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Russian Spies Behind Every Christmas Tree

by David William Pear

Russian hackers more numerous than previously thought. Image credit to DrRichSwier.com

Russian hackers more numerous than previously thought. Image credit to DrRichSwier.com


The main stream propaganda media has been on an anti-Putin, anti-Russian propaganda binge for years, and the Guardian is one of the leaders of the pack.
One has to wonder if it has anything to do with the Guardian’s shady dealings with George Soros’ secretive Open Society Foundation. Soros makes a fortune from U.S. sponsored regime changes and financial disasters. A regime change in Russia could make him Billions of dollars.
For years the Guardian was a captain of journalism in a sea of corporate monopoly media. No longer and many of its renowned journalists have abandoned ship or been thrown overboard. Their alleged crimes were mutiny against the establishment?
The first storm at the Guardian came when award winning editor in chief Janine Gibson was forced to walk the plank (May 2015). Gibson was widely expected to become the Guardian’s Senior Editor. Instead Gibson was deep sixed after she navigated the Guardian through the treacherous course of revealing the Edward Snowden leaks.
The Guardian was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Snowden story, but the U.S. and British spy agencies were not amused. They had been caught red-handed hacking everybody’s computers, spying on US citizens and even listening in on the private phone conversations of heads of state (here). The polish on their crimes was lying to Congress.
The U.S. spy agencies use the information it gets from spying to interfere with the politics and elections of foreign governments, allies as well as foes. The storm at the Guardian over the Snowden leak resulted in the editors of the Guardian destroying their own computers, while notorious British GCHQ spies stood by and watched (here).
The many fans of the Guardian had been popping Champaign corks and feeling secure that the Guardian was watching over the establishment and reporting abuses of power, fraud, corruption and wrongdoing. Readers trusted the Guardian for its honest reporting for years.
Unbeknownst to most readers, the Guardian was in deep financial trouble. The Scott Trust that owns the Guardian needed a white-knight. It has been hemorrhaging money for years (here) and there were rumors that the Guardian might have to shut down its presses (here).
A white knight did not come forward, but a vulture capitalist did: George Soros and his Open Society Foundation. The financial arrangements and quid pro quo are unknown, since both the Scott Trust and Open Society are secretive.
Coincidentally or not, at the same time the Guardian launched its anti-Putin crusade, the Guardian joined in a new partnership, called the New East Network, with murky NGO’s, shady Eastern blogs, unknown sources and an outfit called Eurasianet (here).
The managing editor of Eurasianet is Justin Burke. At the time that the Guardian made the announcement of its new partnership, Justin Burke was and still is the chief editor. A link to Eurasianet had Burke’s email address listed at Soros’ Open Society Foundation (June 2014).
The Guardian and Soros-connected New East Network run anti-Putin and anti-Russia propaganda daily. There is no shortage of pro-Ukraine propaganda either. That propaganda spills over onto the Guardian website. This is a sinister conflict of interest for the Guardian. It should make a full disclosure of the financial arrangements between itself and Soros.
George Soros has made his fortune on currency speculation, regime change, coups and vulture capitalism. His current venture of destruction is Ukraine. Soros financed NGO’s that fueled the US led coup against the elected government of Ukraine and installed a cabal of fascists. Soros is a major backer of anti-Putin NGO’s in Russia. Soros constantly lobbies the US and the EU to bail out Ukraine with Billions of dollars, of which he would be a big beneficiary. Soros lobbies the US and the EU to destabilize Russia, which again would benefit him in Billions of dollars (here).
