Yemen - Saudis Throw The Towel - Saleh is Baaack - Russia Wins by Moon of Al

Yemen - Saudis Throw The Towel - Saleh is Baaack - Russia Wins

The war on Yemen has finally taken a turn towards an end. Former President Saleh is back in his leading position. They Saudis accepted their defeat. The Houthis will be thrown out of the capital Sanaa and return to their northern areas. Yemen is devastated and will need to rebuild. Everyone who participated in this war has lost. The only winner is Russia.

A recap:

During the "Arab spring" (U.S.) induced Yemeni revolution President Saleh was kicked out after ruling the country for 34 years. In 2012 the former Vice-President Hadi was "elected" as the new president on a one choice ballot. With U.S. support the system prevailed.

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As I noted at that time:

The U.S. missed the chance to use the movement against Saleh for some real transition in Yemen. This will come back to bite.

Hadi was a Saudi puppet unable to rule the country. He tried to form a unity government under the National Dialogue Conference sponsored by the Gulf Cooperation Council. But two major constituencies were left out of the effort: the northern Yemeni Houthis of Zaidi belief, who for years had fought against Saudi-Wahhabi indoctrination in Yemen, and the followers of the ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Houthis and Saleh had fought each other for over a decade. Now they had a common enemy and united their efforts.

In 2015 the Houthi and Yemeni army troops loyal to Saleh took over the capital Sanaa. Hadi resigned (twice), fled to Aden in the south and later onto Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis were afraid to lose influence over their dirt poor but self-confident neighbor. They falsely alleged that the Houthis were supported by their perceived arch-enemy Iran. They declared war on the country and tried to invade it. The U.S. and the UK supported and still support the Saudi war with intelligence, refueling flights for Saudi bombers and massive weapon supplies.

The Saudis sent their troops to invade the country, their neighboring United Arab Emirates sent its forces and additional mercenaries were hired from Sudan, south America and where ever they could be found. All to no avail. While the Saudis dropped more than 100 bombs per day onto Yemen their forces were defeated every time they tried to enter the mountainous heartland. The Houthi counterattacked within Saudi Arabia. They had no shoes but huge balls. Hundreds of Saudi border posts and military checkpoints were destroyed by them.

The Saudis tried to starve the Houthis of weapons, food and other supplies. They blockaded the country and bombed weapon depots, factories and all infrastructure. They completely destroyed Houthi cities in the north and tried to assassinate the leaders of the rebellion. Tens of thousands of Yemenis died in the often indiscriminate attacks. But the Houthi held out. For decades Yemen had been filled up with weapons. During his decades long rule former president Saleh had stashed ten-thousands of tons of ammunition and equipment. Additional supplies were captured or bought from the Saudi mercenaries.

The former Yemeni army units loyal to Saleh, as well as Saleh himself, stayed in the background. Their most visible contribution to the war was the launch of short range ballistic missiles (SRBM) against Saudi cities and military positions. These weapons had been bought earlier and were modified to have extended reach (see the excursion below).

The Saudi were stuck in a stalemate that cost them over $800 million per month. Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State were flourishing in the south which the Saudis and their allies nominally controlled. Saudi proxies were infighting with troops from the UAE. Missiles were falling down on Saudi cities. While only few missiles hit their targets each of them demonstrated the impotence of the Saudi rulers.

The Saudis finally send out peace feelers to former president Saleh. The Russians, who had kept their embassy in Sanaa open throughout the war, acted as the middleman. In mid October the first results of the diplomatic efforts became visible:

A Russian medical team flew into Sanaa on Oct. 11 with the approval of the Saudis, who control Yemeni airspace. The Russian surgeons then performed a life-saving procedure on the 75-year-old Saleh. Some reports say the surgery took place at the Russian Embassy in the capital. Saleh's exact health issue is unclear, but it apparently is a result of the severe burns and other injuries he suffered during an assassination attempt in 2011.
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Most likely the Saudis are hoping to break the rebel alliance between Saleh and the Houthis, which has been fraying this year.
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Both King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have their prestige heavily invested in this war. They rushed into it precipitously 2½ years ago.
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Salman was in Moscow earlier this month for an unprecedented state visit to Russia. ... It is reasonable to assume that the king and Putin discussed the Yemeni imbroglio. Russia has been openly critical of the UN's approach to the conflict, which Moscow rightly says is too friendly to the Saudi argument and insufficiently even-handed.

While Saleh was sick, the Houthis became uppity. They arrested and killed Saleh followers in Sanaa, occupied bases of his troops and raided homes of his officers. They may have gotten wind of the ongoing negotiations between Saleh and the Saudis. Over the last months their behavior towards their compatriots in Sanaa became unendurable.

Meanwhile negotiations between Saleh and the Saudis were ongoing in the backrooms and on the battle field. On November 4 the Yemeni troops launched a missile against the airport of the Saudi capital Riyadh. U.S. provided missile defense systems destroyed the missile before it hit, but the public damage was done. A serious hit on the airport would likely close it for civilian traffic. The economic and political consequences for the Saudi tyrants would be huge.

The Saudis responded with a total blockade of Yemen. Neither food nor medicine was allowed to pass. This led to a famine, hundreds of death per day and finally to a public outcry from the otherwise slavish UN. Not even the hundreds of millions the Saudis spend to manipulate the global media could prevent the backlash.

Another missile was fired on Thursday to increase the pressure. It targeting the southern Saudi city of Khamis Mushait. The Saudis finally folded. They agreed to Saleh's conditions.

We do not yet know what these conditions are but Saleh publicly announced that a deal had been made and immediately went to work. His first target were the no-longer-allied Houthi:

ADEN (Reuters) - Former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said on Saturday he was ready for a "new page" in relations with the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen if it stopped attacks on his country.The call came as his supporters battled Houthi fighters for a fourth day in the capital Sanaa while both sides traded blame for a widening rift between allies that could affect the course of the civil war.
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"I call upon the brothers in neighboring states and the alliance to stop their aggression, lift the siege, open the airports and allow food aid and the saving of the wounded and we will turn a new page by virtue of our neighborliness," Saleh said in a televised speech.

The Saudis likewise publicly announced their agreement:

The Arab coalition has made a statement on Saturday amidst the ongoing fierce clashes in Sanaa.
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The coalition also said that it recognizes the noble members of the the Yemeni General People’s Congress (GPC), the GPC’s leadership and the Yemeni people who were forced to remain under Houthi-Iranian control. Also, the coalition recognizes that these noble individuals have endured numerous murder threats, torture, bombings and seizure of public and private property.

The Yemeni General People’s Congress (GPC) is Saleh's party. He is still the GPC chairperson. Saleh is now again the Saudi accepted ruler of Yemen. The "legitimate" president Hadi will be buried in Riyadh.

Saleh called on all his followers to oust the Houthi from their positions. His nephew and potential successor Colonel Tariq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh will lead a new military council and run that side of the business. Houthi posters in Sanaa have been teared down. There is some fierce fighting ongoing in the city. Sanaa is Saleh territory. His troops are prepared and he is very likely to win the fight.

It is now left to Saleh and his family and followers to clean up the utter mess the U.S. induced "revolution" and the Saudi war on Yemen have caused. The Saudis will have to pay billions in reparations. Saleh's family will plunder a huge share of these. Despite the money Saleh is, like always, no ones puppet but the snake that bites everyone who stands in his way. That is how and why he could rule for so long.

The Houthis, who bravely fought against the Saudis, became too sure of themselves and too obnoxious towards their own people to be able to rule. They will be ousted from Sanaa and pushed back into their devastated northern homelands.

Everyone in Yemen lost in this war. Many, many have died for no good reason. It will take decades to rebuild all that was destroyed. The Saudis and the U.S. behind them have lost face and standing throughout the Arab world. They tried to fuck Yemen but Yemen fucked them.

The only real winners of the war are the Russians. They again demonstrated that they are able to create peace where the U.S. only creates war and chaos.

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Excursion:

The Saudis have alleged all along that the Houthi are an Iranian proxy force. That is not true. The Houthis are not Shia and not follower of Iranian state doctrines. They don't take orders. The military support they receive from Iran is minimal. The Saudis especially allege that the missiles fired under the Houthi label by the former Yemen troops under Saleh's command are of Iranian origin. But that is unlikely. Yemen has been under Saudi blockade for more than two years and ballistic  missiles can not be smuggled under a coat. Yesterday Reuters released a short piece in supports of the Saudi allegations. But a closer reading shows that these are false.

In mid November a confidential report by a UN panel found no evidence that the missiles launched against the Saudis are of QIAM-1 type from Iran:

“The supporting evidence provided in these [Saudi] briefings is far below that required to attribute this attack to a Qiam-1 SRBM,” wrote the panel. “The Saudi-Arabia led coalition has not yet though attributed the attempted attack against KKIA” — King Khalid International Airport, in the Saudi capital Riyadh — “to any particular type of SRBM.”“The Panel has seen no evidence to support claims of SRBM having been transferred to the Houthi-Saleh alliance from external sources in violation of paragraph 14 of resolution 2216,” the brief went on.

