Goldstein. Things are not going well in Afghanistan; the Russians are supporting the Taliban. Saudi Arabia and UAE break off relations with Qatar; Russian Hackers in a plot to throw the Gulf into chaos. British vote for Brexit; has to be Putin's interference. All of these have been casually thrown out, none have had a shred of evidence. Yet they get repeated, because it's good to have an enemy; it's profitable to have an advisory.
I wouldn't trust a word out of Michael Khodorovsky's mouth. He isn't an unbiased individual, and that piece in the New York Times was a lot of drivel. It took real facts, and twists them into something far different than the truth.
People in Russia are growing concerned about war. NATO is stationing troops on the border, and the numbers keep increasing. The US has placed the ability to better control missile strikes in Romania and is constructing a site in Poland. The US supported a coup in Ukraine, and is pushing for it to be made part of NATO.
We are inching towards war, and I'm afraid Hillary has shown very little pragmatism in her career when it comes to the use of the military.
There are a few errors in the Professors reporting. First this installation wasn't a temporary base or location, where US intelligence might not have known that it was there. It was a position that had been in place for years.
They hit a number of vehicles that were flying Syrian flags.
The attack did not take place from 30,000 feet, but was done by A-10 Warthogs, close air support craft, supported by F-16's. These jets came in relatively low.
Last, the Professor continues this meme that the US Defense Department has pushed, that Russia has not been hitting Daesh, but that is a bit of propaganda that the US pushed to mitigate the fact that they had been relatively ineffective against ISIS for over a year when Russia entered the war, and to avoid humiliating questions, as to why did ISIS continue to grow and expand while supposedly under attack by coalition forces, yet begin to lose ground once the Russians entered the fray.
One last thing, and this is just supposition, but ISIS forces swept in very quickly after the attack. They did not seem that surprised and were able to take full advantage of the attack.
I love how self righteous we get here in the US. The United States violates international law on a yearly basis. Yet we are supposed to be upset that Russia has increased it's troop levels in Crimea. Also pretty amazing that we seem to just ignore that the majority of people in the Crimea want the Russians there.
How about this, let's support the Crimean referendum and ensure that it is free and fare, and then enforce its results. Heck let' give all the people of Ukraine that option. Then those areas that feel their allegiance to Russia can go their way, and those that feel their future with Europe can go theirs. The shape and size of Ukraine is not sancrosanct. The Czech Republic and Slovakia broke a part, Yugoslavia broke a part, heck Ukraine broke a part from the Soviet Union. The USE sould not stand in the way if the dissolution of the Ukraine, if that is what the people want.
Though this will never happen , we have no problem seeing new nations emerge via secession (Kosovo, East Timor, Slovakia for examples) when the United States likes the result or gains a new ally, yet break away from a potential ally or cross America, the it is against International law ( Abkazia, South Ossetia , and now Crimea).
It is time for The US to stop thinking we are the arbiturres of World affairs. We do not have to interfere , nor do we get to dictate.
Good Morning Professor,
I wanted to retract a comment I left on one of your earlier posts, concerning the Red Crescent and them denying an attack. It seems this was a false narrative, with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent’s Lebanon branch say they are unaware of any statement, and that the Red Crescent was not operational in Douma as of the date of the attack. It was not my intention to spread a false story. So I apologize, though I still contend that the media reporting of the story is being done with a certitude that should not be, and that the media seems all to happy to promote an escalation of war.
This was a very interesting article, with specifics concerning which Russian businessmen Trump has had dealings with. It's interesting that no one ever covers this portion of Trump's Russian coverage. However I wonder about this statement near the end of your article:
'The Agalarovs made a deal to build a Trump Hotel in Moscow, and don’t appear to have given up on the idea, though any such project has been significantly delayed. Emin Agalarov is said to have kept in touch with Trump, phoning him from time to time during the primaries and the campaign, on the grounds that an improvement in US-Russian relations is desirable. These contacts almost certainly came at the instance of the Russian state, perhaps even of Putin himself.'
How do you know these contacts came at the instance of the Russian state, or Putin? That seems like a big leap? What is it based on? I find statements like this get put out often, with little to know factual backing. We are just supposed to think that Putin controls everything in Russia, so of course Putin is behind the Agalarovs keeping in contact with Trump.
Putin could be, but do we know, or is it just random speculation?
U.S. intelligence agencies – 17 of them – agree that evidence shows the Russian government hacked the Democratic National Committee and waged a campaign to influence voters in 2016.
This is not actually true. It's a "fact" that gets tossed out but is no truer today than it was when Hillary Clinton made the statement during a debate last Fall. When Hillary made the statement the number of agencies/offices that had "signed" off on this idea was two. Since then that number has increased to three. Far cry from the seventeen that gets bandied about with no factual basis. Even the number three is circumspect in that a large portion of the report had nothing to do with cyber espionage, but supposed biased coverage of RT and Sputnik, and there is little actual evidence, but just conclusions by analysts.
