I am hopeful that the commendable discovery process involved in US litigation will bring to light further details of the genesis of Christopher Steele’s ludicrous dossier on Trump/Russia, and may even give some clues as to whether Sergei Skripal and/or his handler Pablo Miller were involved in its contents.
The decision by the Democratic National Committee to sue the Russian Government, Wikileaks, Julian Assange personally and the Trump campaign is an act of colossal hubris. It is certain to reveal still more details of the deliberate fixing of the primary race against Bernie Sanders, over which five DNC members, including the Chair, were forced to resign. It will also lead to the defendants being able to forensically examine the DNC servers to prove they were not hacked – something which astonishingly the FBI refused to do, being instead content to take the word of the DNC’s own private cyber security firm, Crowdstrike. Unless those servers have been wiped completely (as Hillary did to her private email server) I know that is not going to go well for the DNC.
I cannot better Glenn Greenwald’s article on why it is a terrible idea to sue Wikileaks for publishing leaked documents – it sets a precedent which could be used to constrain media from ever publishing anything given them by whistleblowers. It is an astonishingly illiberal thing to undertake. Nor is it politically wise. The media has done its very best to ignore as far as possible the actual content of the leaks of DNC material, and rather to concentrate on the wild accusations of how they were obtained. But the fundamental crookedness revealed in the emails is bound to get some sort of airing, not least as the basis of a public interest defence.
I have often been asked if I regret my association with Wikileaks, given they are held responsible for the election of Donald Trump. My answer is that I feel no remorse at all.
Hillary Clinton lost because she was an appalling candidate. A multi-millionaire, neo-con warmonger with the warmth and empathy of a three week dead haddock and an eye for the interests of Wall Street, who regarded ordinary voters as “deplorables” (a term she used not just once, but frequently at fund-raisers with the mega-wealthy). Hillary Clinton conspired with the machine that was supposed to be neutrally running the primaries, to fix the primaries against Bernie Sanders. The opinion polls regularly showed that Sanders would beat Trump, and that the only Democratic candidate who Trump could beat was Clinton. Egomania and a massive sense of entitlement nevertheless led her not just to persist to get the candidacy, but persist to rig the candidacy. She then proceeded to ignore major urban working class battleground states in her campaign against Trump and focus on more glamorous places. In short, Hillary was corrupt rubbish. Full stop, and not remotely Wikileaks’ fault.
Wikileaks did not go out to get the evidence against Hillary. They were given it. Should they have withheld the knowledge of the rigging of the field against Bernie Sanders from the American people, to let Clinton benefit from the corruption? For me that is a no-brainer. It would have been a gross moral dereliction to have done so. It is also the case that Wikileaks can only publish what they are given. Had they been given dirt on Trump, they would have published. But they were not given any leaks on Trump.
I should put in an aside here which might surprise you. I like Anthony Weiner. I have never met him, but I watched the amazing 2016 fly on the wall documentary Weiner and he came across as a person of genuine goodwill, passion and commitment, undermined by what is very obviously a pathological illness. I realise that was not the general reaction, but it was mine.
But – and now I am going to really annoy people – I have to say that from an international perspective, rather than an American domestic perspective, I am also not in the slightest convinced that Trump has been worse for the World than Clinton would have been. Trump has not, to date, initiated any new military intervention or substantially increased any military conflict during his Presidency. In fact his current actions more closely match his words about non-intervention during his election campaign, than do his current words. Despite hawkish posturing, he has not substantially increased American military intervention in Syria.
My reading of the reported chemical weapon attack on Douma is this. Whether it was a false flag chemical attack, a pro-Assad chemical attack, or no chemical attack at all I do not know for sure. But whichever it is, it was used to attempt to get Trump to commit to a major escalation of American involvement in the war in Syria. So far, he has not done that. The American-led missile attack was illegal, but fortunately comparatively restrained, certainly in no way matching Trump’s rhetoric. All the evidence is, and there is a great deal of evidence from Libya and Afghanistan, that Clinton would have been far more aggressive.