Like the specialists of IHS Janes (see below) the UN panel assessed that the missiles were modifications of a type that Yemen had earlier bought from North Korea:

The Yemeni military, the panel added, retained existing stockpiles of SCUD-B and Hwasong-6 missiles that were not completely destroyed by earlier Saudi airstrikes. The panel cite a Houthi spokesperson who said missiles that had been damaged were subsequently repaired and modified. “The panel has not discounted though that Yemen based foreign missile specialists may be providing advice,” the brief cautioned. The panel raised the possibility that missiles may have been altered to extend their range to reach targets farther into Saudi Arabia.

Now Reuters is trying to revive the Saudi claim by reporting on a new assessment with a very deceiving headline. Exclusive: Yemen rebel missiles fired at Saudi Arabia appear Iranian - U.N.:

Remnants of four ballistic missiles fired into Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Houthi rebels this year appear to have been designed and manufactured by Riyadh’s regional rival Iran, a confidential report by United Nations sanctions monitors said, bolstering a push by the United States to punish the Tehran government.

The Reuters claim in its opening paragraph is not what the panel really said. Deeper into the report:

The independent panel of U.N. monitors, in a Nov. 24 report to the Security Council seen by Reuters on Thursday, said it “as yet has no evidence as to the identity of the broker or supplier” of the missiles
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“Design characteristics and dimensions of the components inspected by the panel are consistent with those reported for the Iranian designed and manufactured Qiam-1 missile,” the monitors wrote.

I agree that the "design characteristics" and "dimensions of components" are consistent with the QIAM-1. The explanation for that is trivial. The Iranian QIAM-1 is:

a licensed copy of the North Korean Hwasong-6.

The Hwasong-6:

is a North Korean tactical ballistic missile. It is derived from the Hwasong-5, itself a derivative of the Soviet R-17 Elbrus. It carries the NATO reporting name Scud.

According to an IHS Janes report (pdf) the missiles the Saleh government of Yemen had bought from North Korea were of the Hwasong-5 and probably Hwasong-6 type:

Prior to the outbreak of the current conflict, Yemen was known to have acquired R-17 Elbrus (SS -1C 'Scud B') ... ballistic missile systems from the Soviet Union
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Spanish naval vessels intercepted a ship carrying 15 Scud-type ballistic missiles to Yemen in December [2002]. That ship was later allowed to complete the delivery. The missiles found on board were 'Scud Bs' (a reference to North Korea's Hwasong-5 copy of the R-17), according to a June 2003 US diplomatic cable. ,,, [I]t is possible that it was one of several shipments that also included longer-range variants such as the Hwasong-6, which is also known as the 'Scud-C', and has a range of 500-550 km.

The Yemen army has over 30 years of experience with Scud-type missiles and knows how to modify these. They revealed "new Yemeni made" Burkan missiles before they fired on Riyadh. Janes notes:

The stated dimensions of the Burkan-1 suggest that it is a standard Scud that has been lengthened with additional sections welded into its fuselage and fuel tanks so that it can carry the additional propellant needed to extend its range. Iraq carried out similar modifications to produce Al Hussein missiles capable of reaching Tehran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.
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The Burkan-2 appears to use a new type of warhead section that is locally fabricated. Both Iran and North Korea have displayed Scud derivatives with shuttlecock-shaped warheads, but none of these match the Yemeni version. The range of the Burkan missiles also appears to have been extended by a reduction in the weight of their warheads.

The Yemenis use locally modified Haewsong-5 and 6 missiles bought from North Korea. Iran builds a licensed copy of the Haewsong-6 under the name QIAM-1. These QIAM missiles will naturally have similar "design characteristics" and "dimensions of components" as the North Korean missiles the Yemenis use.

Reuters is pointing its readers into the false direction when it claims that the Yemeni missiles "appear Iranian". In reality both, the Yemeni Burkan as well as the Iranian QIAM, are variants of the same North Korean Haewsong-5 and 6 which are themselves copies of the Soviet R-17/Scud-B/Scud-C types. All of these were build from the same specification sheet and engineering drawings. That their dimensions and parts look alike, as the UN panel says, follows from that but proves absolutely nothing.

Closing Russian mission in San Francisco slaps a rich cultural history By The Wayne Madsen Report

Closing Russian mission in San Francisco slaps a rich cultural history

By The Wayne Madsen Report

The decision by the Trump administration to order the Russian Consulate-General closed within 48-hours is not only a violation of the 1964 Soviet-American Consular Convention but a slap at the rich Russian cultural history of San Francisco and northern California. For the Trump administration to give a fully-functioning consulate-general, busy issuing Russian visas to U.S. citizens and permanent residents and renewing Russian passports of Russian citizen permanent residents and dual citizens in the United States, is as much an act of a tin pot dictatorship as was the U.S. visa ban imposed against seven predominantly Muslim nations and the decision to deport from the United States some 850,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) registrants after they were promised a road to permanent residency and citizenship.

The 48-hour notice given to the Russian government before FBI and CIA agents rummaged through the consulate-general forced consular staff to initiate an emergency destruction protocol. Consular officials had to burn sensitive blank visas, files containing personal data on U.S. and Russian nationals, and other sensitive material, including Russian coding documents, as San Francisco thermometers reached triple-digit temperatures. While Russian crews in San Francisco were hastily packing to meet the 48-hour notice, the staffs of Russian trade offices in New York and Washington were also busy emptying their buildings. However, in New York and Washington, Russian diplomats had the luxury of moving some of the more critical files and equipment to the Russian Mission to the United Nations and the Russian embassy. The San Francisco mission did not have that choice. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the U.S. move "boorish."

Even after the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany subsequent to the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, the U.S. never entered the grounds of the German embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. Moreover, the German staff was given enough time to burn classified coding material before they turned themselves in to American authorities for internment at White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia. The Swiss government, not the FBI, took possession of the German embassy as the protecting power for Germany in the United States. The literal storming of the Russian missions by FBI and CIA personnel during a period of full diplomatic relations with Moscow is without precedence in modern U.S. diplomatic history. The actions are more of those of a Third World banana republic than a functioning democracy.

The last time a country gave a 48-hour notice to a diplomatic mission to pack up and leave was in January 2016, when Saudi Arabia gave Iran two days to evacuate its embassy in Riyadh. The move followed the Saudi severance of diplomatic ties with Iran.

In 1961, when the U.S. shut down its embassy in Havana following the severance of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, U.S. ambassador Philip W. Bonsal  was faced with the problem of having to destroy or transfer some 50,000 visa applications that were on file from Cubans wanting to come to the U.S. Had these files fallen into Cuban government hands, the repercussions for the visa applicants may have been swift and sever. Yet, the Trump administration showed no regard for the thousands of visa applications and U.S. and other passports that were in the hands of the Russian Consulate-General when it issued its Third World-style 48-hour closure notice.

In 1973, the U.S. embassy in Kampala, Uganda was closed within a 48-hour window as a result of threats to the embassy staff from the cannibalistic Ugandan dictator General Idi Amin. The evacuation of the embassy came after Amin sent President Richard Nixon a message that wished him "a speedy recovery from Watergate." The Deputy Chief of Mission had to contend with many issues in the two-day window provided for evacuation: the breaking of leases; transferring U.S. diplomatic property to the protecting power, West Germany; and providing local employees with normal and severance pay. In the case of the Russian Consulate-General in San Francisco, there is no protecting power to assume control of the property since diplomatic relations with Russia have not been severed. The missions is San Francisco, New York, and Washington have been placed under U.S. State Department custodianship. In any event, Donald Trump's 48-hour notice is more in keeping with the diplomatic protocol recognized by Idi Amin than any rational world leader.

The Russian Consulate-General, with the exception of a few intervening years, was the oldest foreign consulate in San Francisco. The consular office, located at 2790 Green Street in the Cow Hollow neighborhood, has served as a cultural center for San Francisco’s Russian-American and Russian community in San Francisco. The decision by Washington to close the Russian consular office in San Francisco was as much a cultural slap for an American ethnic group as would have been the expulsion of the Irish consulate in Boston, the Israeli Consulate-General in New York, the Mexican Consulate-General in Los Angeles, or the French Consulate-General in New Orleans.

The Russian Consulate-General, located at 2790 Green Street in the Cow Hollow neighborhood -- the fourth address for the consulate -- served as a cultural center for San Francisco’s large Russian-American and Russian community. The decision by Washington to close the Russian consular office in San Francisco was as much a cultural slap for an American ethnic group as would have been the expulsion of the Irish consulate in Boston, the Israeli Consulate-General in New York, the Mexican Consulate-General in Los Angeles, or the French Consulate-General in New Orleans. 
Trump's diplomatic moves are more like those of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin than any rational democratic leader

The history of the Russian diplomatic presence in San Francisco goes back to 1852. The first Russian diplomatic envoy in the Bay Area, Vice Consul Peter Kostromitinov, also served as the chief administrator for Russian settlers in Alta California, who were the original inhabitants of the first Russian-American Company colony at Fort Ross, established in 1812. Fort Ross was located on what is now Bodega Bay, previously known to the Russians as the Gulf of Rumyantsev. Fort Ross -- Ross being the shortened word for "Rossiya" -- was the hub for Russian settlements along the northern California and Oregon coasts and which extended inland along the banks of the Russian River to towns like Sebastopol. Fort Ross was also linked to the Russian community in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco. 
The Russian-Orthodox Holy Virgin Cathedral in San Francisco, founded in 1961 by St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco (Mikhail Maximovitch), who is buried within the cathedral. The cathedral serves as the center of San Francisco's Russian community and is surrounded by Russian restaurants and shops [left]. Russian architecture on Russian Hill [right].

