The New York Times has published an anonymously sourced report titled “U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid” about the “placement of potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system at a depth and with an aggressiveness that had never been tried before” which could potentially “plunge Russia into darkness or cripple its military,” with one anonymous official reporting that “We are doing things at a scale that we never contemplated a few years ago.”
Obviously this is yet another serious escalation in the continually mounting series of steps that have been taken into a new cold war between the planet’s two nuclear superpowers. Had a report been leaked to Russian media from anonymous Kremlin officials that Moscow was escalating its cyber-aggressions against America’s energy grid, this would doubtless be labeled an act of war by the political/media class of the US and its allies with demands for immediate retaliation.
To put this in perspective, The New York Times reported last year that the Pentagon was pushing for the US Nuclear Posture Review to include the strategy of retaliating against serious Russian cyberattacks on American power grids with nuclear weapons.
So that’s scary enough. What’s even scarier is the information that the Times buried way down in the 21st to 23rd paragraphs of its report:
“Two administration officials said they believed Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place ‘implants’ — software code that can be used for surveillance or attack — inside the Russian grid.
“Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister.
“Because the new law defines the actions in cyberspace as akin to traditional military activity on the ground, in the air or at sea, no such briefing would be necessary, they added.”
In an article titled “Pentagon Keeps Trump in the Dark About its Cyber Attacks on Russia“, Rolling Stone‘s Peter Wade described this jarring revelation as follows:
“New laws, enacted by Congress last year, allow such ‘clandestine military activity’ in cyberspace to go ahead without the president’s approval. So, in this case, those new laws are protecting American interests… by keeping the sitting president out of the loop. What a (scary) time to be alive.”
Pentagon Keeps Trump in the Dark About its Cyber Attacks on Russia https://t.co/CJLFjbkR6x pic.twitter.com/TFYkTAcD0g
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) June 15, 2019
So Trump is in a bit of a bind now. The escalation has already been put in place, which will likely see an equal response from Moscow if it isn’t scaled back. But scaling it back would mean a whole new wave of shrieking alarmism from the political/media class about the conspiracy theory that just won’t die no matter how much evidence is mounted against it: that Trump is a controlled puppet of the Kremlin. All as he’s working to build the case for re-election in 2020.
Stephen F Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University and one of America’s leading experts on US-Russia relations, has been warning for years that exactly this would happen. In an April 2017 interview on Democracy Now, Cohen warned that placing political pressure on a US president to never step back from escalations during a showdown between nuclear superpowers could have potentially world-ending consequences should mounting tensions see a situation similar to the Cuban missile crisis again.
“I think this is the most dangerous moment in American-Russian relations, at least since the Cuban missile crisis,” Cohen said. “And arguably, it’s more dangerous, because it’s more complex. Therefore, we—and then, meanwhile, we have in Washington these—and, in my judgment, factless accusations that Trump has somehow been compromised by the Kremlin. So, at this worst moment in American-Russian relations, we have an American president who’s being politically crippled by the worst imaginable—it’s unprecedented. Let’s stop and think. No American president has ever been accused, essentially, of treason. This is what we’re talking about here, or that his associates have committed treason.”
“Imagine, for example, John Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis,” Cohen said. “Imagine if Kennedy had been accused of being a secret Soviet Kremlin agent. He would have been crippled. And the only way he could have proved he wasn’t was to have launched a war against the Soviet Union. And at that time, the option was nuclear war.”
People rarely take time to deeply reflect on the uniquely important fact that our species came within a hair’s breadth of total annihilation during the Cuban missile crisis. We learned long after it was all over that the only reason a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine didn’t discharge its payload on the US Navy and set off a full-scale nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR was because one of the three men in the sub needed to authorize the weapon’s use stood against the other two and refused. That man’s name was Vasili Arkhipov, and he’s responsible for the fact that you and everyone you love exists today. There’s a good PBS documentary about the event on YouTube if you’re curious.
President Kennedy was constantly going back and forth in communication with the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis, and any number of things could have gone cataclysmically wrong during that exchange had Kennedy not made certain concessions at certain times and known when to hold back instead of pressing forward. He made a series of diplomatic moves that would not be possible in this current paranoid, leak-prone climate, including secretly recalling the USA’s Jupiter missiles from their position in Turkey at Khrushchev’s request.
For all the outrage that liberals display whenever a high-profile Republican utters the phrase “deep state”, it sure is interesting that the Commander-in-Chief has found himself in a situation where he is at the whim of a collective of warmongers who are advancing pre-existing agendas against a nation they perceive as a geostrategic threat to US hegemony. It begs the question, who is really in charge?
