By Finian Cunningham
"Press TV" - The US spooks are on the defensive over escalating geopolitical tensions between America and Russia over Ukraine. This weekend, the leaders of the 6! or so US intelligence agencies are having to explain to their political masters why they are called "intelligence" given that they failed to foresee the Russian security measures that Moscow has deployed in Ukraine's southern Crimean Peninsula over the past week.
Now Washington is scrambling fighter jets to the Balkans and warships to the Black Sea in a desperate show of purposefulness, having been caught rudely asleep as the self-appointed global police thug.
So much for the $50-billion-a-year American spy industry, including the National Security Agency, which came to prominence this past year with revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden that the agency...[extracted] zillions of data from computers and phones in every country of the world.
Given the evident surprise in Washington over Russian military moves in the Crimea this past week, the US spook industry has got some serious explaining to do for their extraordinary lapse and atrociously poor value for tax-payer money.
The fallback claim by US director of intelligence, James Clapper, and other spy bosses, as well as President Obama himself, is that the NSA's violation of privacy laws has been necessary because it keeps Americans safe from terrorism and other threats.
Now, with Washington spectacularly wrong-footed by Russia in Crimea, that assurance of alleged vigilance looks even more threadbare. How incompetent can American spooks and their multi-billion-dollar activities be?
For some light relief comes the news that the Pentagon has now taken to "reading the body language" of Russian President Vladimir Putin for guidance.
No kidding, there is reportedly a unit in the Pentagon, answering directly to defense secretary Chuck Hagel, on what can be gleaned about Moscow's geopolitical intentions - based on Putin's public appearances on television.
What this says is that US intelligence is an oxymoron. These people haven't a clue if that is what they have to resort to for guidance. What next? Reading tea leaves or the horoscope?
This, however, is a double-edged sword for the rest of us. One on hand it is somewhat reassuring that American military is so incompetent and stupid. On the other, it is alarming that the biggest nuclear-armed predator state in the world is so clueless about decision-making.
So, what will the American body-language "analysts" make of President Putin's demeanor? We know that President Obama has already made snide remarks about Putin appearing like an insolent schoolboy "slouching at the back of the class". So will a Putin slouch with feisty attitude over Ukraine mean that the Russian leader is secretly about to go to war with America?
Or what about those piercing blue eyes of Putin staring at the cameras? Is the Russian chief flashing Aryan Blue credentials to confirm American politicians' claims that he is the "new Hitler" and that Russian moves in Crimea are, as they ridiculously say, tantamount to Nazi Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia during the 1930s in the run-up to World War II?
American intelligence is so dumb because it is part of the totalitarian indoctrination system that is American politics. The American ruling class and its fascist military-financial-industrial complex has concocted so many lies and false propaganda over decades to justify its global terrorism that the system does not know what is real or not any more. It is so bloated on its own self-righteous arrogance and self-serving vanity that rational analysis of geopolitics is an impossible task in Washington.
A diseased system cannot diagnose itself or others. And America's political system, as with that of Europe, is rotten to its plutocratic core.
Events in Ukraine, just as those in Syria, show that the US and its Western puppet regimes are up to their necks in criminal regime change. In Syria, Washington is relying on...[militants] to do its dirty work there; while in Ukraine the role falls to neo-Nazi fascists. These proxies are in the business of sacking legitimate, sovereign governments for the benefit of Western finance capitalists - the only last remaining economic function of bankrupt capitalism.
Against all the evidence staring us in the face, Western governments and their propagandist news media turn reality on its head by claiming that what is going are popular democratic uprisings, which the West is valiantly supporting.
The latest revelation from the leaked phone call involving EU chief Catherine Ashton indicating that dozens of protesters and police officers in Kiev were shot dead by covert snipers working for the Western-backed agitators is damning proof of orchestrated regime change. The murderous propaganda stunt and the Western propagandized response is a replica of how the conflict in Syria was fomented in March 2011.
Yet, in spite of the revelations of criminal conspiracy in Ukraine and Syria, Western governments are permitted to continue indulging in lies and fantasy about "rebels" in Syria and "fledgling government" in Kiev because the Western media persist in peddling outrageous disinformation supplied to them by so-called intelligence.
Instead of being able to assess reality of events in Ukraine, Western politicians and their media bluster about Russian "aggression" and "violation of sovereignty". And Western intelligence is integral to this fascistic culture of lying and deception by the ruling elite.
That function of fabricating lies, peddling falsehoods, covering up for huge criminality, including the supreme crime of war of aggression, has corroded any ability for genuine intelligence.
The events in Ukraine and its Crimean Peninsula reveal not just gross incompetence among Western intelligence. More than that, the events are a reflection of the morally bankrupt American government and its Western allies and their now congenital inability to tell truth - or deal with the reality of their own criminality.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent.