That leaves the dichotomy between Trump’s rhetoric and his actions. Certainly there is every sign of a sharp tilt to the neo-cons, His apparent preference in his press conference with Macron today for an extended presence of France, the former colonial power, and US troops in Syria is deeply troubling. His sacking of the sensible Tillerson from the State Department, and his appointment of the odious John Bolton as National Security Adviser all appear to be terrible signs. But still, nothing has actually happened. There is a reading that Trump is placating the neo-cons with position and rhetoric while his actions – in Syria and in what a hating political class fails to acknowledge has all the makings of a diplomatic coup in North Korea – go in a very different direction.
It is beyond doubt that Hillary, who cannot open her mouth without denouncing Russia for causing her own entirely self-inflicted failure – would be taking the new Cold War to even worse extremes than it has already reached, to the delight of the military-industrial complex and her Wall Street friends. It is open to debate, but I would contend that it is very probable that President Hillary would have launched a major attack on Syria by now, just like she presided over as Secretary of State in Libya.
So my answer is this. Firstly, Clinton caused her own downfall by arrogance, and by failing to grasp the alienation of ordinary people from neo-liberal policies that impoverished them while the rich grew massively richer. Secondly, I strongly suspect that if Hillary were President, more people would be dead now in the Middle East.
So no, I have no regrets at all.
————————————————————————
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Excellent analysis as usual from Craig.
Hillary was the obvious candidate for a broken system. Since the 2010 Supreme Court, Citizens United ruling campaign financing has grown exponentially.
The DNC was reported bankrupt in the run up to the election and H C had a record war chest.
Trying to compare like with like (absolutes not pertaining) H C spent 0.56 Billion, D T 0.33 Billion.
The DNC rejected the possibility of an insurgent campaign (B S) and being career hacks went with H C.
Trump played up his campaign as an insurgency (playing down the big money contributions, including the odious Mercers).
The Gangster Party Candidate- Trump’s ties to Russian Organized Crime.
https://theins.ru/uncategorized/98190?lang=en
http://archive.is/KDQyz
While Holyrood has its institutional powers in jeopardy and while there’s a crisis in his own constituency over the biggest employer in Annan wanting to up sticks, ‘Scottish?’ Secretary David Mundell preferred to campaign in lovely gentrified Camden the other day for his party.
Mind you he’s probably keeping in with the Tory constituency parties in London for when the time comes to do a Rifkind. Riffraff got himself the ultra safe Tory seat of Kensington & Chelsea in 2005 after being booted out by the voters in Edinburgh Pentlands in 1997 and kept out by them in 2001.
This has become my first-to-read column; if I ever get work, I’ll pay up for sure: and for now, thank you so much for keeping it free to read.
Trump was an expert witness. That was one of his jobs. He witnessed it, and was interviewed the same day it happenned. He seemed as shocked as anyone, so its highly unlikely he had any pre-knowledge. Once he realised the implications, he kept pretty quiet about it, but there is no way, that he doesn’t know the truth.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/566189/9-11-attacks-donald-trump-twin-bombs-world-trade-center
This case will never come to court.
It will have to wait for the conclusion of Mueller’s investigation and presumably Manafort’s trial. Then it will be dumped. It has only been brought for propaganda purposes in the run up to the midterms.
No remorse for you either, then? No matter how bad Trump is, you’ll always prefer him over Clinton? That’s one hell of a commitment to populist politics… (Backing the billionaire in the name of anti-elitism.)
We have made it through 15 of 48 months without him attacking Iran, North Korea or escalating the conflict in Syria.
Good going imo.
But escalating and worsening everything else
On a side-note… Is it just me? Or is anyone else astonished that Ian Blackford’s two questions to the PM on Wednesday are never about Scottish independence?
It is a national platform and this is the only reason the SNP are supposed to be at Westminster. Why are the questions of BBC bias, the improper use of the Scottish Office, the lies about North Sea Oil, the Vow, the coalitions between the Red and Blue Tories in Scottish councils being brought to the light? The dismal state of the Scottish media, led by the BBC… the lies to pensioners and fishermen?
Surely the SNP should be only talking about Scottish independence? Or at least mainly about Scottish independence?
‘Who is James Le Mesurier?’: https://off-guardian.org/2018/04/17/who-is-james-le-mesurier/
‘..In addition to the White Helmets in Syria, Mayday is active in Mogadishu, developing the city’s emergency services network, and exploring the development of similar community-based resilience initiatives in other fragile and failing states ….”
