(1) Russian Spy Poison attack may be aimed at stopping Nord Stream 2(2) Western intelligence agencies likely behind Russian Spy Poisoning(3) Skripal poisoning to mobilize Europe against Russia; 2001 anthrax attacks in US were inside job(4) War Party rolls Tillerson(5) Mike S King on The War against Putin; King is pro-Putin but also pro-Hitler(1) Russian Spy Poison attack may be aimed at stopping Nord Stream 2https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/03/10/russian-spy-poison-attack-nord-stream-2-bigger-target.htmlFINIAN CUNNINGHAM | 10.03.2018Russian Spy Poison Attack: Is Nord Stream 2 the Bigger Target?The mysterious apparent murder bid on an ex-Russian spy in Britain has taken on a wider European dimension.Predictably, the incident was used to whip up anti-Russian claims in the British media. But, in addition, the European Union soon came under pressure to show "solidarity" with Britain in the supposed Russian assault on its sovereignty.Former British officials were reported bemoaning the lack of solidarity from EU states over the alleged Russian violation on British soil. The EU then responded with an obligatory statement of "solidarity" with Britain, with the tacit acceptance of Russian malfeasance at play.The allegations of Russian state involvement in the apparent lethal poisoning of exiled Kremlin agent Sergei Skripal in England last Sunday have been leveled with deplorable disregard for due legal process.Within hours of the incident – which saw 66-year-old Skripal and his adult daughter rushed to intensive hospital care – British media were speculating that Russian agents had carried out a revenge assassination attempt.Skripal was exiled from Russia in 2010 after being convicted for treason as a double agent for Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6. He was living in the southern English town of Salisbury, where he was found paralyzed in a public park along with his 33-year-old daughter.British counter-terrorism officers have disclosed that the pair were victims of a toxic nerve agent attack, without identifying the chemical used. They have claimed that the attacker or attackers must have been state-sponsored to carry out such a lethal operation. British police have not yet specified any particular agency for the attack, but as noted the British media quickly jumped to reckless speculation of Russian involvement. The speculation has been fueled by government ministers like Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson using innuendo.Russia’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the allegations of Moscow’s involvement as "more irresponsible Russophobia".The notion that Russia would carry out a risky operation on the eve of its presidential elections this month in order to avenge a disgraced former spy who had been living openly in England for the past eight years defies credibility. It’s frankly absurd given the already heightened anti-Russia hysteria in the Western media that the Kremlin would even contemplate such a scheme.Nevertheless, the evidence does point to an assassination attempt on Skripal using a military-grade chemical weapon. Senior British toxicologist Dr Alistair Hay told Radio Free Europe this week that the chemical substance used in the attack was most likely one of the organophosphate poisons, such as soman or tabun, which are related to sarin and VX. These are nerve agents that can kill from exposure of human skin to a single droplet.Hay, who is an advisor to the British government on chemical warfare agents, cautioned against rushing to accusations against Russia. "In my view, it’s much, much too early to point a finger at anybody at this stage," said the expert.All that the internationally respected toxicologist would venture to say is that the nature of the attack had "military capability" because of the extreme lethality of the substances involved.If we assume that Russia was not involved – which is a fair assumption given the above reasoning – then the question is: what state agency could have carried it out? For what objective?In particular, focus is drawn here to agencies which are seeking to sabotage Europe-wide relations with Russia. As noted above, one of the ramifications from the anti-Russian allegations over the poisoning incident was prompt pressure on the EU to show a tough response towards Moscow.Former British ambassador to Russia, Sir Tony Brenton, reportedly accused the rest of Europe of lacking in support for Britain."The European Union will once again fail to help the UK in its fight against Russia after a former Russian spy was allegedly poisoned in Salisbury, according to former ambassador Sir Tony Brenton," reported the Daily Express.Another former British foreign office advisor claimed that because of the EU’s bitter wrangling with Britain over the Brexit "the Kremlin was taking advantage of the UK’s lack of allies in the US and EU, and its inability to do much about the Skripal case".This logic implicating Russia is unhinged. But the telling aspect is the seeming intended effect of embroiling Europe in a wider antagonistic response to Moscow.Admittedly, the following discussion here is speculative. But it’s worth a posit.Last week, the US-led political campaign to scupper the Russia-EU Nord Stream 2 project was given renewed impetus.The $11 billion, 1,200-kilometer gas delivery pipeline is nearing completion next year.Foreign ministers from Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia were in Washington DC to meet with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on the specific subject of the Nord Stream 2, and how it might be cancelled, reported Voice of America.Poland