An excellent article at WAPO this morning by Michael McFaul, our former ambassador to Russia. The piece offers a short history/insight of the how and why of our current situation with Putin and the sharp rise of a sophisticated Russian propaganda machine which is now attempting to subvert all things Western.

As McFaul tells it, Putin paranoia was thick even in 2011:

I was not Mr. Reset but an agent provocateur: a revolutions specialist sent by Obama to orchestrate regime change. For the rest of my time in Russia as ambassador, I battled nearly every day to dispel that myth — and never really succeeded.

This was all about Putin's fading support in the then upcoming 2012 election:

The December 2011 parliamentary elections were the beginning of the end of the reset. Putin’s party, United Russia, performed much more poorly than expected, despite enjoying unlimited national television coverage, abundant financial resources, the backing of regional governments and a bump from ballot falsification. It won only 49.3 percent of the vote, a significant drop from the 64.3 percent it had garnered four years earlier.

Putin was spooked by the resistance and the US became, once again, the worthy object of all things bad in Russia. Every dictator needs a boogie man. And, of course, now Putin has the perfect solution, an agent of influence sitting in our White House.

The article is an interesting read but so is the comments section where you can find some expert trolling by one RobertHeikeler. Fascinating back and forth.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/11/feature/putin-needed-an-american-enemy-he-picked-me/?utm_term=.58469a406a2c

As we attempt to get our heads around the ongoing Trumpster debacle, the 2016 electoral madness, Michael Hayden, former NSA & CIA Director, suggests taking a trip back to 2015 and revisit the military Jade Helm exercises in Texas. You might vaguely recall Governor Abbott acquiescing to the conspiracy nuts, ordering the State Guard to monitor the Federal military exercises because the ongoing disinformation campaign convinced—the more paranoid and unhinged—that a roundup of political dissidents was at hand. Texas statehood was at stake; a Federal coup was blowing in the wind. Be Afraid!

All under the command of President Obama. Of course.

How did this happen and why?

Hayden has pointedly said that Jade Helm was a test case for Russian bots and the alt-right media to disrupt, confuse and spread a conspiracy information virus into the body politic. It worked surprisingly well and encouraged the instigators to expand the technique to our electoral process.

If Hayden is correct, one of the flash points to what we’ve witnessed since—the Trumpster dumpster fire—started in Texas and was fanned, along with other elements, into the 4-alarm disaster we’re living in the moment.

See more at the Texas Tribune here:

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/05/03/hysteria-over-jade-helm-exercise-texas-was-fueled-russians-former-cia-/

Btw, the Wayback Machine is an interesting and instructive way to pinpoint what we missed in the lead-up to the Trumpster Train. Hopefully, we learn. Even if it is the Hard Way.