Russian 'Agent' Maria Butina Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison on 'Conspiracy' Charge

Sara Murray and David Shortell
CNN via Sott.net

A federal judge sentenced Russia national Maria Butina to 18 months in prison on Friday, after she pleaded guilty to trying to infiltrate conservative political circles and promote Russian interests before and after the 2016 presidential election.

Comment: Like many people who plead guilty in the US, she did so because the system there makes you plead guilty in exchange for 'leniency', not because she's actually 'guilty'. In Butina's case, they tortured a confession out of her.

She is the first Russian citizen convicted of crimes relating to the 2016 election, though her efforts to infiltrate Republican circles appeared to be separate from the Kremlin's sweeping election-meddling campaign detailed in special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

Comment: That's CNN's way of saying she had no connection with the Kremlin whatsoever.

The 30-year-old gun rights enthusiast has been incarcerated since her arrest in July and will receive credit for the nine months previously served. She will be deported to Russia after serving her sentence.

Comment: Take note, American 'gun rights enthusiasts': they're 'gunning' for you next.

"This was no simple misunderstanding by an overeager foreign student," Judge Tanya Chutkan said.

Chutkan said that Butina, who studied at American University in Washington, engaged in work on behalf of a Russian official that was "sophisticated" and "dangerous."

"The conduct was sophisticated and penetrated deep into political organizations," Chutkan said, siding with the government's sentencing recommendation and noting that Butina's actions took place as Russia was actively trying to interfere in the US democratic process. 

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Caitlin Johnstone Rages: "Mock The Russiagaters. Mock Them Ruthlessly"

Caitlan Johnstone
Medium.com 

The Robert Mueller investigation which monopolized political discourse for two years has finally concluded, and his anxiously awaited report has been submitted to Attorney General William Barr. The results are in and the debate is over: those advancing the conspiracy theory that the Kremlin has infiltrated the highest levels of the US government were wrong, and those of us voicing skepticism of this were right.

The contents of the report are still secret, but CNN’s Justice Department reporter Laura Jarrett has told us all we need to know, tweeting, “Special Counsel Mueller is not recommending ANY further indictments am told.” On top of that, William Barr said in a letter to congressional leaders that there has been no obstruction of Mueller’s investigation by Justice Department officials.

So that’s it, then. A completely unhindered investigation has failed to convict a single American of any kind of conspiracy with the Russian government, and no further indictments are coming. The political/media class which sold rank-and-file Americans on the lie that the Mueller investigation was going to bring down this presidency were liars and frauds, and none of the goalpost-moving that I am sure is already beginning to happen will change that.

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Western Anti-Russia Paranoia Reaches Fever-Pitch

Strategic Culture Foundation

Western corporate news media have got to be one of the most irresponsible and toxic entities. In particular, their contribution to distorting international relations with Russia and stoking tensions is bordering on incitement.

It is astounding and atrocious that such paranoid thinking is displayed on a massive scale. Western establishment news media, without a hint of irony, proclaim to be independent, critical, free-thinking and defenders of democracy. How delusional. They are increasingly serving up war propaganda like ministries of disinformation in a truly Orwellian scenario. And yet Western media have the arrogant hypocrisy to vilify Russia for malign intent.

German media recently accused Russian news channels of “propaganda” and demanded their shutdown. British media, including supposedly “quality” brands, run sensational reports about Russian warships “menacing” Britain and Europe because those vessels sailed through proximate international waters. Alleged Russian cyberattacks are aiming to destroy civil society and infrastructure. And so on.

But this week, it was American news media that once again excelled in irresponsible anti-Russia paranoia. The CNN news channel "informed" its viewers of how Russia and North Korea were “teaming up” as “two of America’s most dangerous adversaries”. The brief report is worth studying for its sinister use of images and innuendo to convey alleged nefarious intentions imputed to both Russia and North Korea towards US national security. 