The US war machine is the most powerful military force in the history of civilization, and the alliance of nations that it upholds is functionally the most powerful empire that the world has ever seen. Because so much power depends on the behavior of this gargantuan war engine, it is seen by those with real power as too important to be left to the will of the electorate, and too important to be left to the will of the elected Commander-in-Chief. This is why Americans are the most propagandized people in the world, this is why Russia hysteria has been blasted into their psyches for three years, and this is why we are all at an ever-increasing risk of dying in a nuclear holocaust.
UPDATE: Trump now seems like he might be denying that what The New York Times’ sources said is happening is happening. It’s unlikely that the Times would fabricate a story whole cloth, so if Trump is in fact denying the story then either the sources are lying about what they’re doing in their own purported jobs, or Trump is still being kept in the dark, or Trump is just lying.
“Do you believe that the Failing New York Times just did a story stating that the United States is substantially increasing Cyber Attacks on Russia,” Trump tweeted. “This is a virtual act of Treason by a once great paper so desperate for a story, any story, even if bad for our Country. ALSO, NOT TRUE! Anything goes with our Corrupt News Media today. They will do, or say, whatever it takes, with not even the slightest thought of consequence! These are true cowards and without doubt, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”
Curiouser and curiouser.
Do you believe that the Failing New York Times just did a story stating that the United States is substantially increasing Cyber Attacks on Russia. This is a virtual act of Treason by a once great paper so desperate for a story, any story, even if bad for our Country…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2019
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33 responses to “Russia Expert’s 2017 Prophecy About The Nuclear Threat Of Russiagate Is Coming True”
You know I come here and I leave in a quandary. Should I treat you all like little children and lead you by the hand or should I see you all as rubes and it’s my happy job to separate you from your money. There is a third option…..but I”ll get to that in a moment.
The President* and dozens of people around him have countless interaction with Russians. Nothing strange there….except every time said people are asked about their Russian contacts….they lie through their teeth about the meeting. So innocent there’s nothing going on here hey what would be so wrong about meeting with Russians if we did but we didn’t. Only to find out they were lying about meetings. Like driving down the street with your girl friend only to notice there’s a box of condoms in the back seat a used condom on the floor and her ex boyfriends wallet in the glove box. When asked she, like Caitlin says what an outrage how can you even talk of such things. Are you just a bunch of rubes?
Or there’s the other aspect where you act like little innocent children. Why would our dear dear Uncle Vlad want to interfere with our elections…….and of course the support of Brexit, the loaning of money to Marie LePen in France, the intrusion into computer systems in the German government, the little bribery scandal with the Russian friendly Parliament members in Austria…….why oh why would he want to do that? Well, you’re acting like a child. Maybe because a fractured NATO is exactly what Uncle Vlad wants? Ask an adult to help you. When you find out your computers are compromised you have two options roll over and let them do what ever they want or let them know that they aren’t the only technologically advanced nation with hacking abilities.
The third option of course is the story, this website, hell Caitlin herself…….just useful tools used by the Russians to sow the seeds of doubt and division. Oh no….look how the chance of nuclear annihilation have increased! I for one am happy knowing that at least some employees of my government are pushing back. And while I do not advocate war as a foreign policy tool, I would rather die standing on my feet than kneel like a coward….like all of you. The biggest coward here is Uncle Vlad himself. After all he’s done all the power he’s amassed do you actually think he’d throw it all away by pushing the launch button? Oh grow the fuck up.
Everything in this article about the erosion of Presidential awareness and how it might trigger global self-immolation is true. However, blaming this on Pentagon hawks and the Deep State is too simplistic.
You might recall that FDR was kept out of the loop on top secret info leading up Pearl Harbor. The Executive Branch has a loose-cannon Commander-in-Chief with a very huge mouth and no regard for why secrets must be kept unless it is to cover up his own malfeasance. Thus, the proverbial adults in the room are likely behaving as we would wish them to do.
Another problem to ponder is the probably-wrong assumption that the Russians do not already have sleeperbots lurking in our power grid and even missile silos. That goes for China too. Imagine the embarassment if we decide to blackout Moskow, and right after that, NYC, Chicago, and DC go dark. Hmmmmm. We are still witnessing Baltimore in gridlock over hacking for weeks now.
I have just one simple comment to make. We are ruled by the greediest, most power hungry, selfish “people” that our society can vomit up. They also happen to be the stupidest people walking the planet to be willing to risk the entire biosphere including all animal and plant life in order to increase their power and wealth. The Zionist neoconservatives compose part but not all of this evil group. It is also composed of the richest 1% of our population.. we have probably 10,000 people at the very least in our population for every one of those who would risk all for more wealth. So why are we allowing these parasites to risk all that we have? I’m waiting for an answer…
Another brave Russian who saved the world was Satnislov Petrov. Pluto is currently showing the documentary about him, aptly called, The Man Who Saved the World. So that is TWICE that Russian military men had the courage to say “no” to annihilation.