Soros has a sordid history. One of his most infamous coups was to break the Bank of England in 2002. The Telegraph called Soros “the man who broke the Bank of England; the arch villain of Black Wednesday” (here). Soros responded that if he did not do it somebody else would. His only morality is derived from the market.
The latest brouhaha out of the Guardian is a ridiculous allegation, based on flimsy-to-no evidence, that Putin fixed the 2016 US election. The main stream media, including the Guardian, has brainwashed the impressionable public that there is some kind of scheme between Putin and Trump. It is made up guilt, by made up association: “Trump bad—Putin bad”—and vice versa. It is a cynical ploy.
The logic of a Trump-Putin connection is twisted. What did Trump do, get together with Putin and say: “Volodia, if you can hack the election and help me beat Hillary I will be your best friend forever? We can go horseback riding together without a shirt?” If the US and Russia have good relations, and Trump is so inclined, then that is a plus for peace. It does not make one pro-Trump to be pro-peace. The neocons, war profiteers and warmongers want the US public to hate Putin, to lay the foundation for a regime change or war. If they can get some of the hate for Trump to rub off on Putin then it serves their evil purposes.
The whole basis of the Putin-hacking story is that leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee proved that Clinton-2 nomination was rigged by the Democratic National Committee. The nomination was stolen from Bernie Sanders. It was election fraud in plain sight, but the media has faked the news, and fakes ignorance.
Instead of going after the real perpetrators of the election fraud of 2016, which is the Democratic National Committee and Clinton-2, Obama and the main stream media put out smokescreens of Putin hacking the election. If anybody should be blamed for “election hacking” it is the DNC, Clinton-2, and the entire establishment including Obama.
Obama is spending his last month in office poisoning the well between the U.S. and Russia. He is playing the “Russian hacking” farce for all the propaganda it is worth, and the main stream media is piling on obediently.
One reason Obama is pushing the propaganda is that he is trying to salvage his legacy. He was depending on Clinton-2 to keep his legacy going. He is also settling scores of a personal vendetta against Putin—and the birther Trump. The propaganda is immature, foolish, irresponsible and dangerous.
The propaganda has gotten so petty that the Guardian quotes “anonymous White House officials” as saying that as part of Obama’s new sanctions against Putin he is closing Russia’s “three-story Georgian mansion” retreat on the Chesapeake Bay.
According to the propaganda repeated by the Guardian, the Russian retreat is an “old-school-KGB den of spying iniquity and espionage”. In contrast, the Guardian describes a similar retreat that the US embassy has in Russia on the Moscow River as “a place where US diplomats can let their hair down. It has a pool table, dart board and picnic area”; no mention of any old-school CIA spies or espionage going on there.
The Guardian’s anti-Putin propaganda has gotten into the bizarre. The editors have lost touch with sanity. The Guardian even sees an ominous plot in a Christmas party at the Kremlin. Christmas Parties are part of the job of diplomats.
The Guardian though sees a sinister threat from the Russian Christmas party because “all the children of American diplomats were invited to an event to visit the Kremlin’s festive Christmas tree”.
The Guardian says that the “Russian’s code” behind the children’s Christmas Tree party is a “subtle reminder, for those who were able to decode it, that the FSB (the KGB’s successor) has precise information about the children of US embassy employees and diplomats (here).”