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CNN’s May Ratings Already Collapsing by 20-Plus Percent

Comment: And alternative media continues to steer audiences away from the MSM overall. 

------------------
Briebart

While Fox News and MSNBC are more or less holding steady this week when compared to the full month of May last year, the far-left CNN is already in a total ratings freefall by 20 percent and more.

With three weeks of May still remaining, the Stormy Daniels Network might be able to mount (if you’ll pardon the expression) a comeback, but as of right now the month is looking like it could be a serious humiliation for CNN—and not just in total viewers but the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demo, as well.

During primetime hours throughout May of last year, CNN averaged 1.12 million total viewers and 399,000 demo viewers.

During the first week of May this year, CNN averaged just 859,000 total viewers and 286,000 demo viewers, which represents a jaw-dropping collapse of 23 percent and 29 percent, respectively.

By comparison, year-over-year in primetime, Fox News is up 5 percent in total viewers (2.24 million compared to 2.359 million) and experience only a 1 percent drop in the demo (453K compared to 448K).

MSNBC enjoyed a 4 percent increase in total viewers (1.69 million compared to 1.755 million) and a 16 percent drop in the demo (417K compared to 352K).

So, during primetime last week, CNN was only able to attract to attract an average of 859,000 total viewers compared to 1.755 million for MSNBC and 2.359 million for Fox.

In other words, MSNBC is nearly doubling CNN’s total primetime viewers while Fox News is nearly tripling CNN.

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Comey's memos indicate dossier briefing of Trump was a setup

Mollie Hemingway
The Federalist  
via sott.net

Newly released memos written by former FBI director James Comey indicate that an early 2017 briefing for then-President-elect Donald Trump about the contents of an infamous dossier was held so it could be leaked to media outlets eager to report on the dossier's allegations. In multiple memos, Comey specifically mentioned that CNN had the dossier and wanted a "news hook" that would enable the network to report on its most salacious allegations even though they had not been verified.

"I said the Russians allegedly had tapes involving him and prostitutes at the Presidential Suite at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow from about 2013," Comey wrote of his conversation with Trump in a classified memo that was released in redacted form late Thursday. "I said I wasn't saying this was true, only that I wanted him to know both that it had been reported and that the reports were in many hands."
No media organizations had reported the allegations at the time Comey briefed Trump.

"I said media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook," Comey added in his memo about the briefing with Trump on January 6, 2017.

In another classified memo written on January 28, 2017, Comey wrote that in a separate meeting Trump mentioned the allegation about the alleged tape of prostitutes at a hotel and called it "fake news."

"I explained again why I had thought it important that he know about it," Comey wrote. "I also explained that one of the reasons we told him was that the media, CNN in particular, was telling us they were about to run with it."
Of the many thousands of articles promoting a still-unproven theory of treasonous collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia, few were as significant as CNN's January 10 story "Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him." Extremely well-placed sources told CNN that the Obama administration's top intelligence appointees had briefed Obama, Biden, and Trump all about a dossier they took incredibly seriously and considered credible. And it sounded really bad, as the headline indicated. "Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump," CNN declared.

BuzzFeed published the actual dossier within minutes of CNN's story going live, showing the world that the dossier was riddled with salacious gossip that lacked even a possibility of corroboration.

Keep in mind that nothing we now know about the dossier had been reported at the time.

It wasn't yet reported that it was used by the FBI to provide a substantial basis to wiretap at least one Trump affiliate despite the fact it was unverified.

It wasn't yet reported that the product was bought and paid for as a Hillary Clinton campaign operation, or that it was secretly funded by the DNC using a law firm as a pass-through to hide its provenance in federal campaign filings.

It wasn't yet reported that its author's working relationship with the FBI was terminated because he had lied to the agency about how he wouldn't talk to the media.