Most politicians the world over ” are owned by rich people “. These politicians ” do as they are told to do ” by their rich ” owners “. Our mayor has thrown his hat into to circus to run for president; I call him Mr. ” Bill de Blasio ( democrat Organized Crime ) because his strings are pulled by organized crime money. If all of the candidates listed their rich owners out front the voting public would know which of them to avoid like the plague.
Is the transnational western Elite going to accept a lesser place in the world, and an almost certain collapse of its war-based economy, or is it going to go “all-in on Western USD hegemony’ and suffer an inevitable nuclear war? THAT is the question that will soon be answered.
Great summary of the latest face-palm news story. Putting this in the Shoe on the Other Foot file.
President Trump snitched on the Deep State in 2017? That is an interesting tidbit. I assume they are referring to Trump telling Putin of a plot to blow up a(nother) Russian civilian airliner, like the one they blew up over Egypt in 2015.
They told us at the time it was a “terrorist plot”. Now they are telling us it was a “sensitive operation”? That explains why they threw a royal snit fit at the time. I couldn’t understand why it was so Very Horrible to stop a civilian airliner from being blown up, but I was looking at it from a decent human being perspective, not a US ruling class perspective.
As for accusing JFK of treason, they did. He had to use back channels to speak with Khrushchev, because he couldn’t trust the Deep State, any more than Trump can.
The mass media didn’t have a constant drumbeat of treason accusations against JFK, just the John Birch Society and other right wing groups. At that time, they were considered outliers. Now, they are mainstream. Oh, and the CIA and some generals in the Pentagon, like Charles Cabell, (also deputy director of the CIA under Dulles), who was fired by JFK for the Bay of Pigs. His brother Earle was mayor of Dallas, Texas, where Kennedy’s head was blown off in the town square, in broad daylight.
Fun fact, Robert Mueller is married to Ann Cabell Standish.
Thanks for the information about Cabell.
CIA 5412 Commission allowed extrajudicial assassinations with just VP approval. Formed in 1954, Tricky Dick approved dozens of hits. JFK was tried and executed by LBJ, J E Hoover and Allen Dulles.
Way back, in the 1980s, I was an engineer. My company developed software to monitor and control oil-transport pipelines for the Shah;s regime in Iran. We later had requests for support from the post revolution regime and an enquiry from the then USSR. We were givenexport permits, in return for embedding a remote control ‘sabotage switch’, devised by the spooks, deeply buried and camouflaged in the mnachine code. I presume that sort of thing has been going on from much earlier, until to the present day. Which will also be one of the reasons behind the suspicion of Chinese 5G tech: the Chinese will know of this program and will see no reason to not ‘retaliate in kind’.
In the movie “Snowden” it is revealed that the US also has sabotage switches in the grids of our vassals, which partially explained, to me, why they consistently follow the orders of the US, against the interests of their own countries.
In the movie “Snowden” it was revealed that the US also put those sabotage switches in the infrastructure of our vassals.
This explained, to me, the reason why the vassals obediently follow the orders of the US, against the interests of their own country.
Guy–Israel has all of the technology including tesla’s papers [DEW, etc].
The Israel-based Talipot program has a back door in every computer on the globe:
https://www.opdeepstate.com/2017/04/11/israel-the-greatest-spy-machine-of-all-time/
The so-called social media company’s [started by the CIA] are all now based in Israel:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/neocon-billionaire-paul-singer-driving-outsourcing-us-tech-jobs-israel/259147/
5G was developed by Israel and yes it is a program of population control [“space gate”]
https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/innovation/5-things-you-ned-know-about-5g
So let me end this little piece by saying for the 100th time–if there’s a disruption in the global body politic–9 times out of 10–Israel is the progenitor.
Of course the question of who really is in charge should be asked–has been asked every time Israel and her Zionists make another demand of the Empire– which serves them–as in this photo op where the “money changers” have Trump [leader of the said empire] groveling to meet their demands: https://www.mintpressnews.com/friedman-west-bank/259159/
Meanwhile Putin seems to be the only man on the scene with the courage and insight to talk about the probable destruction of the planet: WTF?
For the benefit of those who have never heard the term “plausible deniability”…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability
Deadly games will bring deadly results. Those playing such games justify their behavior by paranoid projection – “they are threatening us, we are just defending ourselves”. It is obvious to all but the hopelessly brainwashed American public, that it is the US who is maintaining this dangerous atmosphere of “no negotiations with the enemy”. Russia continues to ask for parleys to insure global safety, and the US turns a deaf ear. This will not end well…..
