FINIAN CUNNINGHAM -- Double Standards over ‘Russian Interference’ in Western Elections

FINIAN CUNNINGHAM | 23.02.2017 | OPINION

Double Standards over ‘Russian Interference’ in Western Elections

Just as polls show Marine Le Pen of the Front National taking a decisive lead over her two main rivals, Francois Fillon of the Republicans, and Emmanuel Macron of the newly formed En Marche, the latter gets a high-profile reception in Downing Street with British prime minister Theresa May.

Fillon has no plans to make a similar visit to Britain, while Downing Street officially announced that it would not be receiving Le Pen, reported the Independent.

With only weeks to go to the first round of the French presidential elections in April, the British government’s hosting of Macron this week can be seen as an extraordinary endorsement of his candidacy.

One could express it even more strongly and say that Britain is evidently interfering in the French democratic process by elevating one candidate over another.

A spokesman for premier May said that Macron had requested the meeting at Downing Street and «we were able to accommodate».

A smiling Macron photographed on the doorsteps of Number 10 clearly showed him relishing the singular honor bestowed by the British prime minister.

One can imagine the media hullabaloo if Marine Le Pen were greeted in Moscow by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the Kremlin to then pointedly announce that her rival Macron would not be receiving a similar invitation. There would be howls of «Russian interference» in the French election.

Indeed, Russia is being accused of doing just that already on the basis of scant allegations. Emmanuel Macron has recently claimed that his campaign is being targeted by Russian hackers and «fake news». Macron’s campaign team is alleging – without providing any evidence – that its computers are being attacked by «Russian hackers».

The liberal pro-EU candidate is also claiming that «Kremlin-run news media» are mounting a fake news «influence campaign» to damage his credibility.

This follows the publication of a news article by the Sputnik outlet earlier this month which quoted French political rivals accusing Macron of being supported by global banking interests and a wealthy gay rights lobby.

Russian government-owned Sputnik has denied that it is trying to damage Macron’s candidacy, and that it was merely giving coverage to criticisms aired by French political rivals.

Based on such flimsy, partisan claims of political interference, the French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault earlier this week issued a warning to Russia to «stop meddling in the French presidential election».

Thus, a one-sided overblown claim by one of the presidential candidates is raised to a state level as if it is an established fact of Russian subversion of French sovereignty.

This narrative of Russian interference in foreign elections has evidently become contagious. Ever since American intelligence agencies, amplified by US media, began accusing Russia of hacking into the presidential elections to favor Donald Trump, the narrative has become a staple in other Western states.

Last week, German news outlet Deutsche Welle published this headline: «Is Moscow meddling in everything?» The article goes on to ask with insinuating tone: «Does Putin decide who wins elections in the West? Many believe that he cost Clinton the US presidency; now Macron is next France, and then Merkel will be in the line of fire».

The Russian government is legitimately entitled, as are other governments, to hold views on the outcome of foreign elections. After all, many European governments, including those of Germany and France, were adamantly opposed to Trump winning the US election, instead preferring his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. But they weren’t subjected to criticism that they were interfering in the American election.

Regarding France, Russian state interests might be best served by Marine Le Pen taking the presidency. She has expressed a desire to restore friendlier relations with Moscow and to jettison the NATO agenda of hostility towards Russia. Her anti-EU views would also help to undermine the Washington-led atlanticist axis which has driven enmity between Europe and Russia.

The Kremlin has been careful to not make any public statements on the outcome of the French election, nor of any other foreign election, maintaining that it does not interfere. Nevertheless, Moscow is entitled to have its own private assessment on what would serve its own national interests. There’s nothing untoward about that. It seems almost bizarre to have to explain that.

But such is the fever-pitch and hysteria about alleged Russian malfeasance that the slightest sign, such as a random news article airing critical comments as in the Macron example, is taken as «proof» of Kremlin interference.

This is in spite of the fact that no evidence is presented. German state intelligence, for instance, recently concluded that there was no evidence to support allegations that Russia was running a Trump-like influence campaign against Chancellor Merkel ahead of her country’s elections being held in September.

Perhaps the most egregious expression to date of the Russian interference narrative were claims made this week by Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that the Kremlin had sponsored a coup attempt against the government of Montenegro last October.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov lambasted the evidence-free claims as «absurd». Lavrov said it «is just another one in a series of groundless assertions blaming our country for carrying out cyberattacks against the entire West, interfering in election campaigns in the bulk of Western countries as well as allegations pointing to the Trump administration’s ties with Russian secret services, among other things».

The height of absurdity is Britain this week hosting Emmanuel Macron at the Downing Street residence of Prime Minister Theresa May.

May’s intervention is a full-on endorsement of this one candidate at a crucial time in the French election which sees his main rival Marine Le Pen taking a decisive lead in the polls.

But where are the headlines denouncing «British interference» in French democracy?

Western media are too preoccupied digging up far-fetched stories claiming Russian interference based on the flimsiest speculation.