There is some question about the legality of the sale of the Russian-American colony to the agent for a Mexican citizen originally from Switzerland named John Sutter, of California Gold Rush infamy. Sutter's agent, a pro-slavery former Comptroller of the U.S. Treasury named William Montgomery Steuart, may have swindled the Russians in the sale by the Russians of their California land holdings sometime between 1841 and 1849. There is no record of the agreed to price of between $20,000 and $30,000 in gold and U.S. currency being paid to the Russian government by either Steuart or Sutter, both known to be notorious grifters of their time. Historians cannot agree on the actual year of the alleged sale and accounts claim it was in 1841, 1842, and 1849. Lacking is any legitimate documentation proving the date of the sale or its overall legality. What is known is that in 1848 gold was discovered in California and Sutter presided over an onrush of schemers and ne'er-do-wells who flooded into the region, mostly from points east.

Under business law, the lack of a consideration in a contract, in this case money, would result in a null contract. However, under English civil law, which permits adverse possession of property by usurpers, invaders, or squatters, there is little legal recourse for the Russians today. However, in a purely legal world, without arcane feudalistic laws that permitted the ownership of humans as chattel and occupation of native American lands by white invaders, instead of the U.S. ordering Russian Consul-General Sergey Petrov from the Russian compound in San Francisco, the Russians could have ordered the U.S. government out of Russian-claimed lands from Point Arena to Tomales Bay and Sebastopol and Santa Rosa to Healdsburg and Forestville. Unlike the Americans, Spaniards, and Mexicans, the Russian-American Company agents who first set shore upon the Alta California coast and the banks of the Russian River negotiated the sale of lands from the local native American tribes. In fact, the Russians treated the local native peoples as equals and not as savages, as was the method of the Americans.
The original Russian consulate on California Street in San Francisco displays the typical Russian architecture of the era.

From 1863 to 1864, the Russian Consulate in San Francisco served as an important liaison between the Union forces and the Russian Far East Fleet. Tsar Alexander II, in response to a request from President Abraham Lincoln for Russian help in defending the two critical American ports of San Francisco and New York, dispatched his Far East and Baltic Fleets to San Francisco and New York, respectively. The Far East Fleet that arrived from Vladivostok consisted of the Finnish-built corvette Kalevala, three other corvettes, Bogatyr, Rynda and Novik, and two Finnish-built clippers, the sister-ships Abrek and Vsadnik.
With the defense of New York and San Francisco in the hands of the Russians, the U.S. Navy was free to attack Confederate ports, as well as Confederate merchant ships and raiders. One such raider, the CSS Shenandoah, transferred to the Confederacy by the British Navy, was planning to attack San Francisco. However, when Confederate spies in the city reported to the Shenandoah that the Russian fleet commander, Rear Admiral A. A. Popov, ordered his ships to fire on and sink the Shenandoahupon first sight, the Confederate ship decided to head for southern waters to prey on unarmed American whaling fleets.
Smoke from the emergency destruction of visa files and other sensitive documents billows from the chimney atop the Russian Consulate-General in San Francisco

In 1867, the deal whereby Russia sold its Alaska Territory to the United States was partly enabled by the ethnc Finnish consul for Russia in San Francisco, Gustave Niebaum. Finland was then an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire. In 1879, Niebaum established the Inglenook Winery in Rutherford, California.

A certain element in the Bay Area has never liked the Russian diplomatic presence in the region. In 2011, when the Russian Consulate-General, along with the Russian Orthodox Church and the Mare Island Historic Park Foundation, attempted to restore the head stones of six Russian sailors who died in 1863 while fighting a raging fire in what is now the financial district of San Francisco, near the piers. The fire may have been started by Confederate saboteurs. The city of Vallejo tried to charge the Russian Consulate-General with "graveyard vandalism" for restoring the headstones without city approval. The Russians had originally been buried with full U.S. Navy honors in 1863. However, the Navy abandoned closed the cemetery in 1921 and successive commanders of the Mare Island naval base permitted the cemetery to decay. The Mare Island base was closed in 1995. It turns out that the Russian graves became pawns in a spat with Russia over its treatment of gays and, since the Bay Area has a vocal and, at times, extremely vindictive gay community, including a particularly noisy group called "Gays Without Borders," Russia's good intentions with regard to the graves did not go unpunished.
Annual Russian Orthodox ceremony at the Mare Island cemetery honoring the six Russian sailors who died fighting the 1863 San Francisco fire. The Russian Consul General oversaw the planning for the annual event but will no longer after the expulsion by the Trump administration of the entire consular staff.

An invitation by the San Francisco Fire Department for Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the 150th anniversary of the Russian Navy's fire fighting assistance and to commemmorate the deaths of the Russian sailors was pulled as a result of political pressure from San Francisco's gay aristocracy. The original SFPD invitation read as follows:

"Dear President Putin,

The San Francisco Fire Department will officially take part in celebrating this event and welcomes participants from San Francisco and the sailors from Russia to join in the activities as they are the heirs and surviving legacy of the heroism of the past, We would be honored to have you visit San Francisco.”

The Russian Consulate-General would have been a key promoter of the aborted event. A San Francisco newspaper described the relief of the exhausted San Francisco firemen when they first saw the Russian naval personnel arrive on scene:

"Suddenly the spectators began to cheer, and to cheer again and again. A thousand throats took up the cheering. The firemen were electrified when they observed boat load after boat load of Russian sailors and their officers from the Russian fleet in the harbor, landing with buckets and other fire fighting instruments . . . 

They took the places of the tired and exhausted firemen and worked hard and long at the pumps and finally conquered the fire."Leonid Nakhodkin, the organizer of the 150th commemoration of the fire fighting event said, "At the last minute, I got a message from the City Hall of San Francisco saying that the municipality ceases all plans to participate in this event, and the same message was received by the Russian Consulate-General. Why? Because the gay community threatened the San Francisco City Hall to hold a protest against Russia at the event." He added, "It should be remembered that, when saving the lives of San Francisco residents, the Russian sailors did not differentiate among sexual orientation and saved everyone they could."

The FBI never rummaged through the Nazi German embassy in Washington in 1941 after a break in diplomatic relations
The 1863 San Francisco fire that were fought by 400 Russian Navy sailors, six of whom perished

After the Russian Consulate closed in 1924 when the new Soviet government failed to pay for its operational costs, the last consul-general of the Russian Empire, Artemy M. Vyvodtsev, voluntarily maintained consular services at the consulate on California Street at his own expense until 1933, when the United States and Soviet Union established diplomatic relations. The consulate reopened at a building on Divisadero Street. In 1948, the consulate was closed during the "Red scare-mongering" days of the Cold War and would not reopen until 1973 at the Green Street location.
Although a Russian royalist, Artemy Vyvodtsev continued to provide consular services in San Francisco for the Soviet Union during the period 1924-1933, when there were no official diplomatic or consular relations between the U.S. and USSR.

Steuart, the man who may have scammed the Tsar's government out of as much as $30,000 for the Russian-American Company's land in northern California, later became the director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census. His Maryland family, all Confederates, saw much of their land confiscated during the Civil War. Ironically, Donald Trump, who has made common cause with the neo-Confederate and white supremacist ideological descendants of Steuart, ordered ejected from San Francisco a historic diplomatic mission that provided diplomatic and other support for the Russian fleet to protect San Francisco and critical federal gold supplies from Confederate raiders and saboteurs.

SPECIAL REPORT. There's a suspicious body trail -- and it's on Trump's watch By The Wayne Madsen Report

SPECIAL REPORT. There's a suspicious body trail -- and it's on Trump's watch By The Wayne Madsen Report
Conspiracy-minded supporters of Donald Trump, egged on by right-wing fanatics like Alex Jones, Sean Hannity, and others, have been trying to assign blame for the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich on nefarious forces loyal to Hillary Clinton. However, a clear pattern is emerging of suspicious deaths of those involved, in one way or another, with the 2016 presidential campaign.

