Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

How Vladimir Putin Is Using Donald Trump to Advance Russia's Goals

"Donald Trump and Russia: a web that grows more tangled all the time"

By Owen Matthews On 8/29/16 at 7:00 AM

[to end]

“The target of the hacks wasn’t just Clinton,” Eerik-Niiles Kross, the former head of Estonian intelligence, wrote in a recent essay in Politico .. http://www.politico.eu/article/america-welcome-to-the-war-russia-hack-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-democrats-emails/ . “Nor is Moscow much interested in supporting Trump (willing useful idiot though he may be). What the Russians have in their sights is nothing less than the democratic fabric of American society and the integrity of the system of Western liberal values…. The political warfare of the Cold War is back—in updated form, with meaner, more modern tools, including a vast state media empire in Western languages, hackers, spies, agents, useful idiots, compatriot groups, and hordes of internet trolls.”

In other words, Trump is merely a useful stooge in the Kremlin’s grand design to encourage NATO disunity, U.S. isolationism and the breakup of Europe. In practice, all the effort of Russian-sponsored hackers, think tankers and propaganda channels is unlikely to have much real effect and on balance have probably harmed Trump’s chances of getting into the White House. But the effort is real. As Kross put it, “Russia is effectively using our democracies and our systems of rule of law against us…. America, welcome to the war.”

http://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/09/vladimir-putin-donald-trump-493946.html

Trump says Putin is his friend. Putin sees Trump as a tool.

See also:

As Democrats Gather, a Russian Subplot Raises Intrigue
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=124085921