After nearly a year of wrangling, the seven memos written by Comey were finally handed over on Thursday to Congress, which oversees the operation and funding of the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ). The memos purport to show Comey's version of his interactions with the president before Comey was fired last May. According to Daniel Richman, the original recipient of Comey's leaks who now claims to be his personal attorney, Comey gave him four memos. Four of the seven memos are classified, meaning that at least one of the memos he leaked was classified. By his own account, Comey orchestrated these leaks to the media in order to launch an aggressive special counsel to avenge his firing by Trump in May 2017. The memos given to Congress on Thursday were quickly leaked to the media. 

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The U.S. Media Yesterday Suffered its Most Humiliating Debacle in Ages: Now Refuses All Transparency Over What Happened

The Intercept

 

Friday was one of the most embarrassing days for the U.S. media in quite a long time. The humiliation orgy was kicked off by CNN, with MSNBC and CBS close behind, with countless pundits, commentators and operatives joining the party throughout the day. By the end of the day, it was clear that several of the nation’s largest and most influential news outlets had spread an explosive but completely false news story to millions of people, while refusing to provide any explanation of how it happened.

The spectacle began on Friday morning at 11:00 am EST, when the Most Trusted Name in News™ spent 12 straight minutes on air flamboyantly hyping an exclusive bombshell report that seemed to prove that WikiLeaks, last September, had secretly offered the Trump campaign, even Donald Trump himself, special access to the DNC emails before they were published on the internet. As CNN sees the world, this would prove collusion between the Trump family and WikiLeaks and, more importantly, between Trump and Russia, since the U.S. intelligence community regards WikiLeaks as an “arm of Russian intelligence,” and therefore, so does the U.S. media.

This entire revelation was based on an email which CNN strongly implied it had exclusively obtained and had in its possession. The email was sent by someone named “Michael J. Erickson” – someone nobody had heard of previously and whom CNN could not identify – to Donald Trump, Jr., offering a decryption key and access to DNC emails that WikiLeaks had “uploaded.” The email was a smoking gun, in CNN’s extremely excited mind, because it was dated September 4 – ten days before WikiLeaks began promoting access to those emails online – and thus proved that the Trump family was being offered special, unique access to the DNC archive: likely by WikiLeaks and the Kremlin.

It’s impossible to convey with words what a spectacularly devastating scoop CNN believed it had, so it’s necessary to watch it for yourself to see the tone of excitement, breathlessness and gravity the network conveyed as they clearly believed they were delivering a near-fatal blow to the Trump/Russia collusion story:

There was just one small problem with this story: it was fundamentally false, in the most embarrassing way possible. Hours after CNN broadcast its story – and then hyped it over and over and over – the Washington Post reported that CNN got the key fact of the story wrong.

The email was not dated September 4, as CNN claimed, but rather September 14 – which means it was sent after WikiLeaks had already published access to the DNC emails online. Thus, rather than offering some sort of special access to Trump, “Michael J. Erickson” was simply some random person from the public encouraging the Trump family to look at the publicly available DNC emails that WikiLeaks – as everyone by then already knew – had publicly promoted. In other words, the email was the exact opposite of what CNN presented it as being.

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'Bigger than Iraq's WMD': The 12 fake news stories that form 'Russiagate'

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran

Examination of the evidence for every one of the 12 claims made about Russiagate shows that they are untrue.

As others have pointed out, June has been a cruel month for believers in Russiagate. I had previously expressed the view that it would collapse in early summer, ie. around now. Whilst that has turned out to be over-optimistic, the scandal is certainly sagging, what with the revelations from within CNN about the cynicism with which the scandal is being seen there.

I would add in passing that in Britain CNN revelations have been entirely unreported.

In any event, since the scandal looks to be sagging, and may be in the early stages of collapse, this seems to me a good moment to give a comprehensive overview of all the various claims which have made over the course of the scandal, and to see how they stack up. I will therefore deal here with them all, concentrating initially on the three which are by far the most important.
(1) The Russians hacked the DNC's and John Podesta's computers and stole the emails they found there

This is the original, central claim in the Russiagate scandal. Every other claim which has been made by its believers stems from it. Should it ever be proved to be untrue then all the theories which have abounded during the scandal, and all the claims of Russian meddling in the US Presidential election and of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, will collapse.