and the Baltic states are advocating for US supply of gas to replace the traditional European source from Russia. The issue is of huge strategic importance. US President Trump has been vocal in his support for the European states switching to American gas exports, even though that would work out much more expensive for European consumers.The Nord Stream 2 project is a partnership between Russian state-owned Gazprom and five private energy companies from Britain, Germany, France and Netherlands.But the project has been buffeted by the political repercussions over allegations against Russia concerning Ukraine, Crimea and purported "interference" in US and European elections.The German and Austrian governments are strong backers of the new gas network with Russia. Last week, Austrian President Sebastian Kurz was in Moscow where he met with Vladimir Putin and expressed his support for the Nord Stream 2.However, apart from Poland and the Baltic states which are marked by vehement anti-Russian ideological politics, there are also elements with the EU administration which are similarly opposed to the Nord Stream supply. It is claimed, they say, that such an arrangement will give too much leverage to Moscow over European affairs. Such advocates tend to be pro-NATO and pro-Washington.The point is that the campaign to undermine the Russian-EU gas partnership has come with renewed impetus – as seen in the delegation last week to Washington by the Polish and Baltic government ministers. Of course, they are pushing at an open door. American state interests are wedded to the objective of knocking out Russia as Europe’s gas supplier.Now then, the timing of an assassination bid in England which is framed on Russia comes at a convenient moment in the strategic tussle over Europe’s global energy market. It seems significant that pressure is being brought to bear on the EU "to get tough" on Moscow over the alleged attempted murder of the exiled Russian spy. The "get tough" response being sought could be cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 gas project.If that stands up as a motive for the latest attempt to cleave EU-Russian relations, then our focus on the likely perpetrators shifts to the following: American state agents, possibly working with British and Eastern European accomplices, in trying to kill Sergei Skripal and his daughter, with the purpose of blackballing Moscow.(2) Western intelligence agencies likely behind Russian Spy Poisoninghttps://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/13/the-strange-case-of-the-russian-spy-poisoning/The Strange Case of the Russian Spy PoisoningMarch 13, 2018Applying the principle of cui bono – who benefits? – to the case of Sergei Skripal might lead investigators away from the Kremlin as the prime suspect and towards Western intelligence agencies, argues James O’Neill.By James O’NeillThe suspected nerve agent attack upon former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, which also affected his daughter in the English city of Salisbury last Sunday, has given rise to too much speculation, too much hysteria, and too little analysis or insight. It has provided ammunition for the Russophobic Western media to make accusations that it was another example of Russia in general and Vladimir Putin in particular disposing of a supposed enemy of the Kremlin.As with the Mueller investigation into the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election there are accusations with varying degrees of wildness, but little or no actual evidence that would get past first base in any independent court of law.First, what are the known facts, only some of which have been accurately reported in the western mainstream media? The victim (assuming it was a deliberate attack upon him and his daughter) was formerly a Colonel in the Russian military intelligence service (the GRU). This is the largest of the Russian intelligence agencies and, as with its western equivalents, has a wide variety of functions, of which "spying" is only one.In the early 1990s Skripal was recruited by an MI6 agent Pablo Miller, whom the British media declined to name. Miller was an MI6 agent in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Miller’s main task was recruiting Russians to provide information about their country to the British. An interesting fact, possibly coincidental, was that the MI6 officer under diplomatic cover in Moscow at this time was Christopher Steele. Steele was later to become better known as the principal author of the infamous Trump dossier.When Steele returned to London, he ran MI6’s Russia desk between the 2006 and 2009. The information that Skripal disclosed would have been given to Steele, first in Moscow and later in London.Skripal was arrested in 2004. In 2006 he was convicted of treason and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. In 2010 he was released as part of a prisoner exchange deal with Russian spies in U.S. jails. He went to live in the United Kingdom where he has lived in supposed retirement ever since. Another interesting fact, although again possibly coincidental, is that Salisbury, where Skripal lived, is only about 12 kilometres from Porton Down, the U.K.’s principal research centre for nerve agents.If the Russians had wanted to kill him, they had ample opportunity to do so during the years when he was imprisoned or the eight years he lived in retirement in Salisbury. If they did wish to kill him, it is not a very credible that they would do so very publicly and by a means that could not be bought off the shelf in the local pharmacy. The handling and the administering of these very dangerous substances require