WMR has discovered a link between the Russian Moscow-based lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya and Trump's and his son-in-law Jared Kushner's first favored choice to replace fired FBI director James Comey to lead the bureau: former Senator Joe Lieberman. Now that it is known that it was Kushner who was pressing Trump to fire Comey, the choice of Lieberman to take his place is all the more germane. Veselnitskaya represented the interests of a Russian holding company, Prevezon Ltd. of Cyprus, which had a number of U.S. subsidiaries, including Prevezon Soho USA LLC, Prevezon Pine USA LLC (fronting for a luxury condo complex at 20 Pine Street in Manhattan), and Prevezon Alexander USA (an 88-unit complex at 250 East 49th Street at Turtle Bay, near the United Nations). Prevezon's international law firm is Debevoise & Plimpton, whose partners include former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith. It certainly helps the "Kosher Nostra" that surrounds Trump's White House to have a former British Attorney General on their team, since many of their offshore businesses are based in the British Virgin Islands.

Denis Katsyv is also a close business partner of Uzbek-Israeli diamond oligarch Lev Leviev, whose business empire happens to include ownership of The Times Square Building in Manhattan, the former headquarters of The New York Times. In 2015, Kushner Companies bought a 51 percent stake in the Times Square building from Leviev's Africa Israel (AFI) Investments Ltd. Leviev, the president of the World Congress of Bukharian Jews, is a major financial backer of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, with which Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump are also close. Leviev is a partner of the Hong Kong-based 88 Queensway Group, which is linked to Chinese para-statal corporations, one of which, Sonangol China, has a branch in Pyongyang, North Korea. Trump is threatening to impose further sanctions on Chinese companies doing business in North Korea. Does that include the Hong Kong-based joint ventures of his Israeli friend Lev Leviev?


Israeli-Uzbek oligarch Lev Leviev with Donald Trump. Leviev's business empire is not only connected to Kosher Nostra activities, including Jared Kushner's operations, but also business with Chinese intelligence-connected firms and North Korea through the mysterious 88 Queensway Group of Hong Kong.
One of Mukasey's closest friends is Lieberman, the man Trump and Kushner wanted to have preside over the investigation of Russian -- that is Russian-Eurasian-Jewish mob -- influence in the 2016 presidential election. It also just happens that Lieberman is a partner in the law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres Friedman, headed up by Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz.  Prevezon is primarily owned by Russian-Israeli businessman Denis Katsyv, whose father Pyotr Katsyv is the former vice governor of the Moscow region. Denis Katsyv's wife Maria is also an Israeli citizen.

In May of this year, Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim, in a surprise move, settled a federal money laundering case involving Manhattan condominiums that was brought against Katsyv and Prevezon by Kim's predecessor, Preet Bharara, who was fired by Trump after Trump signaled that he would retain him as U.S. Attorney for Manhattan. Named in the federal case against Prevezon and Katsyv, was Prevezon shareholder and Katsyv business partner Alexander Litvak, an Israeli national. The case saw Prevezon and Katsyv forfeit $6 million to the U.S. government, under half of what the government originally sought. Had the case gone to trial, information pointing to Prevezon's links to Trump's and Kushner's real estate operations in Manhattan may have been divulged. Some observers believe that Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, someone who has his own links to the Kosher Nostra in Baltimore, where he served as U.S. Attorney, and beyond, influenced the decision to go easy on Prevezon and Katsyv, especially with Bharara out of the way.


Russian Jewish businessman Denis Katsyv who received a sweetheart settlement from Trump's Justice Department after Trump fired U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Preet Bharara

The June 9, 2016 meeting at the Trump Tower between Veselnitskaya, Donald Trump, Jr., Kushner, and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, in which Veselnitskaya offered damaging information on Hillary Clinton, was also attended by a naturalized U.S. citizen who once worked for Soviet counter-intelligence, Rinat Akhmetshin. Looming over this meeting was the Russian-Jewish mafia -- called the "Eurasian" mafia by the FBI because of political correctness sensitivities. The meeting had been arranged between the Trump officials and Veselnitskaya by Rob Goldstone, a British music promoter and son of a London rabbi. Goldstone represents Russian singer Emin Agalarov, whose billionaire father Aras Agalarov has been dubbed the "Russian Trump." Aras Agalarov was a partner of Donald Trump for a planned Trump Tower and Hotel in Moscow.

Many U.S. media outlets use the term "Russian Financial Mafia" to hide the Russian mob's predominantly Jewish and Israeli connections. Among those at the meeting with ties to the mafia were Veselnitskaya, the lawyer for mobbed-up Russian Jewish businessman Katsyv, and Kushner, whose New York real estate operations closely rubs shoulders with the Kosher Nostra mob in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Jersey City. Kushner's father, Charles Kushner, served a federal prison sentence for illegal campaign contributions, criminal conspiracy, and witness tampering.


Fired U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Preet Bharara laying out the government's case against Prevezon and Denis Katsys. The Kosher Nostra enterprise is represented by Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner Russian lawyer interlocutor Natalya Veselnitskaya and the law firm of former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
The Katsyv-Leviev connection to Trump is noteworthy. Prevezon's bank of choice for its dodgy financial transfers was Bank Krainy Sever, a Russian bank that later declared bankruptcy. While it was in operation, Krainy Sever's Prevezon-linked accounts were handled by Russia's Alfa Bank. The FBI, under director Comey, was investigating several pings between Alfa Bank and a computer server of the Trump Organization during the presidential campaign.

Now to Trump's dead body count. In the early Sunday morning hours of July 10, 2016, DNC Staffer Seth Rich was gunned down in the Bloomingdale section of Washington, DC, without any clear evidence of a robbery intent. Trump campaign officials had been briefed a month earlier at the June 9 meeting at Trump Tower that Russian intermediaries could provide damaging information on Clinton and her campaign. Rich, far from being the source of the DNC emails sent between January 2015 through May 2016 -- revealed by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2017 -- may have been a witness to hacking activities of the DNC servers. His death should now be considered along with other recent suspicious deaths of those with a knowledge of the inner workings of Trump's campaign and its connection to unsavory criminal elements.


Just a small window on the mob ties of Donald Trump and his business associates. The entire Trump Syndicate Road Map, which has taken a good deal of time and money to prepare, is available at a nominal cost to members here.

On May 14, 2017, Peter Smith, a longtime GOP political operative who worked for a firm called DigaComm LLC from 1997 to 2014, reportedly died with no cause of death appearing in his obituary. Smith also ran a business called Corporate Venture Alliances out of the Hancock Building in Chicago. The obit notice merely stated: "Peter W. Smith, 81, of Lake Forest, Ill, passed away on May 14, 2017." In fact, just ten days after Smith spoke to The Wall Street Journal about attempting to work during the campaign with fired Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn to obtain 30,000 deleted Hillary Clinton emails, Smith was found at 1:17 pm lying with a plastic bag over his head next to a helium-filled tank at theAspen Suites in Rochester, Minnesota. Rochester is the home of the famed Mayo Clinic, where Smith is said to have gone for treatment for a heart condition. Instead, Smith is said to have asphyxiated himself  "due to displacement of oxygen in confined space with helium."

Smith left a suspicious "suicide" note that proclaimed "NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER" as far as his death was concerned. The note said he was taking his own life because of a "RECENT BAD TURN IN HEALTH SINCE JANUARY, 2017" his suicide was related "TO LIFE INSURANCE OF $5 MILLION EXPIRING." However, life insurance policies normally do not cover suicides. And why would someone reportedly receiving top-quality medical care at the costly Mayo Clinic, suddenly decide to kill himself? The Mayo clinic will not confirm whether Smith was their patient, due to "privacy concerns."

Smith told the Journal that he and his "team" discovered five hacker groups, among them two in Russia, who claimed to have Clinton's deleted emails in their possession. Were these groups actually tied to the Russian government, something that President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian government officials have denied, or were they groups associated with Trump's friends and colleagues in the worldwide Kosher Nostra?
The same day Smith died, May 14, longtime Albany, New York journalist Scott Christianson, 66, died from "massive head trauma" after falling down the stairs of his home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The reason for the fall was given as the stair's banister giving way. Of particular note is that Christianson had recently joined the investigation unit McClatchy news service and he had just completed a major story probing the links between Donald Trump, his presidential campaign, and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. Christianson's investigation of Trump's campaign was ongoing when he died. He was a seasoned investigative journalist who formerly worked for the Bethlehem Star (PA), Knickerbocker News, and the Albany Times Union.

These deaths can now be viewed in light of a blast of email threats made by Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz, whose law firm also employs Joe Lieberman, Trump's first choice to head the FBI, as noted previously. After receiving an email from a person unknown to him that urged him to "Resign Now," Kasowitz replied with a series of threatening emails. The emails stated: "I’m on you now. You are fucking with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, bitch . . . Call me. Don’t be afraid, you piece of shit. Stand up. If you don’t call, you’re just afraid." Kasowitz's last email referred to being Jewish: "I'm Jewish. I presume you are too. Stop being afraid. Call me. Or give me your number and I will call you. I already know where you live, I'm on you. You might as well call me. You will see me. I promise.  Bro." Kasowitz appears to have implied that Jews should not be criticizing other Jews like Kasowitz. The entire email exchange resembles a scene out of "The Sopranos," with Tony Soprano's Italian mobsters being replaced by Jewish gangsters. The threats also document the lengths to which Trump's team will go to silence critics, damaging witnesses, or leakers.