Not surprisingly believers in the scandal therefore insist on the truth of this claim. To deny it, or to express skepticism about it, is to open oneself up to charges of being a Kremlin stooge or a Putin apologist or - worse still - an agent of the Russian government. Unsurprisingly no political figure in the US is prepared to risk that, with even Donald Trump - the only politician in the US who has ever publicly expressed doubts about this claim - saying nonetheless that he still "believes" it.

In reality the evidence for Russian hacking of the DNC's and of John Podesta's computers is extremely thin.
No agency of the US government has examined these computers. The only examination of the computers which has taken place, and the only investigation of the hacking allegation which has been carried out, has been the work of a private company - CrowdStrike - whose opinions the relevant US government agencies have simply accepted as true.

I have never come across such a situation before, where a police agency bases its conclusions not on its own investigations but entirely on the opinions of a private detective agency.
 
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O'Keefe Drops "Bombshell" Undercover Footage From Within CNN

Zero Hedge

As promised two days ago on the Sean Hannity radio show, James O'Keefe and his team at Project Veritas just released covertly captured, previously unheard audio footage from within the CNN newsroom.  But unlike his usual undercover sting operations, this footage was allegedly sourced from a CNN insider who apparently grew frustrated with the perpetually biased reporting of the "fake news" media outlet. 

Per O'Keefe's website, today's release includes 119 hours of secretly recorded raw footage from an inside source at CNN with another 100 hours of footage still to be released.  Given the volume of footage to be released, O'Keefe is asking for help to transcribe and investigate the recordings and encourages users to provide tips on interesting discoveries here.

The audio was secretly recorded in 2009 by an anonymous source inside CNN’s Atlanta headquarters who we are identifying as Miss X. The tapes contain soundbites from current and previous CNN employees Joe Sterling, Arthur Brice, and Nicky Robertson, as well as numerous others. 

In order to expose media malfeasance within CNN, we need your help transcribing, investigating and connecting the dots on these 200+ hours of audio. Leave comments, upload transcriptions or contact us with your tips below.

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CNN gets Trumped: Highlights of The Donald's first post-election press conference

Adam Garrie
The Duran

Trump pulled no punches in his first post-election press conference. He was unrelenting against the fake news merchants in mainstream media.

Donald Trump just gave his first post-election press conference. Speaking for approximately an hour, it was far short of President Vladimir Putin's five hour end-of-year marathons, but the entertainment was non-stop.

Trump's humour has almost certainly helped him cope with his ill-treatment at the hands of the fake stream media. Far from being a foreign agent, he seems to love his country and more importantly, love his countrymen. He seems to genuinely sympathise with the concerns of ordinary people. As President he will engage with them, not with the media and corporate elite.
Here are the crucial points... 

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Deep State neocons have declared war on Trump

The Saker

After several rather lame false starts, the Neocons have now taken a step which can only be called a declaration of war against Donald Trump.

It all began with CNN published an article entitled "Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him" which claimed that:

Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN. The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible (...) The two-page synopsis also included allegations that there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government, according to two national security officials.

The website Buzzfeed then published the full document.

When I first read the document my intention was to debunk it sentence by sentence. However, I don't have the time for that and, frankly, there is no need for it. I will just provide you here with enough simple straightforward evidence that this is a fake. Here are just a few elements of proof:

1. The document has no letterhead, no identification, no date, no nothing. For many good technical and even legal reasons, sensitive intelligence documents are created with plenty of tracking and identification information. For example, such a document would typically have a reference to the unit which produced it or an number-letter combination indicating the reliability of the source and of the information it contains.
2. The classification CONFIDENTIAL/SENSITIVE SOURCE is a joke. If this was a true document its level of classification would be much, much higher than "confidential" and since most intelligence documents come from sensitive sources there is no need to specify that.
3. The allegation that "The dossier is controlled by Kremlin spokesman, PESKOV, directly on PUTIN'S orders" is beyond laughable. Clearly the author of this fake has no idea how the Russian intelligence and security services work (hint: the Presidential spokesman has no involvement in that whatsoever)