professional expertise. The obvious candidates for the attempted murder are therefore government agencies, but which government is the unanswered question.This is where the facts become thinner, but the interesting connections of Skripal offer scope for some tentative hypotheses. While living in Salisbury, Skripal became friendly, according to a report in the UK newspaper the Daily Telegraph, with none other than the aforementioned Pablo Miller – whom the Telegraph declined to name but has since been identified on the web.Miller is now working with a British security consultancy named Orbis Business Intelligence. Again according to the Telegraph, Miller’s association with this company has now been removed from Miller’s LinkedIn profile.The obvious question again is: why do so now?Orbis is the same private intelligence agency as that of Christopher Steele. It seems more than a mere coincidence that the same three men who had personal and professional links going back to the 1990s should have a continuing association at the same time as the Steele dossier was being compiled and later as the so-called Russiagate inquiry was imploding. Former FBI Director James Comey described the Steele dossier as "salacious and unverified" in a Senate hearing.The former British ambassador Craig Murray has suggested on his blog that a motive for the attempted murder of Skripal and his daughter was to further promote the anti-Russian hysteria that inflicts the Western media and the body politic.That is certainly plausible, and it has certainly been one of the consequences, as the abysmal coverage of the ABC among other outlets makes clear. But an alternative hypothesis presents itself in the light of the above facts, and this hypothesis has not even been mentioned, let alone discussed by our major media.My admittedly speculative hypothesis (but I would argue, not an unreasonable one) is that Skripal was likely involved in the production of the Steele dossier. He was therefore in a position to offer potentially very damaging information into the circumstances of the Steele dossier. As noted above, that particular narrative has not only spectacularly collapsed, but the revelations reflect very badly on, among others, the U.S. intelligence community, the FBI, the Democratic National Committee, the Obama White House and the Clinton campaign.In any major criminal enquiry one of the basic questions the investigation asks is: who had the means, the motive and the opportunity? Framed in that light, the Russians come a distant fourth behind the other prime suspects; the U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies themselves, and those elements of the deep state that sought to prevent Trump winning, and subsequently to undermine his presidency. The primary motive being ascribed to the Russians is revenge for Skripal’s treachery more than a decade ago.A second major question asked in any criminal investigation is cui bono – who benefits? It is difficult to perceive a credible argument that Russia is a beneficiary of Skripal’s poisoning.Further support for the hypothesis that this was a false flag operation comes in this statement that British Prime Minister to Theresa May made to the UK Parliament. The statement was frankly absurd and could only have been made when the intention was to further demonize and punish Russia, rather than any attempt to establish the truth and apply ordinary principles of evidence and factual analysis.May’s argument is thoroughly deconstructed on the Moon of Alabama website, which pointed out that Russia had destroyed all left over stocks from the Soviet Union’s chemical weapon program and does not currently produce chemical weapons. Further, there are any number of governments capable of carrying out the Salisbury attack. "If someone is run-over by a BMW is it ‘highly likely’ that the German government is responsible for it?" the Moon of Alabama asks.The obfuscations of the British reinforce in the view that Skripal was dangerous to the anti-Trump forces and the authorities therefore sought to have them removed. There is ample precedent for such actions and those familiar with the "suicide" of Dr. David Kelly will recognize the parallels.The chances of the truth emerging have become vanishingly small at the same time as a serious conflict with Russia becomes correspondingly greater.James O’Neill is a Barrister at Law and geopolitical analyst. He can be reached at joneill@qldbar.asn.au.(3) Skripal poisoning to mobilize Europe against Russia; 2001 anthrax attacks in US were inside jobhttp://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/03/14/pers-m14.htmlThe Skripal poisoning: What lies behind UK-US ultimatums against Russia?Alex Lantier14 March 2018In little over a week since the mysterious poisoning of former Russian intelligence agent and British spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, Britain, on March 4, a campaign has emerged in ruling circles of the NATO alliance to pin blame for the poisoning on Moscow. Backed by top officials in Washington and in Europe, the British government is using this poisoning to concoct accusations against Russia with the most far-reaching implications.On Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May issued an ultimatum, which expired at midnight today, declaring that absent a "credible response" from Moscow, her government will conclude there has been "an unlawful use of force by the Russian State against the United Kingdom." During the parliamentary debate May was urged to invoke Article 4 of the NATO treaty, forcing the alliance to confer if the "territorial integrity, political independence or security of any [NATO