David William Pear is an progressive columnist writing on economic, political and social issues. He is a regular columnist for The Real News Network, Op Ed News, and an editor for OEN. His articles have also appeared in Truth Out, Consortium News, Russia Insider, and other publications.

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Ignas Bednarczyk
Ignas Bednarczyk
Feb 17, 2017 4:17 PM

The limit seems to be (as a first time looker of the Off- Guardian) Left of centre has to be pro- post Soviet. I’ve never seen so much Putin swooning in the 3 only articles so far read. What a give-a-way. Its barely believable- the crux of this Off- Guardian. However, recently The Guardian has become offensively fascist, & I do agree with the points refuting ‘it’, without believing in their integrity. However I find it more offensive that the Russian government is murdering opponents, & more offensive still that Russia continues its Cold War arrogance, killing in London, & Paris, where the Gaulists were blamed, & made to take the fall). The journalistic method here is no different from in The Guardian, the content & ambitions are of a differing hue, which has to be a step in the right direction, but this article is irresponsible. If you knew as much as I did about Russian opps in London until Glasnost, perhaps you would be a little less theoretical, & a little more honest.

colynn burrell
colynn burrell
Feb 3, 2017 2:14 AM

I think it would increase the popularity of Offguardian if the comments were as easily formatted as they are in the Guardian. HTML tags are cumbersome when a single click will open and close a comment. I think thats part of the Guardians popularity.

amnesiaclinic
amnesiaclinic
Jan 9, 2017 8:28 PM

Reblogged this on amnesiaclinic and commented:
As David Icke says, ‘Burnt the toast – blame the Russians’. Watch his video on WW3 – the scenario leading up to this has been set decades ago.

jag37777
jag37777
Jan 8, 2017 10:26 PM

I think you’re too kind to the Grauniad. They stabbed Assange in the back long before Snowden came around. And in the Snowden flurry they stabbed Chelsea Manning.
I’ve never for a second believed the ‘destroying the hard disks’ story and I find the Snowden legend extremely difficult to believe.
The censorship has increased and become more authoritarian and draconian but it has been there for a long time.

John
John
Jan 8, 2017 1:08 AM

On the general topic, my nephew has a friend at the BBC and she has been telling him for several years that a number of Americans have joined the staff in recent years, who are always present at interviews for key posts.
Not only is The Guardian seemingly penetrated by US spies but so too are most of the mass media in the UK.
I can’t think of one single UK newspaper I would trust for a balanced and objective perspective anymore.
Very occasionally, Channel 4 TV does strike out in an independent way – but not all that often these days.

cettel22
cettel22
Jan 7, 2017 4:36 PM

I was considering this article as being good enough for me to link to in the articles that I write, but then I clicked onto the “(here)” here:
“Soros lobbies the US and the EU to destabilize Russia, which again would benefit him in Billions of dollars (here).”
What I came to was a Bloomberg article that does nothing to prove, and also that doesn’t even allege, that Soros would financially benefit from the skullduggery that Soros is doing in regards to Ukraine. Although I (Eric Zuesse) and many other people who have written on Soros’s disgusting involvement in the coup and other horrors of Obama’s Ukrainian operation have raised the question of whether Soros is a major holder of Ukrainian sovereign debt, or etc., no honest journalist says that Soros does financially benefit, and so I checked that ‘source’ linked-to, and found it wasn’t any such source at all.
I wouldn’t link to any article from an author who misleadingly links — in this case links to a ‘source’ that isn’t a source for the linked word or passage. I consider that to be dishonest.

cettel22
cettel22
Jan 7, 2017 4:57 PM
Reply to  cettel22

Then I clicked onto the link at
“A link to Eurasianet had Burke’s email address listed at Soros’ Open Society Foundation (June 2014)”
and likewise found that that linked item “(June 2014)” failed to sho, or to indicate in any way, that Burke’s email address was — either at the linked-to Guardian article or at the Eurasianet link that that article provided, indicated Jason Burke’s email address to be other than at eurasianet itself — not at “Open Society Foundation” as Pear alleges. I’m not saying that Burke doesn’t have an email address at Open Society Foundation, just that the link by Pear there is fake — it’s irrelevant to the alleged assertion that Pear is ‘documenting’ via that link.
Ugh!

Norman Pilon
Norman Pilon
Jan 7, 2017 6:54 PM
Reply to  cettel22

A cursory search for a possible link between the ‘Open Society Foundation’ and Eurasianet suggests that there is one:
Soros-paid Scribes Cover Their Tracks in Egypt — by Cliff Kincaid (2011)
&
Washington Post Blogger Exposes Atlantic Magazine’s Pro-Russian Deal with Soros-funded Eurasianet.org — by Jennifer Rubin (2011)
. . . to link but to two examples . . .