Professor Cohen is a courageous voice of truth in this ultimately dangerous time.
Couldn’t agree more! He’s my favorite commentator, although Caitlin is a close second, and a ru hero, a true paleoprogressive.
Wonder if it has something to do with trying to wreck ANY chance for a successful summit (trade, treaties, peace, etc) when Putin, Trump and Xi hope/plan to meet in July. I mean, why put secret cyber weapons chatter in the NYT? Russians can read. It no doubt will cause a completely different type of meeting, not one of mutual cooperation, but rancor and suspicion. Recall, the British Empire’s queen and coterie held their noses and hid the silverware to host the commoner/interloper, ‘one term or he gets it’ President Trump and his wife, to remind them (via Trumps most favorite things, unspeakable wealth, lavish ritual, moving military parades w stirring gilded jet flyovers) who’s side the U.S. is on. The West’s fear of Trump has long been his talk of working with Russia (and China) and maybe not appreciating the ‘world order’. You can’t be friends with your enemies and still justify austerity for the little people to fund the real (world) govt. and separate (military, banking, land, resourses) economy that enriches so many of the few.
It becomes increasingly obvious that we humans are the dumbest species on this planet……..unless enough of us are standing up and say NO to this insanity!
My contention is that Israel rigged our last presidential election, not Russia. President Trump’s strings are being pulled by Israel who has demanded that he have Israel’s neo-con stooges at the top of his administration. The United States military will do the killing, the dying, and the suffering all for Israel. They have been running this country for many, many years.
Huh? Israel rigs ALL our elections! God TOLD ’em to! What’re you, another antisemite, BernieBro™ like Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein or Seymour Hersh?
No I am someone that deals with reality. Israel has owned our ” always for sale ” politicians for years on end. The Jewish religion has noting to do with it. Anyone’s religion is their business, not mine. It is all about the money!
BDS
Consider the possibility that the NYT report (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/us/politics/russian-hackers-electric-grid-elections-.html) was true, – “This week, the Department of Homeland Security reported that over the last year, Russia’s military intelligence agency had infiltrated the control rooms of power plants across the United States.”
US has said that cyber-attacks could be answered with nuclear weapons. That would be a bit over-the-top, but to answer with a similar cyber-attack would seem quite reasonable to a psychopathic Deep State. Maybe that is what this is. Mutually Assured Destruction balance restored.
A review of the Cuban Missile Crisis from a Quoran answerer. It occurred while I was in my twenties and newly married. It is accurate as I remember it.
Answer to During the Cuban Missile Crisis, why were the Americans so infuriated by the Soviets having placed nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba while they already had their own missiles in Europe, especially in Turkey, close to the Soviet… by Spartacus Olsson
https://www.quora.com/During-the-Cuban-Missile-Crisis-why-were-the-Americans-so-infuriated-by-the-Soviets-having-placed-nuclear-tipped-missiles-in-Cuba-while-they-already-had-their-own-missiles-in-Europe-especially-in-Turkey-close-to-the-Soviet-borders/answer/Spartacus-Olsson?ch=99&share=cbd3d255&srid=ThkR
Contains an embedded 15 min. YouTube from Time Ghost, explaining the time line of the occurrence.
But Cailtin you hate Trump, yet I have always said he hates war and he is trying to rid the deepstate which has the war machine we built under the deepstate control, the deepstate is world wide just not in the U.S.
If Trump hated war, neither Bolton nor Pompeo would be in his administration.
nyt’s pub is meant to do exactly what your are doing — propagate, raise the vibe, keep the mark on Russia, destroy POTUS — it’s a reverse set-up, you’re sleep-walking
I used to think, that what I thought, were perhaps true.
Now I know that the majority of the world is ignorant.
Well don C.
Important warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin (June 6, 2019):
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“If no one is interested in renewing the START-3 Treaty, we will not renew it. We have already said a hundred times that we are ready to do so, but no one is willing to talk about it with us.
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“Please note that there is no formal negotiating process, and everything will expire in 2021. Mind you, there will be no more instruments to limit an arms race.
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“Or, for example, deploying weapons in outer space. Do we understand what this means or not? Ask the experts. It means that each of us will have to live at all times, say, under a nuclear weapon. Permanently! But we are doing this, and doing it quickly. Will anyone ever think about it, talk about it, or show any concern? No, complete silence.
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“Or, take low-yield nuclear weapons, or non-nuclear strategic missiles. What if a global-range strategic missile is launched from a submarine in the middle of the ocean? How do we know if it carries a nuclear charge or not? Do you realize how serious and dangerous this is?”
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Putin’s dire warning: Anybody listening? — RT America
Ah, my daily dose of anxiety delivered on-line. What would I do without it?