member state] is threatened."These are issues over which states go to war, and top NATO officials are clearly putting together a case for war with Russia, a major nuclear-armed power. Yesterday, as May prepared to return to Parliament today with proposals for action, reports emerged in international media that ruling circles in London are discussing also invoking Article 5 of the NATO treaty. This article compels all NATO countries to "assist" any NATO member state that says it has been attacked to take "such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force."Faced with such drastic threats raising the danger of nuclear war, one must ask: what is the basis of the allegations that it was Moscow that poisoned Skripal and his daughter, who are now very ill?The World Socialist Web Site holds no brief for the kleptocratic business oligarchy that emerged in Russia from the Stalinist bureaucracy’s restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union in 1991. It cannot be ruled out that a faction of Russian intelligence, acting with or without the knowledge of President Vladimir Putin, may have poisoned Skripal.But London and NATO have neither produced physical evidence of Kremlin involvement, nor established a motive for a hypothetical Russian attack. Nor has London explained why, if the Kremlin wanted Skripal dead because he spied for Britain in the 1990s and early 2000s, it did not execute him after convicting him of spying in 2006, and instead sent him to Britain four years later in exchange for Russian spies jailed by London.Instead, a simplistic narrative accusing Moscow has emerged: If a crime appears to target countries or individuals hostile to the Russian government, NATO governments and media conclude within hours that it is self-evident that the Kremlin is responsible.In fact, in international politics, the simple and obvious answer all but inevitably fails to reveal the complex web of political and economic interests that produce a given event or policy. Were the Skripal attack to be a Le Carré spy novel, the accusations so far would likely take up the first 10 pages of the book, after which the real story would unfold over the next 400 pages. The questions that must be posed in such cases are: what is the credibility of the accuser, and, above all, cui bono (who benefits from the crime)?To those who say it is obvious that Russia poisoned Skripal, it is worth recalling the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, in which a deadly strain of anthrax was mailed to many US officials in Washington, killing 5 people and infecting 17 more, shortly after the September 11 attacks. There again, media immediately blamed the attacks on obvious targets of US-UK war threats—the Iraqi regime’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program and its alleged ties to Al Qaeda. These all proved to be lies, serving Washington’s foreign policy interests as it sought to go to war in Iraq.And, after the US invaded and occupied Iraq, as it became clear that Iraq had no WMDs and was not responsible for the attacks, it emerged that the particular anthrax strain used in the attacks had in fact been created by Washington’s own WMD program at Fort Detrick, Maryland. A US scientist, Steven Hatfill, was rumored to be responsible, investigated, and ultimately cleared.It still remains unclear to this day which US officials were involved in carrying out the anthrax attacks. The FBI closed the investigation in 2010 after pinning the blame on another scientist, Bruce Edwards Ivins, who had committed suicide in 2008. However, the US National Academy of Sciences found in 2011 that the US government did not have sufficient scientific evidence to definitively assert that the anthrax used in the attacks came from Ivins.In the Skripal attack, it is unclear how Moscow would benefit. The attack took place shortly before this weekend’s elections in Russia, and as the NATO powers ramp up a confrontation with Russia over their failed war for regime change in Syria that has seen US forces attack and kill Russian military contractors in Syria in recent weeks. Rather, the Skripal attack hands Putin’s enemies inside NATO an ideal diplomatic and political weapon to use against him.The benefits flow, rather, to sections of the British and European ruling class who are stoking war hysteria against Russia, and sections of the American ruling elite, particularly around the CIA and the Democratic Party, working with them to discredit Trump as a supposed agent of Russia. The Skripal attack allows these factions to place enormous pressure on rival sections of the European ruling class, notably in the French and German governments, who are calling for a European military policy independent from the United States and closer ties to Russia.Thus, on Monday, former French President François Hollande issued a sharp if barely veiled attack in Le Monde on his successor, Emmanuel Macron, who is working closely with Berlin. Asserting that current NATO policy allows Moscow and the Syrian government to "liquidate its opposition and massacre its own people," Hollande called for a confrontation with Moscow: "Russia has been rearming for several years, and if Russia is threatening, it must be threatened."Yesterday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States has "full confidence" in the British assessment of the attack—a statement he implicitly contradicted by then declaring that Russia was only "likely responsible." Despite firing Tillerson shortly after he made those statements, Trump echoed Tillerson’s accusation of Russian complicity, declaring, "It sounds to me like it would be Russia, based on all