Norman Pilon
Norman Pilon
Jan 7, 2017 5:24 PM
Reply to  cettel22

“I consider that to be dishonest.”
. . . or it could just be an oversight.
Who doesn’t inadvertently, for whatever reason, get his references wrong from time to time? And sometimes it’s one’s references who have their “facts” wrong.
I will, however, grant you that It does become dishonest, or at he very least discreditable, if it’s a pattern.
But I can’t speak for David Williams. It’s the first I have ever heard of him.
As for whether “no honest journalist says that Soros does financially benefit,” F. William Engdahl has written this article:
An American Oligarch‘s Dirty Tale of Corruption
I don’t know, but it seems to me that Soros’ involvement in Ukraine in some ways echoes his former involvement in the dismantling of Yugoslavia:
Dismantling Former Yugoslavia, Recolonizing Bosnia-Herzegovina
To quote a bit from that piece by Michel Chossudovsky:

Under Western military occupation, Kosovo’s extensive wealth in mineral resources and coal was slated to be auctioned off at bargain prices to foreign capital. Prior to the bombings, Western investors already had their eyes riveted on the massive Trepca mining complex which constitutes “the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans, worth at least $5 billion.” 64 The Trepca complex not only includes copper and large reserves of zinc but also cadmium, gold, and silver. It has several smelting plants, 17 metal treatment sites, a power plant and Yugoslavia’s largest battery plant. Northern Kosovo also has estimated reserves of 17 billion tons of coal and lignite.
Barely a month after Kosovo’s military occupation under NATO guns, the head of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) Bernard Kouchner issued a decree to the effect that: “UNMIK shall administer movable or immovable property, including monetary accounts, and other property of, or registered in the name of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or the Republic of Serbia or any of its organs, which is in the territory of Kosovo”.65.
No time was lost, a few months after the military occupation of Kosovo, the International Crisis Group (ICG) a think tank supported by Financier George Soros, issued a paper on “Trepca: Making Sense of the Labyrinth” which advised the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) “to take over the Trepca mining complex from the Serbs as quickly as possible and explained how this should be done”.66 And in August 2000, UNMIK Head Bernard Kouchner sent in heavily armed “peacekeepers” (“wearing surgical masks against toxic smoke”) to occupy the mine on the pretense that it was creating an environmental hazard through excessive air pollution.

But maybe Soros himself doesn’t personally benefit from these pillaging operations. His motives for getting involved may be completely altruistic if somewhat biased in favor of his own oligarchical class. I don’t know.

cettel22
cettel22
Jan 7, 2017 6:03 PM
Reply to  Norman Pilon

I know all of that, and I loathe it, but nothing that you cite here is documenting any specific investment in Soros’s portfolio, that would be receiving funds or otherwise gain directly in value from what he is doing in Ukraine. Engdahl, for example, is good enough a journalist not to make any such allegation as Pear is here. Engdahl is a far better journalist than Pear. A large percentage of my time as a journalist is devoted to avoiding citing such lousy articles (and journalists) as this.
It’s one thing to say that Soros does a lot of terribly harmful things, but it’s another to say that he does them for ‘greed’ instead of — for example — for ideological reasons such as ‘free market’ or ‘the Washington consensus’, or else for bigotry reasons such as his having a deep-seated hatred of Russians.
Bad ‘journalists’ (and readers who respect them) confuse a person’s actions with that person’s ‘motives’ — which can be very different from what those ‘journalists’ (and readers who respect them) are ASSUMING to be the case. To assume what a person’s motivations are is to be prejudiced for or against that person. To DEMONSTRATE what a person’s motivations are is very different — the highest journalistic achievement (and very rare).

cettel22
cettel22
Jan 7, 2017 6:06 PM
Reply to  cettel22

In any case, a ‘journalist’ who links to evidence that doesn’t directly (nor even via its own linked-to sources) prove the truthfulness of the linked-to allegation, is fake.