That double standard is clear evidence of the irrational Russophobia that is gripping Western governments and news media. Russophobia that has become a psychosis.

Finian Cunningham -- Trump or Putin? EU Loses Plot on Biggest Threat

Trump or Putin? EU Loses Plot on Biggest Threat

By Finian Cunningham on February 4, 2017

Blaming Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin for the demise of the EU is the ultimate form of scapegoating by a bunch of incompetent leaders.

by Finian Cunningham

SPUTNIK

If ever an image captured the dysfunctional nature of the European Union it was the assembled leaders of the 28 member states photographed at an ancient fortress on the Maltese island this week.

Malta summit – 2017

Talk about “fortress mentality”! The European presidents and prime ministers were scheduled to deal with migration from North Africa as a threat to the bloc’s stability.

But instead, their summit was dominated by the issue of US President Donald Trump and the shared perception that the new occupant of the White House poses an urgent challenge to the EU.

“Prime ministers and presidents at Malta summit line up to scorn Trump’s conduct, accusing him of lack of respect,”reported the Guardian.

French President François Hollande even said that if the EU did not unite to oppose Trump’s populist nationalism, then the bloc was doomed to collapse.

The irony of the European leaders’ existential apprehensions about the new American president is laughable. For months, these same European politicians have been led by the nose by Western state propaganda alleging it was Russian President Vladimir Putin who is the top threat to EU stability.

© PHOTO: YOUTUBE/BBC

Russian ‘Hackers’ Again! Twitter Explodes as Sherlock Season Finale Leaks Online Before Premiere

European news media – like their US counterparts – have pushed sensationalist claims that the Kremlin is out to subvert EU democracies, undermine “European values”, promote Eurosceptic political parties and smash the union.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned only a few weeks ago that putative Russian state hackers would now turn their attention to forthcoming elections in Netherlands, France and Germany as they had allegedly done in the US to help Donald Trump get elected.

Amazingly with this backdrop of anti-Russia fear-mongering, the EU leaders in Malta this week made not a single mention of “Russian threat”.

All the angst of Europe’s supposed leaders was devoted to Donald Trump undermining their institutional existence.

Malta summit – 2017

What does that say about the credibility of EU politicians? When they flip from making hysterical allegations against Russia to huddling around like frightened children fretting about how a new American president might induce their demise.

Finian Cunningham -- Western amnesia on WWII as NATO replicates Nazi Germany

Western amnesia on WWII as NATO replicates Nazi Germany

By Finian Cunningham on January 15, 2017

A continent that sparked two world wars with up to 100 million dead seems unbelievably amnesiac about the danger of conflagration.

U.S. army soldiers attend an official welcoming ceremony for U.S. troops deployed to Poland as part of NATO build-up in Eastern Europe in Zagan, Poland, January 14, 2017 © Kacper Pempel / Reuters

by Finian Cunningham

NATO’s biggest buildup in Europe since the Cold War was met with official cheers in Poland and approving Western media coverage this week, but lack of concern in Western public discourse suggests a collective amnesia towards the continent’s horrific past.

Up to 4,000 US troops and hundreds of Abrams tanks and Bradley armored vehicles rolled into Poland after disembarking in Germany last week. Most of the soldiers were from the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team out of Fort Carson, Colorado. They represent the US army’s best assault units.

American soldiers of 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, march off the grounds after a welcoming ceremony in Zagan, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. The unit is on a nine-month deployment to eastern Europe as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve. Michael Abrams/Stars and Stripes

It is but the latest military escalation since the US launched Operation Atlantic Resolve with NATO partners in April 2014. That operation is said to be a result of the Ukraine conflict, which Washington and allies blame on Russian interference.

US commander Colonel Christopher Norrie this week said: “The main goal of our mission is deterrence and prevention of threats.”

US Mission to NATOVerified account‏@USNATO

Yesterday was “a significant moment in European deterrence & defense” as US rotational brigade crossed from  to  goo.gl/1a8cBT

This view was echoed by Poland’s defense minister, Antoni Macierewicz, who claimed the military reinforcements would check alleged Russian interference in Europe.

“Russia’s veto power in Central Europe, in Poland, has ended once and for all,” said Macierewics, who has been an ardent advocate of NATO expansion in the region.

After nine months of exercises in Poland, the US troops will be rotated to the Baltic States of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, as well as to Bulgaria and Romania.

The claims of “deterrence” and “defense” for the US-led military escalation on Russia’s borders, articulated by Washington officials and European governments, are amplified without question by Western news media.

Polish and Baltic politicians seem to thrive on paranoia toward Russia, fearing a revanchist Soviet-style invasion in spite of repeated declarations by Moscow that it has no aggressive designs on its Western neighbors.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Department diplomat, Victoria Nuland’s telephone intercept on Ukraine – The Guardian, UK..

The conflict in Ukraine, and earlier in Georgia in 2008, can be arguably accounted for by US and European meddling in the internal affairs of these countries. To blame those conflicts solely on Russia is misplaced to say the least. Yet that dubious premise is then used to “justify” the escalation of NATO forces along Russia’s entire Western flank.