There is one unusual postscript to this story. On July 12, just a few days ago, WMR reported on the cold case beating death of Stars & Stripes assistant managing editor David Butler on July 15, 2000. WMR followed up on the case in a report in 2009. Although in 2000, this editor's beat was the U.S. intelligence community and the Pentagon for a French publication, I did inquire about the details of Butler's death, especially since he was practically a neighbor of mine in Arlington, Virginia and worked, as did I, out of the National Press Building in downtown DC. The recent July 12 story on Butler arose from questions posed in a series of emails sent by someone who said he was a good friend of Butler while he lived in Texas. After a series of emails with Butler's purported "friend," he admitted that he really did not know Butler that well at all and inquired as to whether Butler ever worked, like Seth Rich, as a volunteer for the Democratic National Committee. From what I have gathered, Butler was a professional journalist who did not involve himself in partisan politics. However, bringing up the case of Butler, who was murdered 17 years ago, in relation to Seth Rich and the DNC was odd, to say the least.

Possibility of war between Asian superpowers looms as Jared Kushner puts Rex Tillerson in his place By Wayne Madsen Report

 Possibility of war between Asian superpowers looms as Jared Kushner puts Rex Tillerson in his place By Wayne Madsen Report
U.S. strongman Donald Trump in a nepotistic fashion has granted his son-in-law Jared Kushner special diplomatic envoy portfolios to deal with the Middle East, China, Canada, and Mexico. Kushner, who is 36 and has no international experience, except for acting as a virtual embedded agent for Israel and Binyamin Netanyahu in the United States, recently warned Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to understand his place after the normally soft-spoken Tillerson blew up at a White House meeting with chief of staff Reince Priebus, Kushner, and their aides. Tillerson complained that the White House was vetoing his selections to fill important State Department posts, including ambassadorships and secondary and tertiary positions in the department. Kushner has applied a political litmus test to State Department appointments, rejecting anyone who has ever criticized Trump or those who have contributed to Democratic candidates.

The arrogance and brashness of Kushner is about to explode in his face as the world's most populous nation, China, and the world's most populous democracy, India, face off in the Himalayas over a border dispute that threatens to become a wider regional conflict. If war breaks out between India and China, both nuclear powers, Kushner should be pushed aside by the adults in the Trump administration.

Borders in the Himalayan region have names like "lines of control," "lines of actual control," "un-demarcated boundaries," and "historical sovereign territory." The reason is because many of the borders have been contested since British colonial times. In the rugged and sparsely-populated mountainous range extending from Kashmir in the west to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh in the east, it has been nearly impossible to establish recognizable borders and the countries of the region -- India, China, Pakistan, Bhutan, and Nepal -- have been contesting borders since the British withdrew from the subcontinent after World War II. Mapping has been all but impossible and even Google Maps cannot pinpoint some contested areas in the Himalayas.

In 1962, a border war broke out between China and India, a conflict that threatened to blossom into a wider war pitting the United States against China and a Soviet Union that supported India. It was one of the few occasions where the United States and USSR found themselves on the same side. But that was at a time when level-headed decisions by President John F. Kennedy, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and Chinese Foreign Minister Chou En-lai prevailed. Today, with the likes of Trump, Kushner, and Steve Bannon at the helm of the American ship of state, small border conflicts could explode into wider regional warfare.

It is not known whether Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought up the border dispute with China during his recent White House visit, but the United States foreign policy apparatus is asleep at the wheel as Chinese and Indian troops face off on the border of Indian-occupied Sikkim and Chinese-controlled Tibet. Ominously, China reminded India that it had defeated the Indian army in the 1962 border war. China was also suspicious about Modi's trip to Israel, the first by an Indian prime minister to the Jewish state. China is keenly aware of the influence Israel maintains through the Kushner cell within the White House. China suspects that India may be using Kushner and Israel to its advantage in the border confrontation.

The latest border skirmish between the two Asian powers began when Indian troops blocked the construction by Chinese workers of a road in the tri-border Doka La region of Sikkim, where the borders of India, China, and Bhutan meet. The blocking of the road by the Indian Army resulted in a statement by Beijing that the area, which is claimed by India and Bhutan, was "indisputable sovereign" Chinese territory. China demanded that India withdraw its troops from the Doka La area. Bhutan charged that Beijing violated past agreements between the two countries by building a road that headed toward the Bhutan Army camp at Zompelri.

The Royal Bhutanese Army has been involved in a project demarcating the border between Bhutan and China. It was a Bhutanese Army patrol that first discovered the Chinese construction crew, whereupon the Bhutanese told the Chinese they were violating Bhutanese territory and instructed them to withdraw. When the Chinese refused, the Bhutanese government lodged a formal diplomatic protest with the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, citing Beijing for violating the 1998 "Agreement for the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility in the Bhutan-China Border Area" to maintain the status quo regarding their common border. Bhutan and China do not maintain diplomatic relations. China rejected Bhutan's complaint.


Trump's foreign policy envoy to just about everywhere, the insolent and snotty Jared Kushner, is ill-prepared to deal with emerging trouble spots like Doka La. Recently, MSNBC host Chris Matthews likened Kushner to Benito Mussolini's foreign minister and son-in-law Count Galeazzo Ciano. Mussolini later had Ciano executed for treason. Matthews said he was not suggesting the same fate for Kushner. Why the hell not?

China is believed to be illegally occupying 154 square miles of Bhutanese territory in west Bhutan. In return for ceding its claim to western Bhutan, China has offered to exchange with the tiny kingdom, where the economy is based on "gross national happiness," 347 square miles of territory in northern Bhutan. However, the northern Bhutan territory is already Bhutanese, so the Chinese are trying to exchange illegally occupied territory for illegally claimed territory.


Military skirmishes along the Sikkim-Tibet border threaten cross-border commerce, as well as a wider war

Indian military personnel later joined Bhutanese army units at the Chinese highway oconstruction site and reiterated Bhutan's request to withdraw from the region. After the border incidents, Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat visited Indian garrisons along the Sikkim-Tibet border and warned that India could fight a two-front war against China and Pakistan, while ensuring the stability of restive Indian states in the region. India created the 17 Mountain Strike Corps composed of two mountain divisions in Sikkim to specifically strike at Chinese military units in Tibet in the event of an all-out war. Aiding the Mountain Corps are two battalions of Sikkim Scouts, comprised of native Sikkimese troops, who would launch sabotage missions against Chinese targets in Sikkim and Tibet. Similar units, the Ladakh Scouts and Arunachal Scouts, also made up of local troops, would conduct similar missions against Chinese forces in Tibet.

China, in retaliation for the Indian Army's moves against its road construction crew, blocked access for pilgrims seeking to cross the strategic and heavily-militarized Nathu La pass between Sikkim into Tibet and visit Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar, which are sacred to Hindus and Buddhists, and even a few Christians who believe a young Jesus once walked in the shadow of Mount Kailash. The blocking of the religious pilgrims on the annual "yatra" excursion sent a message not only to New Delhi, but also to the exiled Tibetan Dalai Lama's government in Dharamsala, India, and the governments of Sikkim and Bhutan that China would exercise its power in the region. India responded to China's road project by stating it represents a "significant change of status quo with security implications for India." In 2006, Nathu La pass has gained even more importance. That year saw the pass being opened to not only commercial traffic but also tourists.

It is believed that the military standoff in Doka La resulted from the Dalai Lama's recent visit to Arunchal Pradesh, which China claims as South Tibet. The Chinese were also unhappy with the Dalai Lama's planned visit to Leh, the capital of Ladakh in Kashmir, where sovereignty over some of the territory is disputed by India, Pakistan, and China. Ladakh has also been the scene of military border incidents between Chinese and Indian troops.

China has indicated that the road construction in Doka La has nothing to do with the Dalai Lama and that it is part of China's "One Belt, One Road" infrastructure project of establishing modern highway and rail links throughout Asia and beyond.

There were special interests in both Tibet and India that never approved of the 2003 Sino-Indian agreement that saw India recognize Tibet as the "Tibet Autonomous Region" of China in return for Beijing recognizing Sikkim as a state of India. Before the 2003 agreement, Chinese maps showed Sikkim as an independent state. The state had been an independent kingdom until 1975, when Indian troops invaded the country and deposed its monarch and his government. In November 2008, Chinese troops demolished Indian bunkers built in the disputed Doka La region. Preceding the standoff over the Chinese road crew incident this month was the bulldozing of at least one fortified Indian bunker in the Doka La region by Chinese forces in early June.

Note: This editor was one of the few Western journalists who managed to gain entry to Sikkim in 2008. Posing as a "cook book" author, I was able to see the massive Indian military presence in the country and also establish personal contact with members of the deposed Sikkimese royal family.