the evidence they have."Under these conditions, and after the experience of the anthrax attacks, it must be said that factions of the British and American states themselves are prime suspects in the Skripal attack.London has based its allegations against Russia entirely on the shifting analyses of its Porton Down biochemical warfare facility, located coincidentally only 10 miles from Salisbury. Initially, London alleged that Skripal had been exposed to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid more powerful than heroin. On March 7, however, British officials alleged that the poison was a nerve gas like sarin or VX, without explaining why Porton Down, a facility that has for decades specialized in producing nerve gases, failed to correctly identify one after it was used.On Monday, May alleged that the nerve gas in question is in fact "novichok," a special chemical weapon initially produced by the Soviet government. However, London has refused Moscow’s requests to actually provide it with samples of the substance used in the Salisbury attack for analysis, as required by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). As of now, at least, the case against Russia is based on the say-so of the Porton Down facility.Porton Down is not a reliable source, however. It has a long record of illegal or covert testing of biological and chemical weapons on British citizens. These include the 1942 contamination with anthrax spores of Gruinard Island, which the British government was compelled to decontaminate in 1986; the unlawful death of Ronald Maddison in 1953 during trials of sarin gas on British servicemen; and the 1963-1975 spraying of biological weapons in Lyme Bay. The British government paid out 3 millions pounds to victims of such tests in 2008, without admitting liability.None of the allegations directed by such sources against Russia on the still-murky Skripal poisoning case have a shred of credibility. Only a full, objective international public inquiry, whose findings are published in real time as the inquiry progresses, can establish the truth of what took place. In the meantime, it is a critical measure of self-preservation for workers in America, Europe and around the world to oppose the ruling elite’s stoking of war hysteria against Russia and the danger of an all-out confrontation between the world’s main nuclear-armed powers.(4) War Party rolls Tillersonhttp://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/03/14/till-m14.htmlTrump’s firing of Tillerson signals further shift toward global warBy Bill Van Auken14 March 2018 President Donald Trump’s sudden firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Tuesday and the announcement of CIA Director Mike Pompeo as his replacement is bound up with the accelerating shift by the US administration toward a policy of global war as the solution to the deep-seated crisis of American capitalism.Fired by a morning tweet from Trump, Tillerson was reported by his aides to have had no advance warning that he was to be removed from his post. The tweet came just hours after Tillerson had returned from a week-long trip to Africa, basically an apology tour over Trump’s reference to the continent as "shithole countries."Trump also announced that Pompeo will be replaced by Gina Haspel, an individual who is directly implicated in crimes of torture and forced disappearances.While Trump’s method of removing Tillerson was abrupt, rumors that the secretary of state would lose his cabinet seat had circulated for months in Washington amid the repeated interventions by the US president to undercut his supposed spokesman to the world.In an extraordinary rebuke to the US secretary of state last October, Trump tweeted from his New Jersey golf club that Tillerson was "wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man," the nickname he had adopted for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, adding, "we’ll do what has to be done!", suggesting military action. The tweet came just as Tillerson was holding talks with Chinese officials on the crisis on the Korean peninsula.During the same week, it emerged that Tillerson had referred to Trump as a "moron" at a Pentagon meeting over the president’s statement to advisors that he wanted a tenfold increase in US nuclear weapons.Whatever the frictions between the US president and Tillerson, the multi-millionaire former CEO of ExxonMobil, Trump on Tuesday pointed to a particular difference over foreign policy."I actually got along well with Rex but really it was a different mind-set, a different thinking," Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a trip to California. "When you look at the Iran deal, I think it’s terrible. I guess he thought it was okay. . . So we were not really thinking the same. With Mike, Mike Pompeo, we have a very similar thought process. I think it’s going to go very well."With a personal fortune of over $300 million and a career that brought him to the top of one of the largest oil conglomerates in the world, Tillerson is a dedicated defender of US capitalist interests. He had significant tactical differences with Trump and others in the administration, however, including over whether some of these interests could be achieved by means of diplomatic negotiations rather than military aggression.Tillerson was reportedly among those in the White House who last month dissuaded Trump from upending the 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated between Iran and the P5+1—the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany—by refusing to sign the four-month waiver of US sanctions imposed over the nuclear program. Trump has reportedly