Norman Pilon
Norman Pilon
Jan 7, 2017 6:46 PM
Reply to  cettel22

“Bad ‘journalists’ (and readers who respect them) confuse a person’s actions with that person’s ‘motives’ ”
Yes. And David’s article may be somewhat below your exemplary standards, but it doesn’t automatically mean that he is “dishonest.”
To accuse him of being dishonest, which is what you did, Is this not to — in your own words — “confuse a person’s actions with that person’s motives?” This was my original point of contention with your first comment.
As for Soros, he is an oligarch. Therefore he very much does stand to increase his wealth, however directly or indirectly, whenever and wherever national assets anywhere, by whatever means, are placed on the auction block for asset privatization. This, more than any other so-called motive, to my mind, is by far the better explanation for Soros’ involvement in the liquidation state assets or even of entire states themselves.
Of course, some call it greed. Other’s understand it as being the expression of a blind and profoundly misanthropic or inhumane ideology, that of capitalism, or the mindless drive for accumulating wealth for the sake of accumulation, no matter the cost. But in this respect, there is no disagreement between us.

cettel22
cettel22
Jan 7, 2017 6:59 PM
Reply to  Norman Pilon

The linking of an assertion is done in order to connect the reader to the evidence (and maybe also to other relevant background) for that assertion by the author. It’s like a footnote in paper-and-ink-printed articles or books. The quality of the article depends upon the quality of its source. When a ‘source’ turns out to be not a source for the given allegation — or, worse yet (as in the two instances that I checked) not even irrelevant to the given allegation — then the ‘journalist’ is faking it, pretending to have evidence backing up his assertion but actually not having any — not even poor quality sources (which is what average ‘journalism’ is based upon).
What’s the purpose of reading such garbage except to confirm believers in what they already believe — even if what they believe is false (such as your belief that greed has been documented to be the motivation (or even a motivation) for Soros’s evils)? Getting rid of one’s biases is hard, but that’s certainly not the way to do it! Looking for other people who share your biases is the path only to sinking deeper into one’s existing biases — not to finding truth.

Norman Pilon
Norman Pilon
Jan 7, 2017 7:00 PM
Reply to  cettel22

Entirely agree.

cettel22
cettel22
Jan 7, 2017 7:02 PM
Reply to  cettel22

And your attempt to side-track into semantics (“some call it greed”) is merely an attempt to evade the issues, not to address them.
This is not a semantic matter, at all.

Norman Pilon
Norman Pilon
Jan 7, 2017 7:27 PM
Reply to  cettel22

Again, you impute motive to action on very little ground: “my attempt to side-track into semantics!”
Now why would I want to side-track into semantics, Eric?

Jen
Jen
Jan 7, 2017 12:12 PM

Going a little off-topic here, I draw readers’ attention to an article by George Eliason (over at Washington’s Blog) on the cyber-security firm Crowdstrike (whose CEO is Dmitri Alperovich, an emigre Russian) which has been supplying the “proofs” of supposed Russian hacking of the Democratic National Convention emails to US intel.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/01/crowdstrikes-russian-hacking-story-fell-apart-say-hello-fancy-bear-2.html
If what Eliason says can be confirmed, then the very people who claim Russian hacking of the DNC emails and interference with the US presidential elections not only have serious conflicts of interest as regards funding but also a deep personal interest in fomenting outright war between the West and Russia and therefore might be guilty of treasonous behaviour in allying themselves with the SBU (Ukrainian intelligence) and people connected to the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (Bandera).

shaksvshav
shaksvshav
Jan 7, 2017 9:55 AM

PC liberal dross even infects the obits, eg a recent one on the death of Marxist art expert John Berger.

johnny
johnny
Jan 7, 2017 12:17 PM
Reply to  shaksvshav

worse is the music section, so many boxes to tick for an artist to be given credibility

Benny
Benny
Jan 6, 2017 10:18 PM

This Russian hacking story is literally unbelievable. It’s all over the media, including C4 & BBC News.
Never mind blaming Russia for Trump’s victory – Sanders would have beaten him, had the Democrats not been so determined to foist Clinton II on the voters.
We are witnessing a desparate attempt by the PTB to claim they’re the rightful winners.
Clinton’s defeat shows how much the public hate a system which is clearly making the vast majority of their lives poorer and more miserable, while simultaneously enriching the elite (who own the MSM). Trump’s regime will be no different.
The MSM, TV, tabloid, broadsheet or ‘US intelligence’, are all truly just propaganda by the slave owners.

exiled off mainstreet
exiled off mainstreet
Jan 6, 2017 9:13 PM

I think the key moment was when MI6 (or was it MI5?) sent emissaries into the grauniad and broke up their mainframe in response to the disclosure of the Snowden allegations. Since then the erstwhile graun has deteriorated into a Voelkischer Beobachter for the yankee deep state and Soros. I suppose as is indicated, most of their brass now emanates from Soros since many if not most of their former readers have seen through them. I’m curious if they still publish Steve Bell now that they have degenerated into imperial cheerleaders. Has he retired, or is he now a loyal lackey for the power structure?