Washington, Europe, and the NATO alliance have compounded the cleavage in relations with Russia by spurning dialogue, slapping on several rounds of economic and diplomatic sanctions, accusing Russia of cyber-attacks on electoral systems, and demonizing Russian leaders as “murderers and war criminals.”

Without any evidence, it has become an article of faith among Western officials and media that Russia under President Vladimir Putin has masterminded a malicious plan to smash Atlantic relations, break up NATO, and disintegrate the European Union.

This week, General James Mattis, the nominee for defense secretary in the new Trump administration, told his Congressional confirmation hearing that Russia was the biggest threat to the US-led world order since the Second World War.

The incoming US president, Donald Trump, does not seem to share this antagonistic view on Russia, however. In recent days, he has hinted that he would be prepared to lift US sanctions on Moscow and that he is ready to the meet Putin for talks.

Trump is certainly a breath of fresh air compared with the stale, fetid mentality that, up to now, has dominated in Washington, and hence its European subordinates, in treating Russia as an enemy.

Although the commitment to deploy more US troops in Europe was taken under the Obama administration, one wonders if certain sections of the US establishment are pushing ahead with provocative policy in order to stymie any attempt at detente under the new Trump administration.

Moscow has slammed the latest US troop buildup as a “threat to our security.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “These actions threaten our interests, our security. Especially as it concerns a third party building up its military presence near our borders.”

With cogent reasoning, Peskov added: “Any country may and will take a buildup of foreign military presence along its borders negatively. This is exactly how we take it, be it one thousand or ten thousand soldiers, it’s all the same.”

Moscow’s reported invitation to the Trump administration to attend forthcoming peace talks on Syria to be held in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, on January 23 – three days after Trump’s inauguration – is a sign that Russia is keeping open the possibility of normalizing relations with the US – despite the provocative military escalation on its borders.

US CONVOY arrive at the Polish-German border in Olszyna, Poland. Photograph: Natalia Dobryszycka/AFP/Getty Images

It seems bizarre that Russia’s protests against the relentless consolidation of US military power on its doorstep – including new missile systems in Romania and Poland – are met with apparent agnosticism in the West, if not cynical dismissal for being overblown.

The movement of US troops and tanks from Germany into Poland this week was reported in the Western media as some kind of chivalrous act of American protection of allies.

Europe seems asleep to the danger that such militarism between nuclear-armed forces poses. A continent that sparked two world wars with up to 100 million dead seems unbelievably amnesiac about the danger of conflagration.

A measure of this apparent collective amnesia can be gleaned from the passing of veteran English newspaper journalist Clare Hollingworth, who died this week at the age of 105. Hollingworth published the “scoop of the century” in 1939 when she first reported Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland, which then sparked the Second World War. The headline of her original report in Britain’s Daily Telegraph on August 29, 1939, read: “1,000 tanks massed on Polish frontier.”

Amid media tributes to the deceased journalist, reference to contemporary events was absent. In the same week that Clare Hollingworth passed away, tanks were again rolling into Poland from Germany, this time driven by American troops. But Western media outlets made no such connection.

What is Obama trying to do, start WWIII in the next two weeks?

In seeming oblivious isolation from events that triggered World War Two some 78 years ago, we are told by Western media that American tanks are on a “mission of deterrence and prevention of threats.”

Nazi propagandists trotted out the same spurious claims of acting in defense when the Wehrmacht rolled its tanks into neighboring European states.

Russia can evidently see the US-led NATO militarization of Europe objectively for what it is: a threat to stability and a provocation for all-out war.

Why is it that the Western public does not seem to be aware of the unfolding danger? Why does this same public appear to accept official narratives of “acting in defense,” when in reality the developments are so obviously “acting in offense”?

Perhaps we can deduce that this lack of critical thought is due to systematic inculcation and indoctrination by Western governments, servile mass media, and corporate-funded think-tanks, all of whom have huge vested interests in stoking tensions with Russia.

Russia Defeats Terrorism… While America Hails a Freak Show -- Finian Cunningham

Russia Defeats Terrorism… While America Hails a Freak Show

By Finian Cunningham

August 01, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "Sputnik" - A curious thing in the Western media this weekend is how little coverage is being given to a momentous victory unfolding in Syria. The Syrian Arab Army and Russian forces are about to close the final chapter in the five-year war – and the Western media don’t seem to want to know about it.

Indeed, far more media coverage is given to Hillary Clinton’s nomination as the Democrat’s presidential candidate. While Clinton was declaring to her party’s convention how she would wipe out Islamist terrorists in the Middle East, the Syrian army and its Russian allies were actually getting on withthat very job.

Syria’s northern city of Aleppo – which was the country’s biggest city before the onset of the war in 2011 – is about to be fully retaken by the Syrian army, supported by Russian air power. Humanitarian corridors have been created to allow civilians and surrendering fighters to escape before the final assault begins on anti-government militias holed up in the east of the city