A ‘Dog of War’ (the old tag for mercenaries) forms a life-saving group in Syria, funded heavily by the same Western powers that are intent on ‘Regime Change’ in the country? And some people don’t smell a rat?
He also set up similar groups in Somalia (one of Wesley Clark’s ‘7 countries in 5 years’, as of course is Syria).
This whole business is such a can of worms. Steele’s programme of anti-Russian hysteria brought together so many unsavoury brothers in arms.
When Craig’s interview with Sky was pulled, I did wonder if it was because he mentioned the Ukrainians as a prime group who might have a motive. Many of the so-called ‘Russian’ sources in the Trump dossier are in fact Ukrainian. This aligns them with the equally hysterical anti-Putin oligarchs and assorted bandits in London as well as MI6, who almost appear to be partners in crime.
In the comments section of Craig’s earlier piece on the dossier, many ask whether Orbis is really a private company or simply an MI6 front. As with the Skripal reporting, D notices were originally put against mentions of Steele. There too, many note the heavy censorship of comments to media articles – the Guardian in particular.
One thing I find particularly suspicious about the Skripal poisoning is that the propaganda campaign was set to go the next day. Curiously, the picture of Sergei and Julia in the pub, flashed around the world in seconds, was sourced from a Ukrainian stock agency. There was a Colin Powell style powerpoint presentation mailed to 80 embassies in Moscow, even before the Novichock sample had been submitted to the OPCW. It also included a litany of Russia’s other sins, MH 17, invading Georgia and Crimea, fixing the US elections, so on . . . full of accusations ranging from totally unsubstantiated to rewriting history. As was the dossier.
@ copydude April 25, 2018 at 16:00
‘….There was a Colin Powell style powerpoint presentation mailed to 80 embassies in Moscow, even before the Novichock sample had been submitted to the OPCW. It also included a litany of Russia’s other sins, MH 17, invading Georgia and Crimea, fixing the US elections, so on . . . full of accusations ranging from totally unsubstantiated to rewriting history. As was the dossier.’
Extreme pity, and puzzling, that the Russians don’t do the same, reminding all the Moscow Ambassadors, and every member of the UN Security Council and General Council and of course the media about ‘Operation Gladio’ where bombings and other atrocities (such as the Bologna Train Station bombing – 85 dead – and the Brabant massacre) which were perpetrated by right-wing, CIA-set-up groups and blamed on Reds and the Left.
This would remind them, or inform them, that real mass killings were deliberately done in order to lay the blame on the Reds, and by implication the Soviet Union.
@Copydude
“One thing I find particularly suspicious about the Skripal poisoning is that the propaganda campaign was set to go the next day.”
Should one generously allow that TM, BJ and their minions were merely being opportunistic and simply cashing in on an unexpected incident, they must nevertheless have known at the outset, either the identity of the toxin they claim to have been used or, in the event that this assumption should prove incorrect, that it could be introduced into evidence after the fact (as the Russians themselves have suggested). Otherwise, to have made such bold, unjustified accusations from the off as they did would have been irresponsibly reckless. (Can you imagine any of them apologising to Russia afterwards for so grossly misleading the international community?)
That’s the charitable scenario. Even so, is it even reasonable to suppose that such considerations can be entertained/discussed/confirmed within a 24 hour period? Furthermore the evidence, i.e. that provided by a spectrum of witnesses, including experts in this particular field of toxicology, confirms that the initial speculations regarding contamination by nerve agent(s) were utterly wrong. Hence the cheerleaders must have been banking on plan B, because they did not know the exact cause of the Skripals’ affliction.
The less charitable scenario of course is that they already knew very well what had poisoned the pair and that it was not a nerve agent of any description.
Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg Discuss Nuclear War (livestream, now finished). Their conversation starts around 50 minutes in.
https://theintercept.com/chomsky-ellsberg/
Chomsky notes that the Doomsday Clock was moved to 2.5 minutes from midnight on Trump’s inauguration, but it should arguably have been moved backwards as a result of decisions he made afterwards.
Arguably moved backwards ? Why?