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Trump Slams BuzzFeed As "Failing Pile Of Garbage", Tells CNN "You Are Fake News"

Zero Hedge

In an epic (mutual) trolling between president-elect Trump on one hand and BuzzFeed and CNN, on the other, the two media organizations which issued yesterday's unsubstantiated report about Russia having compromising information on the president-elect, Trump first addressed the question of why he referred to Nazi Germany, saying it is "disgraceful" that intelligence communities would allow the release of any information. "That's something Nazi Germany would have done and did do," he says. 

He then unleashed on Buzzfeed which alone published the 35-page memo behind the Russian allegations, saying "Buzzfeed which is a failing pile of garbage... will suffer the consequences."  

And then, in an even more stunning episode, Trump slammed CNN reporter Jim Acosta, who he also called out during the presser over their report on a two-page synopsis they claim was presented to Trump. 

With Trump looking to call on other reporters, Jim Acosta yelled out, “Since you are attacking us, can you give us a question?” 

“Not you,” Trump said. “Your organization is terrible!”

Acosta pressed on, “You are attacking our news organization, can you give us a chance to ask a question, sir?” Trump countered by telling him “don’t be rude.” 

“I’m not going to give you a question,” Trump responded. “Don't be rude. I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news!” Trump responded, before calling on a reporter from Breitbart.

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Fake News Alert: CNN Finally Admits White Helmets Staged Fake Video

Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer

CNN, among many other establishment media platforms, has long promoted the US-European funded “Syrian Civil Defence” also known as the “White Helmets.” Yet on November 25, they published an article titled, “Syria’s White Helmets apologize for Mannequin Challenge video,” in which they admit:

It’s a familiar scene: Syria Civil Defence, also known as the “White Helmets,” rushing to rescue a man covered in rubble, but unlike thousands of other videos from Aleppo, this one is staged.

CNN would continue by claiming:

The nearly one-minute long video has been the subject of criticism on social media. On Wednesday Syria Civil Defence released a statement calling it an “error of judgment”.
“This video and the related posts were recorded by RFS media with Syria Civil Defence volunteers, who hoped to create a connection between the horror of Syria and the outside world using the viral ‘Mannequin challenge.’ This was an error of judgment, and we apologize on behalf of the volunteers involved,” the statement read.

Ignored by both the “White Helmets’” and RFS’ as well as CNN’s explanation of the video is the fact that the now admittedly staged video – besides the “mannequin challenge” style – is virtually indistinguishable from the “thousands of other videos from Aleppo” cited by CNN.
Just like “thousands of other videos from Aleppo” cited by CNN, the “victim” being “rescued” by the “White Helmets” is covered in dust and what appears to be blood, but otherwise uninjured. Unlike in a real bombing, those “rescued” by the “White Helmet” have their limbs intact, no deep, visible wounds, and lack any of the burns or trauma associated with weaponry used in modern combat.

It is unlikely that out of the “thousands of other videos from Aleppo” cited by CNN, none of them would feature actual trauma, and instead feature only the dust and fake “blood” covered “victims” as seen in the recent, admittedly staged video, as well as during recently staged protests in Europe.

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Video of the Day – CNN Anchor Embarrasses Herself in Interview with the UK’s Daniel Hannan

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg 

 “I was bribed by billionaires, I was bribed by the Americans to report…not exactly the truth.” 

–  From the post: “Non-Official Cover” – Respected German Journalist Blows Whistle on How the CIA Controls the Media

If you want a perfect example of why everyone hates the media so much, take a look at this interview, I mean interrogation, of British MEP Daniel Hannan by CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour.