complained that he regretted the decision and has vowed to reimpose the sanctions in May, the next waiver deadline, unless there is a deal to renegotiate the agreement, including terms that Tehran cannot and will not accept.In an apparent response to the cabinet reshuffle, Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted Tuesday: "Mr Trump has made habit of being unpredictable and thus unreliable for anybody to engage with. Nobody will be interested in reaching any agreement with the White House if US signature only good for 4-8 yrs."Tillerson had also repeatedly spoken in favor of negotiations with North Korea, even as Trump threatened "fire and fury" and to "totally destroy" the country of 25 million people.In the end, however, Tillerson was caught off guard by Trump, who suddenly declared last week his willingness to participate in direct talks with Korea’s Kim Jong-un on the de-nuclearization of North Korea to be held by May. Trump made his announcement just a day after Tillerson had told reporters in Ethiopia that it was unclear "whether the conditions are right to even begin thinking about negotiations."Tillerson’s proposed replacement as secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has repeatedly made clear his determination to scrap the Iran nuclear treaty and pursue a strategy of regime change in Tehran. After Trump’s election, he tweeted: "I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism."As CIA director, Pompeo, who has repeatedly engaged in anti-Muslim rhetoric, referred to Iran as a "despotic theocracy" and a "pernicious empire that is expanding its power and influence across the Middle East."A former US Army tank officer and right-wing Tea Party congressman from Kansas, whose political career was bankrolled by the Koch brothers, Pompeo boasted last October that under his leadership, the CIA would become a "much more vicious agency." He directed the deployment of CIA assassination squads in Afghanistan to eliminate opponents of the US-backed regime in Kabul.Pompeo has also made clear his support for regime change in North Korea, declaring last July that he was "hopeful we will find a way to separate that regime from this system ... The North Korean people, I’m sure, are lovely people and would love to see him go."Speaking on a news talk show Sunday, Pompeo stressed that in any negotiations between Trump and Kim, "there will be no concessions made."Sources in Washington have indicated that Trump wanted to install Pompeo as secretary of state before any negotiations began.The appointment of Pompeo strongly suggests that the acceptance of talks with Kim is a ruse on the part of the Trump administration, aimed at paving the way to US military action.Asked on Sunday in an appearance on ABC where there was a possibility that the talks would not take place, White House spokesman Raj Shah responded, "there’s the possibility. If it does, it’s the North Koreans’ fault, they have not lived up to the promises that they made."The replacement of Tillerson by Pompeo provoked worried responses from Washington’s erstwhile European allies."The dismissal of Rex #Tillerson does not make anything better," German Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Roth said in a tweet Tuesday.Thomas Oppermann, the deputy speaker of the German parliament, meanwhile, warned that the removal of Tillerson, whom he described as "a reliable, intelligent interlocutor," would result in a "further setback for German-American relations." The sudden changes at the top of the US administration, he added, was a manifestation of Trump’s "capricious and erratic" methods.Trump’s ostensible political opponents within the Democratic Party responded to the cabinet reshuffle entirely from the standpoint of the anti-Russia campaign that they have made the focus of their opposition to the administration.Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, said that Tillerson "was not close to tough enough on Russia," and that he hoped that Pompeo "will be a lot tougher and we hope he can persuade the president to be tougher."House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, attributed Tillerson’s firing to his having implicated Russia in connection with the poisoning of an ex-spy living in Britain. "President Trump’s actions show that every official in his Administration is at the mercy of his personal whims and his worship of Putin," she tweeted.When Tillerson was nominated as secretary of state, Democrats opposed him not out of concern that a top oil CEO would be taking over the senior foreign policy position in the US government, but rather over his deals he struck with Russia.Now, far from opposing the further turn toward war by the Trump administration, they are only demanding that it focus more directly on nuclear-armed Russia.In a statement on Tuesday, Schumer also made it clear that he was not calling on Democrats to oppose Trump’s nominee to replace Pompeo as director of the CIA, Haspel, a 30-year CIA veteran who was directly involved in the torture of detainees under the Bush administration, as well as in the destruction of video evidence documenting those war crimes.(5) Mike S King on The War against Putin; King is pro-Putin but also pro-HitlerFrom: chris lancenet <chrislancenet@gmail.com>Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 12:36:41 +0900Subject: WAR AGAINST PUTIN_2017.pdfhttp://www.realhistorychannel.org/WAR%20AGAINST%20PUTIN_2017.pdfComment (Peter Myers, March 15, 2018):This book contains some useful material, but Mike S. King is pro-Hitler and pro-Japan in WW2.See his book Planet Rothschild (2 volumes): |
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