The American attack on Syria ordered by Trump wasn’t restrained. 70% of it was shot down by Syrian air defense and the Russians scrambled jets from Hmeymim to force the Americans to eventually stop instead of sending wave after wave of more missiles. I agree with Murray’s belief that Clinton would have wanted a more aggressive approach than Trump, but that doesn’t mean she would have been able to get it, because the Americans are being held back by Russia, not by self-restraint. Obama had enough insight to realize this, which is why he held back by choice so as not to make it so obvious that US involvement in Syria is limited by Russia. My bottom line is that there is no longer any reason left to believe Trump is in any way better than Clinton would have been as far as the international arena.
Hello the “people” of DNC, let me introduce you to Icarus…
One might have thought that the DNC would have been well advised to leave this one alone, particularly, as you have written, given the power of the American discovery process to bring forth new information which they might not want to be disclosed in public. Indeed the UK itself may have an interest in this legal process given the allegations that have been made that a man close to the UK’s own intelligence services was allegedly involved with the DNC in smearing one of the Presidential candidates (Trump).
The DNC have opened Pandora’s Box; whether they can control what comes out of it remains to be seen.
Repeated references to ‘colonial powers’ are irksome when Craig continually forgets to cite the biggest neo-colonial power of them all. I would not be surprised to see Volodya offer his loyal henchman a Depardieu passport one of these days.
Craig. As usual good story. “The opinion polls regularly showed that Sanders would beat Trump, and that the only Democratic candidate who Trump could beat was Clinton.” this is the most overlooked part of the whole DNC narrative. It is my op that Hillary was always meant to lose, and it’s why they rigged the primaries. Any talk of the reasons why HRC lost is fly food, as she was meant to lose from the beginning. The narrative that Trump is outsider is false as well. The Dems handed the win to the repubs.
CM – “But – and now I am going to really annoy people – I have to say that from an international perspective, rather than an American domestic perspective, I am also not in the slightest convinced that Trump has been worse for the World than Clinton would have been. ” (24/4/2018)
CM – “We live in strange times when you wake up in the morning and your first instinct is to check nobody started WW3 without you.” (Tweet – 12/4/2018)
That ‘nobody’ would presumably be the Trump referred to above.
Amen. I’ve been droning on for a long time about Trump being as disconnective a potus as JFK – by judging the man by his action not his words.
It was his magnificient manipulation of the GOP controlled houses to fail to repeal obamacare by putting it in their hands that completely convinced me. The fact that he didn’t blow up the world or PRK within an hour of getting his hands on the codes and firing the head of the FBI that helped Hillary lose was what got me wondering.
Anyway i guess i’ll have to join up PP to happily subscribe Craig. Who knows you may get a encouragingly large base to get a mainstream journal going with like minded journalists – I for one am more than ready for some new untainted, social democracy, wealth equality supporting daily news source. I mean the Labour party has 500,000+ members and most are mightily pissed of with the Groaniad as a starter, plus millions more who would welcome a change to the unified voice emanating from the MSM.
Well, looks like I was too hasty in knocking the OPCW:
‘OPCW Finds No Chemical Weapons at Syrian Facilities Bombed by US – Russian MoD’:
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201804251063884207-opcw-chemical-weapons-syria-damascus/
‘…The official further noted that thousands of people could have died if there was any chemical weapon on the sites that were attacked by the US-led coalition.
“Immediately after the attacks, many people who worked at these destroyed facilities and just bystanders without any protective equipment visited them. None of them got poisoned with toxic agents,” Rudskoy said.
He said the logic of strikes on alleged facilities with toxic agents in Syria was unclear, because if toxic agents had theoretically been stored there, tens of thousands of people would have died after the cruise missile strikes….’
Let’s hope they also get samples from the other two sites attacked.
Absolutely SPOT ON, Sir. Could not have put it better myself. Happily chipped in £2 for a subscription. Will contribute more when i can. Love your work.