WMR has reported on the situation in Sikkim from its capital of Gangtok. On October 27, 2008, WMR reported the following:

"Ever since the Indian invasion and annexation of Sikkim in 1975, the now-Indian state of Sikkim has restricted access to pre-screened tourists who must obtain an inland border permit from the Sikkim government and the approval of the Indian Home Office in New Delhi. Journalists, especially Western journalists, are not welcome in modern Sikkim, a state that is the most heavily subsidized of any Indian state and guarded by tens of thousands of Indian troops prepared to repel a Chinese invasion from Tibet through the Nathu La Pass, one of the world's most heavily-fortified borders. Westerners are not permitted to visit the Sikkim side of the Nathu La Pass.

This editor's Sikkim entry document states unequivocally that Sikkim is a "Foreigners Restricted Area" and that access to Sikkim is only permitted via Rangpo on the Sikkim-West Bengal border and that only certain places are authorized to visit for "purposes of tourism" including Gangtok, the capital; Rumtek, the Buddhist monastery where the 17th Karmapa normally resides (the Karmapa is the third highest Tibetan Buddhist leader after the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama); Gyalshing in west Sikkim; Namchi in south Sikkim; and Mangan in north Sikkim. Foreigners are strictly prohibited from areas close to the Chinese border. The maximum period of stay for a tourist is 15 days.

Rather than being a Shangri La, Sikkim is now more like a "Singapore of the Himalayas," a highly-regimented state that is governed by an autocratic Chief Minister of Nepali descent, Pawan Chamling, whose party, the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF), maintains an iron-clad control of 31 of 32 seats in the Legislative Assembly. The blue, yellow, and red SDF flag is seen everywhere -- draped across roads and flying from shops and homes.

In April of this year, Chamling tossed out a CNN-IBN reporter from Sikkim and threatened the broadcaster with a law suit after a CNN-IBN report that accused Chamling of corruption. Chamling demanded an apology from CNN and its Indian partner, IBN, or threatened a defamation suit.

However, WMR succeeded in peering into Sikkim where the multi-billion dollar CNN network failed. I successfully traveled without incident to Sikkim not brandishing journalist credentials but traveling as a simple tourist.

As in Singapore, Sikkimese are cautioned by ubiquitous signs that tell them not to pluck flowers from public gardens, to avoid over-confidence in driving, and alternately to honk or not to honk their horns on narrow mountain roads that resemble a roller coaster ride.

Sikkim's people, who still view themselves as living in a distinct entity from India, are kept satisfied through massive subsidies from New Delhi. That means that prices and services in Sikkim are much better than those found in neighboring West Bengal, one of India's poorest states. Sikkim's higher standard of living has also prompted an autonomy movement in the Gorkhaland area of north Bengal, where the Gorkhas, who are ethnic Nepalis, as are 75 percent of Sikkim's population, see their standard of living suppressed by what they view as a corrupt Communist-led government in Kolkata, West Bengal's capital.

There is much sympathy for Gorkhaland in Sikkim. Sikkimese and Gorkhas, especially those in the Gorkhaland capital of Darjeeling, which was once part of the old Kingdom of Sikkim, are linked through family and business ties.

One thing that is not tolerated in Sikkim is any public support for the old Kingdom which was abolished after India's annexation of the country in 1975. That act by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was carried out with the approval of then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who also cut off aid to Tibetan guerrillas who were operating from Nepal with the support of a Tibetan Buddhist network in Sikkim.

There still appears to be a U.S. intelligence interest in Sikkim. On September 5, 2008, WMR reported: "On July 15, the government of Sikkim announced it would sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Star Universal Resource Company of New York to build a highway and tunnel expressway from Sevoke through Gangtok to the Chinese border at Nathu La Pass. Although the firm claims to a 'leading international engineering, financing, construction and service company,' not much is actually known about the company, other than that it claims to operate in seventeen countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, and South Korea, all locations of U.S. military bases. In fact, a search of the Nexis database turns up Star Universal Resource Company's only project being the Sikkim highway/tunnel project. The American firm's involvement in the project has led a number of Sikkimese to wonder if the firm is not a front for something else. From Nathu La, a highway links Sikkim to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital."

When I spoke to some Sikkimese about the highway project and "Star Universal," no one seemed quite sure about the company or the highway project. However, the letters "CIA" were uttered by some well-positioned Sikkimese in relation to the project. Any such links would make Chamling more than a minor player in international politics in comparison to any other Indian state chief minister.

From Rumtek Monastery can be seen the snow-capped Nathu La Pass on the Sikkim border with Chinese-ruled Tibet. Gangtok, the Sikkim capital, lies below the pass.

The old Royal Palace of Sikkim, where Hope Cooke was married to Chogyal (King) Palden Thondup Namgyal in 1963, is now a mere shell of its past grandeur. The palace itself is closed to the public. However, I arranged to have a tour of the palace grounds. Gone is the old Sikkim flag from the pole in front of the palace. It has been replaced with Buddhist prayer flags. In fact, the only place a Sikkim flag can be found in Sikkim today is in the home of one of the sons of Chogyal Palden Thondup Namgyal, still referred to as "Prince" by official Indian documents. The public display of the flag could earn a Sikkimese a day in court and a fine or prison sentence.

The former Royal Palace of Sikkim. The Sikkim government has allowed the palace and grounds to go to seed. Some loyal former royal groundskeepers do their best to keep the palace and garden in shape but it is a tough task with no actual funding.

WMR did learn from a well-informed source that a Sikkim flag still exists in storage at the United Nations headquarters in New York since it was anticipated that the country would one day achieve full independence and UN membership.

Cooke, who lived in New York for a number of years, now lives in London.

While monarchies in many nations are irrelevant anachronisms, the relatively benevolent Sikkim monarchy was the only thing that kept the small nation from being absorbed by India for many years. Today, in Sikkim, not only do older Sikkimese cherish their old monarchy but younger people, who never knew what is was like to live under the Chogyal, also express a fondness for the old Kingdom. This nostalgia even extends to the ethnic Nepalis. It was the Nepali majority that agitated for political reforms and whose demonstrations in the early 1970s gave India the pretext it needed to invade and occupy the country. However, the few remaining references to the Namgyal monarchy may also end with proposals afoot to strip the Namgyal name from a hospital and a school. The Namgyal Institute of Tibetology in Gangtok is the only museum where one can view photos and the history of the old royal family.

The Namgyals are related by marriage to the royal families of Bhutan and the recently-disestablished Kingdom of Mustang in Nepal. Mustang was another nexus of CIA intrigue during the Cold War, a place where the CIA deployed Khampa guerrillas from Tibet who were trained in Colorado and Wyoming and fought the Chinese army in Tibet. Some Khampa veterans still wear the non-traditional cowboy hats they learned to wear while being trained at the CIA's camps in Colorado and Wyoming.

The Namyal Institute of Tibetology is one of the few places in Sikkim where the name of the old royal family can still be found.

Although Sikkim is a destination for only the heartiest of travelers, a new posh resort still under construction and a helicopter connection from Bagdogra in West Bengal may see more Western tourists opting for a Sikkim holiday. That, in addition to possible U.S. intelligence interest in a fast highway via Sikkim to Lhasa, Tibet, may, once again, place Sikkim back into the geopolitical lexicon.

 

One of the few royal portraits in Sikkim today. The center top portrait is Chogyal Tashi Namgyal, the father of the last Chogyal of Sikkim. Tashi died in 1963. According to an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) source, Tashi Namgyal provided the OSS with valuable support in the U.S. efforts against Japan in South Asia during World War II. His son was thanked when the "mother of all neocons" Henry Kissinger gave Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi a wink and a nod to invade and annex Sikkim.

Trump administration produces fake intelligence on Russia in Syria and Afghanistan By The Wayne Madsen Report

 Trump administration produces fake intelligence on Russia in Syria and Afghanistan By The Wayne Madsen Report
The Trump administration, which is increasingly coming under the grip of Bush 43-era neoconservatives, has been formally issuing and "leaking" fake intelligence reports on Russia not only being involved in the alleged April 4 Sarin gas attack by the Syrian government in the village of Khan Sheikoun but also alleged Russian military support for the Taliban in Afghanistan. The U.S. intelligence community appears to have taken a cue from the constantly-lying Donald Trump to come up with its own lies, in the form of "intelligence," to further its aims.

During a joint press conference with visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump said he was open to the idea that Russia had advanced knowledge of the Syrian Sarin attack. He based his claims on information he received from Defense Secretary James Mattis and a "Pentagon group that does that kind of work." In fact, there is alternate and more credible intelligence that it was not Russia that had advance warning of a Sarin gas attack, but Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. In 2013, the Syrian government was blamed for a similar chemical gas attack on civilians in Ghouta. However, Syrian rebels admitted to the Associated Press reporter on the ground that they had been given the banned weapons by Saudi Arabia but that they exploded after being handled by the rebels improperly.

There are reports, not tainted by the Pentagon or General H. R. McMaster's National Security Council, that the Sarin was delivered by an Israeli drone that took off from the al-Tanf secret joint Israeli-Saudi base in rebel-held southern Syria, just over the Jordanian border, that is used to militarily support the Syrian rebels. The base operates with the full backing of Jordanian King Abdullah. Trump and the Jordanian king were meeting at the White House just hours after the reported Sarin gas attack took place in Syria. Trump met with the influential Saudi Deputy Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, the son of King Salman, in mid-March.