"Press TV" - The US spooks are on the defensive over escalating geopolitical tensions between America and Russia over Ukraine. This weekend, the leaders of the 6! or so US intelligence agencies are having to explain to their political masters why they are called "intelligence" given that they failed to foresee the Russian security measures that Moscow has deployed in Ukraine's southern Crimean Peninsula over the past week.
Now Washington is scrambling fighter jets to the Balkans and warships to the Black Sea in a desperate show of purposefulness, having been caught rudely asleep as the self-appointed global police thug.
So much for the $50-billion-a-year American spy industry, including the National Security Agency, which came to prominence this past year with revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden that the agency...[extracted] zillions of data from computers and phones in every country of the world.
Given the evident surprise in Washington over Russian military moves in the Crimea this past week, the US spook industry has got some serious explaining to do for their extraordinary lapse and atrociously poor value for tax-payer money.
The fallback claim by US director of intelligence, James Clapper, and other spy bosses, as well as President Obama himself, is that the NSA's violation of privacy laws has been necessary because it keeps Americans safe from terrorism and other threats.
Now, with Washington spectacularly wrong-footed by Russia in Crimea, that assurance of alleged vigilance looks even more threadbare. How incompetent can American spooks and their multi-billion-dollar activities be?
For some light relief comes the news that the Pentagon has now taken to "reading the body language" of Russian President Vladimir Putin for guidance.
No kidding, there is reportedly a unit in the Pentagon, answering directly to defense secretary Chuck Hagel, on what can be gleaned about Moscow's geopolitical intentions - based on Putin's public appearances on television.
What this says is that US intelligence is an oxymoron. These people haven't a clue if that is what they have to resort to for guidance. What next? Reading tea leaves or the horoscope?
This, however, is a double-edged sword for the rest of us. One on hand it is somewhat reassuring that American military is so incompetent and stupid. On the other, it is alarming that the biggest nuclear-armed predator state in the world is so clueless about decision-making.
So, what will the American body-language "analysts" make of President Putin's demeanor? We know that President Obama has already made snide remarks about Putin appearing like an insolent schoolboy "slouching at the back of the class". So will a Putin slouch with feisty attitude over Ukraine mean that the Russian leader is secretly about to go to war with America?
Or what about those piercing blue eyes of Putin staring at the cameras? Is the Russian chief flashing Aryan Blue credentials to confirm American politicians' claims that he is the "new Hitler" and that Russian moves in Crimea are, as they ridiculously say, tantamount to Nazi Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia during the 1930s in the run-up to World War II?
American intelligence is so dumb because it is part of the totalitarian indoctrination system that is American politics. The American ruling class and its fascist military-financial-industrial complex has concocted so many lies and false propaganda over decades to justify its global terrorism that the system does not know what is real or not any more. It is so bloated on its own self-righteous arrogance and self-serving vanity that rational analysis of geopolitics is an impossible task in Washington.
A diseased system cannot diagnose itself or others. And America's political system, as with that of Europe, is rotten to its plutocratic core.
Events in Ukraine, just as those in Syria, show that the US and its Western puppet regimes are up to their necks in criminal regime change. In Syria, Washington is relying on...[militants] to do its dirty work there; while in Ukraine the role falls to neo-Nazi fascists. These proxies are in the business of sacking legitimate, sovereign governments for the benefit of Western finance capitalists - the only last remaining economic function of bankrupt capitalism.
Against all the evidence staring us in the face, Western governments and their propagandist news media turn reality on its head by claiming that what is going are popular democratic uprisings, which the West is valiantly supporting.
The latest revelation from the leaked phone call involving EU chief Catherine Ashton indicating that dozens of protesters and police officers in Kiev were shot dead by covert snipers working for the Western-backed agitators is damning proof of orchestrated regime change. The murderous propaganda stunt and the Western propagandized response is a replica of how the conflict in Syria was fomented in March 2011.
Yet, in spite of the revelations of criminal conspiracy in Ukraine and Syria, Western governments are permitted to continue indulging in lies and fantasy about "rebels" in Syria and "fledgling government" in Kiev because the Western media persist in peddling outrageous disinformation supplied to them by so-called intelligence.
Instead of being able to assess reality of events in Ukraine, Western politicians and their media bluster about Russian "aggression" and "violation of sovereignty". And Western intelligence is integral to this fascistic culture of lying and deception by the ruling elite.
That function of fabricating lies, peddling falsehoods, covering up for huge criminality, including the supreme crime of war of aggression, has corroded any ability for genuine intelligence.
The events in Ukraine and its Crimean Peninsula reveal not just gross incompetence among Western intelligence. More than that, the events are a reflection of the morally bankrupt American government and its Western allies and their now congenital inability to tell truth - or deal with the reality of their own criminality.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent.
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