‘PANAMA PAPERS DATA LEAK : KING OF SAUDI ARABIA SPONSORED NETANYAHU’S CAMPAIGN’:
http://www.middleeastrising.com/panama-papers-data-leak-king-saudi-arabia-sponsored-netanyahus-campaign/
‘Isaac Herzog, member of the Knesset and Chairman of the I*raeli Labor party, revealed that Saudi king Salman bin Abdulaziz financed the election campaign of I*raeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“In March 2015, King Salman has deposited eighty million dollars to support Netanyahu’s campaign via a Syrian-Spanish person named Mohamed Eyad Kayali. The money was deposited to a company’s account in British Virgin Islands owned by Teddy Sagi, an I*raeli billionaire and businessman, who has allocated the money to fund the campaign Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”,
Herzog cited a leaked Panama Paper. Related Panama Papers can be found in the following links:…’
I suppose it won’t make much difference, as virtually all Arab leaders are now sucking up with Israel, but it won’t go down well in I*rael.
@ Paul Barbara April 26, 2018 at 02:18
I’m afraid this is ‘FAKE NEWS’.
As an American of the United States, my opinion on this matter squares with Craig’s.
Outstanding article
Although I appreciate the analysis – I cannot see Trump anything other than dangerous to the world on every level. I think there is worse to come from him in all aspects of foreign policy. He is intellectually and morally bankrupt and a megalomaniac. If I were North Korea i would not disarm because that would cue the start of significant USA aggression in that region. Whatever Hilary Clinton’s serious shortcomings, Trump is no better.
‘I am also not in the slightest convinced that Trump has been worse for the World than Clinton would have been’
The ME is a sideshow compared to the shifts taking place in the Asia Pacific, where the future markets are. What Trump does/doesn’t do in that region will determine his legacy. Historians may one day conclude that US retreat and Chinese dominance was inevitable, or that Trump was outmaneuvered by China. And we’ll never know what Clinton or Sanders Administrations would’ve done differently. The US v China relationship is the main game and will affect the rest of the world far more than the ME.
Pathological Illness???
This was an excellent article until you described Weiner’s behaviour as a “pathological illness.” Please come to Canada so I can introduce you to my First Nations friends and colleagues who have Residential School Survivor Syndrome or who are suffering from multi-generational trauma. Fucking children is not an “illness!”
For Clinton I believe it is more important to BRING the action than to win it.
I don’t think it IS winnable, nor loseable. I can see it going nowhere for an extended period of time before having to be ended due to a lack of enough evidence on which to make a full decision.
I appreciate that decisions would be ‘on the balance of probability’ being a civil suit but even so, I think the idea is to open as many cans of worms as possible and tie up much of the news media reporting on how she was ‘done wrong’ by the ‘Russkies’ and avoid talking about how she stitched up Sanders and the American public.
Politicians are narcissists and possibly a tad psychopathic but Hillary, even for a politician, is taking it too far. She will accept no responsibility for the fact that Trump got more votes. Yet in the run-up we were all widely talking about how it was a choice between an idiot and a corrupt politician
Trump or Clinton. Worst or Worstest.
Amen Ellen!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel for you Canadians what I am seeing is a total destruction of your great country.
it doesn’t matter who is leading America the plans for war by Israel etc have been planned decades ago We are not the United States Of Israel but we seem to be. Why do you think we have politicians making and pushing anti Semitic laws IN AMERICA? Imagine if Russia had a powerful lobby doing that in America. From all my research I have no doubt Hillary would be worse than Trump I say that as a lefty! Go research and you will see Israel & Saudi Arabia are some of the biggest threats to America because they are like Clinton they pretend to be something they’re not They have hijacked America. These wars are for profit but first and foremost they are for Israel who received BILLIONS of American tax money and on top of that our tax money is used for their wars!
As a lifelong Democrat who didn’t watch any Trump debates etc I was relieved that Trump won because my endless research told me that Hillary Clinton is one of the worst people to ever walk the face of the earth. Beyond that I watched with many as the DNC pissed on democracy with the help of the media. The DNC and the Clinton cabal are one of the biggest dangers to America that exists due to their corruption, manipulation, scandal, lies and media collusion. This article is very well written it simply tells the truth which is something that is hard to find in America between the politicians and the media. Trump is what he is but with Hillary she isn’t what she pretends to be and that is the biggest danger. She is a racist, a sexist, a propagandists and reading the leaked emails (THEY WERE NOT HACKED) it clearly shows that Hillary doesn’t speak unless every word is pondered over to have maximum deceptive effects. What is the difference between Hitler & Clinton? One was male one is female Both are responsible for theft, corruption and slaughter of millions.