Admin
Admin
Jan 7, 2017 10:13 AM

Small correction. GCHQ asked the Guardian staff to smash their own hard drives – and they very obediently did so.

johnny
johnny
Jan 7, 2017 12:14 PM

The misinformation regarding the Georgia “war” was well before this. As was the dismemberment of Yugoslavia which I now assume the Guardian covered with an early form of neoliberal agenda setting

Sav
Sav
Jan 7, 2017 11:41 PM
Reply to  johnny

Even if you go back to just before the invasion of Iraq, you’ll see numerous articles repeating the pro-war propaganda in the Guardian without question.

pretzelattack
pretzelattack
Jan 6, 2017 8:34 PM

the guardian keeps putting up stories about the alleged russian hacking, but usually doesn’t allow comments on them, or keeps the comment window open for a short period of time. maybe if they get too many critical comments they shut it down, or maybe they are just trying to maintain the illusion that comment is free there.

Willem
Willem
Jan 6, 2017 6:52 PM

Is it known how many people still subscribe to the Guardian? And what people who read the Guardian prefer to read there?
It is my impression (but maybe I am reading alt-media too much) that the number of subscribers must have dropped substantially over the years, and that the only interesting news there can be found on the sport pages. Although I would not be surprised if there too the win or loss of your favourite team ultimately depends on Russian hackers.
Long story short: if the only way that the Guardian can survive as a news paper is by receiving funding from Soros et al, then maybe it is best for world peace if that funding from Soros continues for some time. Better that Soros loses money on a newspaper that nobody reads (excluding the few who like to ridicule the paper), than spend it on wars and regime changes that only lead to chaos and misery.
And, assuming that the Guardian will continue to lose their readers (of which I do not know if this is actually happening, but it seems likely to me) it could also be good for soul searching activities for the journalists who still write or edit for the Guardian. I mean, at some stage they will have to ask themselves why nobody wants to read their carefully constructed stories, while the alt-media is flourishing and can only be stopped from taking over the media’s function (so it seems) by massive censorship.

johnny
johnny
Jan 6, 2017 8:00 PM
Reply to  Willem

You joke about the sports section, in the Arts department every article that i read is infected with the same agenda driving that is so obvious in current affairs. Try reading recent Jonathan Jones articles and you will get my drift

Sav
Sav
Jan 6, 2017 9:07 PM
Reply to  johnny

Indeed, every aspect has to be controlled, whether art, satire etc. You’ll find each and every journalist bowing to it. Jones will run some crapola on Palmyra and some arse socialite will vilify Asma Assad…or wife of whoever next we’re trying to bomb.

Jen
Jen
Jan 6, 2017 9:55 PM
Reply to  Willem

Every time I visit The Guardian now (if I ever do), I get a pop-up asking for more donations to fund whatever passes for “investigative journalism”. So the readership must have hit the polar opposite of what we would call critical mass (that is, the lack thereof) beyond and beneath which the newspaper will be surviving from one day to the next.

Peter
Peter
Jan 7, 2017 11:03 AM
Reply to  Kaiama

Thanks for the link. The Graun articles’ readers’ comments are worth looking at – a lot of scepticism and piss-taking at the Graun’s expense. Quite a few comments removed by the moderators.

Kaiama
Kaiama
Jan 7, 2017 1:08 PM
Reply to  Peter

1 The comments were taken down early.
2 The moderator said comments were “opened in error” !
3 The moderator’s own comment was then deleted some hours later !
There were 60 comments, now only 59.