The Trump White House insists the "evidence" that Syria launched the attack is contained in a four-page highly-subjective declassified National Security Council report titled, "The Assad Regime's Use of Chemical Weapons on April 4, 2017." In the report, Syrian and Russian complicity in the attack is claimed from "signals intelligence and geospatial intelligence, laboratory analysis of physiological samples collected from multiple victims, as well as a significant  body of credible open source reporting." The report concedes that the "open sources" that it relied upon included "pro-opposition social media reports." Moreover, there is no indication in the NSC report that U.S. imagery satellite intelligence was used to blame Syria and Russia. The report states, "Commercial satellite imagery from April 6 showed impact craters around the hospital [where the gas victims were allegedly taken] that are consistent with open source reports of a conventional attack on the hospital after the chemical attack."

The NSC is being totally disingenuous in its white paper. Commercial satellite imagery is not separate from open sources, it is an open source. If the imagery intelligence cited in the NSC is open source, what defines "signals intelligence?" Perhaps, the NSC now regards commercial and Internet radio broadcasts from the Syrian opposition as "signals intelligence." The NSC report is a shoddy piece of work that is not based on legitimate U.S. or foreign government intelligence sources but on the propaganda constantly issued forth by such tainted groups as the World Health Organization, Doctors Without Borders, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and the Syrian "White Helmets."


Fake intelligence alert! Trump's NSC report alleging Syrian and Russian involvement in Khan Sheikoun gas attack was not based on U.S. intelligence imagery but that obtained from open source commercial satellite vendors.

National Security Adviser McMaster is a veteran of the "cherry picking" of intelligence to fit a pre-conceived narrative, something that was used effectively by the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency to "prove" that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Now, this same methodology is being used to justify U.S. military action against Syria and Assad's government. Unlike Iraq, however, the Trump administration is trying to paint Russian President Vladimir Putin into the circle of outlaw renegade leaders, who also include Assad and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The Trump administration has shown the world that it is as reliant on bogus military attacks as was the Obama administration. Even the two photographs of senior White House officials huddled around tables in their respective "situation rooms" -- Obama and his advisers witnessing the alleged Seal Team 6 killing of "Osama Bin Laden" at the White House and Trump and his advisers dealing with the cruise missile attack on the Shayrat airbase in Syria at Mar-a-Lago -- are similar.

 
No difference in the phoniness scale between Obama and Trump. Trump even copied Obama's pose at situation room "crisis" meeting.

Just as it is doing with regard to Syria and Russia, the Pentagon is trying to link Russia to support for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Mattis and his Pentagon team are relying on reports from a dubious former Taliban leader who defected to the West that Russia is strengthening its links with the Taliban. The allegations are preposterous. Russia has been the victim of Taliban-trained jihadists, who have gone back to Russia to commit a number of bloody terrorist attacks. Russia, which was then the Soviet Union, fought a long war against CIA-supported Afghan jihadists. These jihadists ultimately morphed into the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The Pentagon is pushing unsubstantiated "intelligence" that Russian -- and Iranian -- arms are pouring into Afghanistan. In the case of Russia, weapons for the Taliban are said to be coming from Tajikistan, where Russia has important bases to check any advance of jihadists into the former "Soviet space" that includes Tajikistan.

Russia and Iran both supported the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance before the 9/11 attack. At the same time, the United States supported the Taliban, even though it was harboring Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. For Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the Taliban's help in building a pipeline for UNOCAL across Afghanistan was more important than ideology. The Iranians have never forgiven the Taliban for executing 9 Iranian diplomats, an Iranian journalist, and another civilian at the Iranian consulate in Herat, Afghanistan in 1998. There is zero reason to believe that Shi'a Iran would easily forget what the extreme Sunni sect did to its citizens in Herat and suddenly "make nice" with the Taliban. Ditto the Russians. Russia is fully aware that Taliban-trained Chechen jihadists have committed some of the most horrendous attacks on Russian civilian targets, including schools, trains, and subway stations.
 
Military juntas are known for telling big lies based on fake intelligence

Mattis and his advisers are either woefully ignorant of the recent history of Afghanistan and the south-central Asian region or are trying, as they and General McMaster are doing with respect to Assad and Russia, to hoodwink the American public. The Trump administration, with so many ignorant generals calling the shots, more resembles a military junta than a civilian administration. Juntas are known for spinning lies, something that was witnessed constantly by the bogus propaganda coming forth from the Galtieri junta in Argentina during the 1982 Falklands War, the Franco junta in Spain, and the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.

Schumer warned Trump of CIA retaliation and it came in a piss squall by The Wayne Madsen Report

Schumer warned Trump of CIA retaliation and it came in a piss squall by The Wayne Madsen Report
After president-elect Donald Trump threw cold water on a rather sketchy U.S. Intelligence Community assessment that Russian intelligence hacked the computers and email of the Democratic National Committee and top Hillary Clinton campaign officials, Trump dismissed the allegations by stating that many nations conduct such hacking operations. On Friday, January 7, John Brennan, James Comey, Admiral Mike Rogers, and James Clapper, the respective heads of the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, National Security Agency, and Directorate of National Intelligence, entered the Trump Tower to give Trump a classified briefing on the Russian hacking.

Earlier in the week, and this is very key to what the intelligence chiefs told Trump on Friday, New York Senator and Senate Minority Leader warned Trump that his airy dismissal of the allegations against Russia by the U.S. intelligence agencies would come back to haunt him. Schumer, speaking on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow program, warned Trump, "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."

And "get back" at Trump they did, when they informed him on Friday that he was the subject of a blackmail operation by the Russian government. The alleged blackmail charge was based on a suspicious 35-page private intelligence report that arrived in the hands of the FBI via the anti-Trump John McCain on December 9. Then-Senate Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid reportedly passed the same dossier to Comey in October 2016.

One report in the partly-redacted dossier, dated June 20, 2016, alleges that during a 2013 trip to Moscow to attend the Miss Universe pageant, Trump had Russian prostitutes urinate for him in a "golden shower" performance on the same bed in the presidential suite at the Ritz-Carlton hotel that President Obama and Michelle Obama slept in during an earlier state visit to Russia. The report concludes that Russia used the incident to blackmail Trump into granting Russia concessions in the event he was elected president. The report also alleges that, in addition to the Ritz-Carlton incident, Trump's "unorthodox behavior" during a series of other trips to Russia had provided the Russians with additional embarrassing blackmail, including "sex parties" in St. Petersburg, contained on videotapes and audio recordings.

The "report" was said to have originated with an anonymous former British MI-6 clandestine officer who had served in Moscow and who had since retired to form his own private intelligence company. Although the report was said to have been floating around media, intelligence, and federal law enforcement circles since last October, it was not revealed until after the "big four" intelligence chief's meeting with Trump, much too late to have affected the election.

Although the authenticity of the dossier could not be verified, Buzzfeed decided to publish it anyway as "news" in a shocking display of unprofessional journalism. The allegations in the report first surfaced in a Mother Jones article written by Clinton and CIA hack David Corn on October 31, 2016. Corn is the author of "Blond Ghost," a favorable biography of one of the CIA's all-time political dirty tricks operators, Ted Shackley. Corn's article, without any independent verification, claimed "Russian intelligence had 'compromised' Trump during his visits to Moscow and could "blackmail him."

WMR has seen this sort of social networking-based "guilty verdict" before with some of the same players involved. The core group pushing the Trump blackmail story are the typical coterie of neocons, including McCain, Buzzfeed's Ben Smith, former Naval War College professor John Schindler (who was fired by the college for "sexting" a photograph of his penis to a woman not his wife), Louise Mensch (one of Rupert Murdoch's gossip column flunkies in London and an ex-Tory Member of Parliament), and CNN president Jeff Zucker.

WMR's editor was the subject of a similar social media mob campaign, centered around Schindler, Mensch, and The Daily Telegraph of the UK, over an exclusive front page interview given The Observer of the UK on NSA's third party signals intelligence partners in Europe. The neocon spin machine resulted in the interview being pulled from the second print run of The Observer and from the website of its sister newspaper, The Guardian.

The document, titled "US Presidential Election: Republican Candidate Donald Trump's Activities in Russia and Compromising Relationship with the Kremlin," contains a number of clues to indicate that it is a hoax that mixes standard U.S. and British intelligence classified document formatting with obvious fraudulent content. One tell-tale sign of U.S. intelligence and/or federal law enforcement involvement in the production of the document is the use of ALL CAPS for last names. U.S. Attorneys commonly put first and last names in ALL CAPS. This is a common format for CIA and FBI reports, as well as federal indictments. On the other hand, the security caveat "CONFIDENTIAL/SENSITIVE SOURCE" is not standard classification usage for U.S. or British classified documents.