Her bias is so unbelievably transparent, it’s embarrassing.

Finally, while we’re on the topic of CNN, I’ve got another gem for you. Take a look at how easily Vladimir Putin undress CNN’s Fareed Zakaria:

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Infrakshun Comment: And you might want to see Putin wipe the floor with another shamefully biased and ignorant veteran BBC "journalist" John Simpson:

St. Louis Cop Suspended After Radical Views Are Exposed by YouTuber

Activist Post

Sergeant Dan Page of the St. Louis County Police Department was caught earlier this week participating in what seemed like a staged CNN broadcast in Ferguson where he shoved reporter Don Lemon while standing with peaceful protesters.

YouTube activist The Black Child noticed the encounter on CNN and quickly identified Page and exposed his radical views in the video below. The Black Child pulled clips from a 2012 lecture given by Sergeant Page where he gives detailed plans of a military police state takeover of America.

CNN has now confirmed the officer pretending to manhandle reporter Don Lemon is indeed Dan Page in that 2012 lecture. Page has been suspended for his ideology and will be forced to undergo psychiatric evaluation. Of course, they still pretend that Page wasn't a CNN-paid provocateur in that ridiculous sidewalk scene.

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"Accidental" Giant Navy Swastika Building Was No Accident

Remember...?

Daily Kos
September 28th 2007

"We knew what it [the building complex] was going to look like"
 - Architect John Mock

The story of the US Navy's giant swastika-shaped barracks, built in the late 1960's and located at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, just South of San Diego, has been all over the news. Rightly so - it's the biggest government subsidized swastika display on Earth.

Below is a YouTube presentation - a simple silent slide show of clips taken of views, through Google Earth, that zoom in, from space, on the giant NAB swastika complex.

The US media has now deigned to make this story into a major media spectacle. But, media depictions you may have heard in the last 24 hours, on the origin of the giant swastika-barracks which houses Navy SEALS, will probably all amount to evasion, distortions, or even lies.

Here's the media whitewash:

After Google Earth made the Navy's giant government-subsidized swastika building complex, located at the Coronado Naval Amphibious Base near San Diego, visible to anyone on Earth, the resultant publicity, outcry, and mounting political pressure has led the US Navy to budget $600,000 to change the swastika shape of the barracks: to unmake the swastika, which according to the US Navy was the result of an embarrassing planning oversight.

CNN below, repeats the United States Navy's claim that the NAB Swastika complex was accidental. But, that claim has been disproved, as detailed further in this post, by researcher Avrahaum Segol.

Here's CNN's story:

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The Sochi Olympic Games and the Threat of a Terrorist Attack. Who is Behind the Caucasus Terrorists?

Global Research
Michel Chossudovsky

In the weeks leading up to the Sochi Winter Olympics, the Western Media has released a dribble of “trustworthy reports” examining “the likelihood” of a terrorist attack at the height of the Olympic games. 

In late January, the British government warned “that more terrorist attacks in Russia (following the Volgograd attack in December) are “very likely to occur before or during the Winter Olympics in Sochi”. (BBC, January 27, 2014).

As the Olympic torch reaches Sochi, CNN released, in a timely fashion, the results of an “authoritative” opinion poll (based on a meager sample of 1000 individuals): “57% of Americans think terror attack likely at Sochi Games”

Earlier news reports focussed on the mysterious menace of a so-called “Black Widow” terrorist attack emanating from Chechnya, Russia’s hotspot of Islamic terrorism. According to a so-called “catastrophe expert”  Dr Gordon Woo, a Black Widow attack “is almost certain to happen”:

“Because of the history between the Russians and the Chechen people who splintered to form the Caucasus Emirate, Sochi is a prime target for terrorism,” said Woo, who has advanced insurance modelling of catastrophes, including designing a model for terrorism risk. (Business Times, UK)

The Sochi Games are occurring at the height of a Worldwide crisis marked by the confrontation between the US and Russia on the geopolitical chessboard. In turn, the ongoing protest movement in Ukraine has a bearing on Russia’s geopolitical control of the Black Sea.