The analysts could be correct, but there's almost no real evidence. The FBI never was granted access to the server that was hacked. The code that CrowdStrike claims to have discovered is over five years old, and available to hackers, so not definitive proof of Russian government hacking. The CIA report had even less physical evidence, its conclusions solely based on analysts interpretations, yet this is treated like hard evidence.
Actually no, the small attacks since 2013 were all chlorine. The only time Sarin was suggested as a weapon was the 2013 attack, which again had many more questions than people want to answer.
Like, why would Syrian forces use Chemical weapons on a strategically unimportant neighborhood, just walking distance from where Chemical Weapons inspectors were staying, having just arrived in the country? Why were rescuers and doctors seen in the videos not affected by the residual of the Sarin gas, considering they were not using protective gear?
Why according to MI-5 analysis of the samples, did the substance not match known Syrian Chemical stores? Why did an MIT study show that the tubes recovered could not have delivered the payload the distance the US government accused?
What exactly do you disagree with? Not challenging, and will accept a link if you have written a response already. I often see people say they believe Assad's government is capable of this attack and are guilty, but disregard all questions that put the attack in question.
1) The Attack was never investigated on the ground. There was no corroboration.
2) Reports on the ground do not suggest Sarin use; there was a cloud observed, a smell reported, and rescuers could be seen operating without required protective gear, all of which points to it not being Sarin.
3) According to Reuters, Russia had informed the United States in advance that there would be a bombing in this town.
4) It's not a practical use of the weapon, to small an attack over to wide an area to be really effective.
5) A United Nations team had certified that the Assad regime had surrendered all chemical weapons.
I also challenge the assertion that the Assad regime has been performing small attacks. They have been accused of performing small attacks using chlorine, but nothing has been proved, and again most of the accusations never made any sense. The public was just led to believe that Syrians are evil, and so would use a very ineffective weapon, that would cause more international condemnation than any tactical gain could hope to recoup.
So, I'm wondering why you believe the Assad regime would make such an obvious strategic blunder for little to no tactical gain?
It's in response to the Seymour Hersh article that purports that US intelligence knew there was not a chemical attack by the Syrian Air Force. Can't have Trump's signature "Presidential" moment marred by the fact that Syria didn't drop chemical weapons, and the intelligence shown to him confirmed this.
If you believe what the US military is saying. It must be pointed out, Turkish forces have bombed Kurdish forces on numerous occasions and not had their planes shot down.
The US military doesn't even claim that the Syrian forces were bombing Kurdish forces. Their statement read “dropped bombs near SDF fighters south of Tabqah” How near? According to their official statement it was two kilometers.
Which SDF forces? Were they Kurdish, or one of the more militant groups that have come to be under this nebulous umbrella? No Kurdish group has claimed they were being bombed. Only the US has claimed it was Kurdish groups.
The US has officially stated they "contacted its Russian counterparts by telephone via an established "de-confliction line" to de-escalate the situation and stop the firing." However Russians have released recordings of a call, and in it the US only informs that they will have a plane in the area.
I think more likely, just as the US has bombed Syrian allied units in recent weeks to slow their advances, this plane was shot down as a measured step to hopefully forestall Syrian military advances.
No, I pointed out I don't believe I have ever read a Sputnik article. I have never gone to it's site. But I would also point out, name me something that was actually revealed in the Podesta emails. Does anyone even remember what was in the emails? It gets brought up that there were emails released, but what earth shattering news was in them? Are we to believe that just the release of emails by Wikileaks changed enough minds in the Midwest to change the election?
Also, Fox and CNN covered the release of the Podesta emails. Why would Breitbart need Sputnik? Why not just get the emails directly from Wikileaks? Again we seem to be letting Breitbart off the hook. They have for years created 'Fake news' why now are we saying they were dependent on Russia?
Which stories did RT push about Hillary Clinton? The only one I can remember was her near collapse when she was getting into one of her security vehicles, and the coverage seemed in line with what CNN and Fox reported, maybe leaning more towards Fox.
I keep seeing RT put up as if it had any effect on the election, but no one ever says what the stories were. RT also has Ed Schultz, Tom Hartman, and Larry King on their network, who gave Hillary a lot of positive coverage and negative Trump. So why does RT get brought up? Have you actually ever watched it? It actually gives voice to a lot of progressive ideas, and alternative view points on world events. I have not seen any in depth coverage of Israeli occupation through settlements on the West Bank on CNN or MSNBC, but RT has had a couple of documentaries on the issues, giving Palestinians voice. Did you know that one of the reasons RT was included in the December report was it had broadcast documentaries on the hazards of Fracking? Being Anti-Fracking was seen as proof the Russian government working against the United States. Wait, we're supposed to Hate RT because they showed an Anti-Fracking documentary?