At least part of the raw intelligence on Russian cyber-targeting and human intelligence recruiting effort inside Russia and neighboring countries like Latvia appears to have originated with the British private security firm Orbis Business Intelligence, Ltd., headquartered in London. The business was founded in 2009 by two ex-British Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6) officers, Christopher Steele and Christopher Burrows. Steele is a former deputy to MI-6's Moscow head of station Richard Noble in 1990. In 1991, Steele continued to serve in Moscow under Steele's replacement, John McLeod Scarlett. Scarlett was the head of MI-6 from 2004 to 2009.

More importantly, Scarlett was involved, along with Prime Minister Tony Blair's Communications and Strategy director Alistair Campbell in the preparation of the so-called British "dodgy dossier," also known as the "September Dossier," of September 24, 2002, that wrongfully concluded that Sadaam Hussein possessed chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, in a foreword to the dossier, Blair wrote, "The document discloses that his [Sadaam's] military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them. The 45-minute allegation was used by the British press to falsely claim that Britain was "45 minutes" from doom as a result of an Iraqi chemical attack.

The "dodgy dossier" also falsely claimed that Iraq had sought to obtain significant quantities of uranium from Africa. The "dodgy dossier" was proven to be based on a number of falsehoods that were later debunked. However, Blair used the dossier as justification for Britain to join the United States in the invasion and occupation of Iraq and President George W. Bush used the uranium in Africa charge in his January 2003 State of the Union address.

We now see the same circle of MI-6 officers linked to the dubious report on Trump, some of the contents of which were apparently presented to Trump's rival for the GOP presidential nomination, Jeb Bush, as opposition research on Trump. The same report, in some form, apparently also fell into the hands of the Hillary Clinton campaign after Trump received the GOP nomination in July 2016. With the involvement of Blair's political henchmen with the Orbis group that prepared the report, it is not a stretch to assume that Blair could have been involved in hyping the importance and veracity of the report to Senators Reid and McCain, who passed it on to FBI director Comey.

As for Scarlett, in 2011, he joined the board of Times Newspapers Ltd., owned by Rupert Murdoch's NI Group. It was Murdoch's other newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, that published the identities of Steele and Orbis as the source of the dossier on Trump.

A report dated June 26, 2016, contained in the dossier appears to be a standard report on Russian intelligence cyber-targeting. It deals with Russian "state-sponsored offensive cyber operations" on the "external targets [of] foreign governments and big corporations, especially banks." Nothing in this report mentions Trump. Oddly, the report states that "US citizens of Russian (Jewish) origin" were approached by Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) agents while on business trips to Russia. The singling out of Jews for such approaches is an indicator that American Jewish groups may have had some input on the dubious dossier.

The entire dossier appears to be a hybrid, part of it containing U.S. and/or British intelligence information and other parts strongly suggesting bogus information authored by non-intelligence parties.

Another dossier report, dated August 5, 2016, is a tell-tale sign of CIA creation. The report suggests that Russian "Premier MEDVEDEV's office" was furious over Russian intelligence hacking of the DNC." This is clearly an attempt to portray a split between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev, a longtime goal of the CIA and the Obama administration.

An August 19, 2016 report alleges the Russians had also successfully financed other American figures. The report specifically mentions Lyndon LaRouche, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders, Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page, Trump's earlier campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief Michael Flynn. WikiLeaks, long a major target for the CIA, is also implicated as part of the "grand Russian conspiracy" in the dossier, as is Araz Agalarov, an Azeri business associate of Trump.

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort are accused in the dossier of being agents for the Russian government. An October 20, 2016, report says that a planned meeting between Cohen and a Russian government official scheduled for Moscow in July 2016 were moved to Prague, Czechia, described in the report as a "soft" EU country. The alleged meeting is said to have taken place at the Prague office of the Russian parastatal firm Rossotrudnichestvo. The claim of such a meeting is astounding since Czech intelligence would normally have that particular office under close surveillance.



However, Czechia is also a member of NATO and the location of a number of NGOs controlled by George Soros, so it is anything but "safe." A safer non-NATO country in the EU for such a meeting would have been either Finland, Sweden, or Austria. Nevertheless, Cohen claims he was never in Prague. Cohen is implicated in the affair because his wife is "of Russian descent" and "her father is a leading property developer in Moscow." In another example of the report being a bogus and amateurish product, Trump's attorney Michael Cohen was not in Prague at the time the report indicated but was with his son at the University of Southern California. CNN backtracked on its initial report by claiming it was another Michael Cohen who was in Prague in 2016. This was another example of shoddy journalism with a story that never had any legs to begin with. The dossier is replete with many other examples of pure guilt by association.



The listing of various American citizens, with the insinuation of their being disloyal, is highly reminiscent of the "Red lists" compiled by the FBI during the witch-hunting days of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

The July 30, 2016, report alleges that the Trump team provided Russia with "intelligence activities, business and otherwise, in the US of leading Russian oligarchs and their families." This refers to exiled oligarchs who have been working to overthrow Putin's government by any means and they include Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Leonid Nevzlin, Mikhail Chernoy, and other Russian Jewish billionaires who split their time between Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They have the means and the motives to create a bogus intelligence report implicating Trump, Putin, and others in an election conspiracy.

The inclusion of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in the dossier indicates that the Ukrainian government, backed by Ukrainian-Israeli oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, also played a role in the report's preparation. At the same time the dossier was released, there was a report that the Ukrainian government and intelligence service provided covert assistance to the Hillary Clinton campaign to prevent Trump's election. A reference to Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) workers and ethnic Russians in Latvia being targeted to be agents for Russia is an indication that the virulently anti-Russian Latvian government also provided input to the dossier.



During the Cold War, the U.S. State Department maintained an office that routinely discovered bogus documents issued by Soviet intelligence claimed to of official U.S. government origin. However, the State Department often discovered tell-tale clues, some obvious, others not so much, proving the documents were propaganda forgeries. Just as was the case with the crude Soviet forgeries, the Trump dossier contains several glaring clues that point to it being a hoax.

WMR learned from a former CIA clandestine service officer that the CIA engaged in such practices -- producing fake intelligence reports to embarrass political leaders in Third World countries -- during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. He added that the dossier about Trump bore the fingerprints of a Brennan-initiated hoax and that it involved a more general civil war within the U.S. intelligence community between pro- and anti-Trump officials.

A September 14, 2016 report on Russia's Alfa Group, formerly Alfa-Eco, the largest private investment firm in Russia, politically controlling Putin misspells the company as "Alpha Group." This points to the document's authors having military connections to the United States and/or NATO.  The Russian military's special operations (Spetsnaz) group "A" is known as the "Alpha Group," which is consistent with the alpha-numeric nomenclature employed by the U.S. military, intelligence community, and NATO. The error in using "Alpha" instead of "Alfa" indicates a U.S. intelligence and/or military connection to the dossier because the author of the particular section in question, likely a CIA operative, confused Russia's Spetsnaz team with a major Russia corporation. This is a sloppy indicator of the dossier being a fake.

Other signs of fakery include the misspellings of names, such as the three references to "Paul MANNAFORT" in the October 19 report contained in the dossier. The name is spelled "Manafort."

One copy of the dossier cites Barvikha, a town outside of Moscow, as being "reserved for the residences of the top leadership and their close associates." This statement is false. Barvikha is open to any Russians, although many who live there tend to be wealthier citizens. The authors of the dossier appear not to have had extraordinary intelligence on Barvikha but obtained their information from the problematic Wikipedia, which refers to the town as the site of state dachas for the USSR's leading officials and intellectuals during Soviet times. Barvikha has not hosted any Russian leader since Boris Yeltsin. The use of outdated information from open sources represents yet another major sign of a hoax document.

The use of the phrase "plausible deniability" in the July 30 section of the dossier to describe Russian actions in support of Trump is from the CIA's lexicon.

The entire dossier appears to be a fictionalized spy novel complete with tales of sexual blackmail, refuge hangouts in Bulgaria (bolt-holes), Romanian hackers, shady Azerbaijani businessmen, bribed U.S. political advisers, Chinese kickbacks,and clandestine meetings in Volgograd and Prague. However, the entire script is more Austin Powers than James Bond.

What has been lost by the U.S. corporate media in the current furor over alleged Russian intelligence involvement in the U.S. election is the now-proven involvement of senior levels of British intelligence in the election and in having their fingerprints on the Trump dossier. It is always automatically assumed that British intelligence has selfless motives when it comes to the United States. U.S. media buys into that notion by hiring a number of British nationals as reporters and editors, including the New York Times's CEO Mark Thompson, Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker, Cosmopolitan editor Joanna Coles (formery with The Guardian), NBC News (which owns BuzzFeed.com) president Deborah Turness, ABC News international editor Jon Williams, CNN anchor Richard Quest, and New York Daily News editor Colin Myler. British native Tina Brown's influence is still felt at The Daily Beast, which she founded. Top British media executives and editors are well-known for their ties to British intelligence.



The chief media cheerleaders pushing the British intelligence-linked Trump dossier all have British connections: Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, New York Daily News, CNN, and, especially, NBC's BuzzFeed, which published the dossier without verifying that it was authentic. Don't expect to see any headlines announcing: "British intelligence connections found between Jeb! and Hillary campaigns and anti-Trump dossier."