What would be the underlying political objective of a terrorist attack?

Are these slanted media reports solely intended to create an aura of fear and uncertainty which causes political embarrassment to the Russian authorities?

While network TV and the tabloids have their eyes riveted on the Black Widow, the more fundamental question as to Who is behind the Caucasus terrorists goes unmentioned.

None of the news reports has focused on the fundamental question which is required in assessing the terror threat.

Both the history of Al Qaeda as well as recent developments in Syria and Libya confirm unequivocally that the Al Qaeda network is covertly supported by Western intelligence.

History: Who is Behind the Chechen Terrorists?

What are the historical origins of the Chechen jihadists, which are now allegedly threatening the Sochi Games? Who is behind them?

In the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US waged a covert war against Russia. The objective was to promote the secession of Chechnya, a “renegade autonomous region” of the Russian Federation, at the crossroads of strategic oil and gas pipeline routes.

This was a covert intelligence operation. The main Chechen rebel leaders, Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab, were trained and indoctrinated in CIA-sponsored camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The two main Chechen jihadist formations, affiliated to Al Qaeda were estimated at 35,000 strong. They were supported by Pakistan’s Military intelligence (ISI) on behalf of the CIA; funding was also channeled to Chechnya through the Wahabbi missions from Saudi Arabia.

The ISI played a key role in organizing and training the Chechnya rebel army:

“[In 1994] the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence arranged for Basayev and his trusted lieutenants to undergo intensive Islamic indoctrination and training in guerrilla warfare in the Khost province of Afghanistan at Amir Muawia camp, set up in the early 1980s by the CIA and ISI and run by famous Afghani warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In July 1994, upon graduating from Amir Muawia, Basayev was transferred to Markaz-i-Dawar camp in Pakistan to undergo training in advanced guerrilla tactics. In Pakistan, Basayev met the highest ranking Pakistani military and intelligence officers (Levon Sevunts, “Who’s Calling The Shots? Chechen conflict finds Islamic roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan”, The Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999.)

Following his training and indoctrination stint, Basayev was assigned to lead the assault against Russian federal troops in the first Chechen war in 1995. (Vitaly Romanov and Viktor Yadukha, “Chechen Front Moves To Kosovo”, Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000)

The Geopolitics of the Sochi Winter Olympics

The Sochi Olympics are at a strategic location on the Black Sea at the crossroads of Russia’s oil and gas pipelines.

The forbidden question (both by the West as well as by the Russian government) in addressing the possibility of a terror attack is: Who is behind the Terrorists?

While the US sponsored Chechen rebels were defeated in the 1990s by Russian forces, various Al Qaeda affiliated formations –including the “Caucasus Emirate militant group, Imarat Kavkaz (IK) — remain active in the Southern Caucasus region of the Russian Federation (e.g. Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia) and Abkhazia.

Both the Russian based Al Qaeda groups as well as the broader network of jihadist formations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Balkans constitute CIA “intelligence assets” which could potentially be used to trigger a terrorist event at the height of the Sochi Olympics.

Needless to say, Moscow is fully aware that Al Qaeda is an instrument of Western intelligence. And Moscow is also aware that the US is covertly supporting terror groups which threaten the security of the Olympic Games.

Within the Russian military and intelligence establishment, this is known, documented and discussed behind closed doors. Yet at the same time, it is a “forbidden truth”. It is taboo to talk about it in public or to raise it at the diplomatic level. Washington knows that Moscow knows: “I know you know I know”.
The more fundamental questions which both the Russian and Western media are not addressing for obvious reasons:

• Who is behind the Caucasus terrorists?
• What geopolitical interests would be served, were the US and its allies to decide to trigger a “False Flag” terror event before or during the Sochi Olympic Games?