On top of this, how may Americans even watch RT? A couple hundred thousand? What power does it really have?
And I'm not even sure I have ever seen a Sputnik article. I have a feeling Breitbart, Fox, and InfoWars had no trouble coming up with their own garbage about Hillary Clinton. For some reason we are now trying to push the idea that really all those ugly memes were Russian in origin. Really? Are we not just letting Republican and ultra conservatives off the hook for the crap they create?
Last, I have to ask, no one has been able to tell me, what exactly the Russians did that changed the election? If it's true that the Russians hacked the DNC, (actually very little evidence of this) how did that change the election? Did it suppress votes in Milwaukee? No that was Republicans. Did spear phishing John Podesta's emails (even less physical evidence, just the assumption that if the Russians hacked the DNC, they must be behind this), and giving them to Wikileaks change people's minds in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but not California?
No one has ever connected the dots of how this has all played out. We just see reports that Russians interfered, and are left to look at this rather nebulous plot that looks huge, but doesn't have much substance.
I get using the whole Russiagate thing as club to try to beat back the Republicans, and to try and derail their agenda, but it's not working. Republicans are using it as cover to push through some heinous changes in government, and no one is covering it, because all eyes are on Russiagate.
I do think Trump has connections to Russian Oligarchs, I think he managed to stay afloat as a really bad business man because of access to money from Russian's looking to stash cash overseas, but the whole Russian government interfered with our election is rather flimsy.
Russia and Putin have just become the latest Emmanuel Goldstein. Things are not going well in Afghanistan; the Russians are supporting the Taliban. Saudi Arabia and UAE break off relations with Qatar; Russian Hackers in a plot to throw the Gulf into chaos. British vote for Brexit; has to be Putin's interference. All of these have been casually thrown out, none have had a shred of evidence. Yet they get repeated, because it's good to have an enemy; it's profitable to have an advisory.
I wouldn't trust a word out of Michael Khodorovsky's mouth. He isn't an unbiased individual, and that piece in the New York Times was a lot of drivel. It took real facts, and twists them into something far different than the truth.
People in Russia are growing concerned about war. NATO is stationing troops on the border, and the numbers keep increasing. The US has placed the ability to better control missile strikes in Romania and is constructing a site in Poland. The US supported a coup in Ukraine, and is pushing for it to be made part of NATO.
We are inching towards war, and I'm afraid Hillary has shown very little pragmatism in her career when it comes to the use of the military.
There are a few errors in the Professors reporting. First this installation wasn't a temporary base or location, where US intelligence might not have known that it was there. It was a position that had been in place for years.
They hit a number of vehicles that were flying Syrian flags.
The attack did not take place from 30,000 feet, but was done by A-10 Warthogs, close air support craft, supported by F-16's. These jets came in relatively low.
Last, the Professor continues this meme that the US Defense Department has pushed, that Russia has not been hitting Daesh, but that is a bit of propaganda that the US pushed to mitigate the fact that they had been relatively ineffective against ISIS for over a year when Russia entered the war, and to avoid humiliating questions, as to why did ISIS continue to grow and expand while supposedly under attack by coalition forces, yet begin to lose ground once the Russians entered the fray.
One last thing, and this is just supposition, but ISIS forces swept in very quickly after the attack. They did not seem that surprised and were able to take full advantage of the attack.
East Timor,
South Sudan,
Eritrea,
Montenegro,
Kosovo,
Bosnia,
Croatia,
Slovenia,
Slovakia,
Lithuania,
Latvia,
Estonia,
Ukraine,
Georgia,
The list goes on. The US has no problem with secession, as long as it benefits the US or hurts a perceived enemy or competitor.
The US has no good argument, they just are the biggest bully in the school yard.
I love how self righteous we get here in the US. The United States violates international law on a yearly basis. Yet we are supposed to be upset that Russia has increased it's troop levels in Crimea. Also pretty amazing that we seem to just ignore that the majority of people in the Crimea want the Russians there.
How about this, let's support the Crimean referendum and ensure that it is free and fare, and then enforce its results. Heck let' give all the people of Ukraine that option. Then those areas that feel their allegiance to Russia can go their way, and those that feel their future with Europe can go theirs. The shape and size of Ukraine is not sancrosanct. The Czech Republic and Slovakia broke a part, Yugoslavia broke a part, heck Ukraine broke a part from the Soviet Union. The USE sould not stand in the way if the dissolution of the Ukraine, if that is what the people want.
Though this will never happen , we have no problem seeing new nations emerge via secession (Kosovo, East Timor, Slovakia for examples) when the United States likes the result or gains a new ally, yet break away from a potential ally or cross America, the it is against International law ( Abkazia, South Ossetia , and now Crimea).
It is time for The US to stop thinking we are the arbiturres of World affairs. We do not have to interfere , nor do we get to dictate.