Putin Is Playing Us Again, Using His Favorite Compromised Asset
Is anyone considering the slightest possibility that with the recent covfefe over Putin’s bounty on American soldiers in Afghanistan, that he is playing us… playing us yet again?
Ask yourself one starting question: why do we have such detailed information on this scandal? Why has everything come out so clearly? If Putin pays people money, big money, wouldn’t the usual behavior be for those individuals to keep their mouths shut lest they find themselves dead, whether poisoned like the spies in London, or shipped off to hard labor in cold Siberia? Of course it might not be so easy for newly-enriched Taliban soldiers to keep their money hidden or their mouths shut, but I’m still not entirely buying it.
I’m telling you that it’s as possible, or more likely, that Putin is cashing in on his wonderfully compromised asset. After all, how much longer might he have to do so… if Trump loses the election? And if he spent 20 years grooming this asset, isn’t the pressure on to do something with it? Would you squander the opportunity? The world’s greatest spy would not.
Here’s the logic: what could be a gentler offense, a more sublime act of war, a more sinuous exploit, than simply putting a pile of money on a particular square on the playing board. In this case, the board is the now-endless proxy warfare of the world’s superpowers, played out all around the world actually, but most intensively in the Middle East. We used to justify this war with religion. Then we justified it with oil. And now that the price of oil is somehow negative — they pay you to ‘purchase’ it — we justify the proxy war with, um, nothing; we’re just so accustomed to fighting this war that we continue doing so. The Middle East is simply the “That’s the way we’ve always done it” war.
So Vlad the Extorter — did I mention he’s the most successful spy in history — doesn’t send a battleship, too obvious; or cyberbots, been-there-done-that (they still won’t stop it so there’s no fun); the new thing is bitcoin, so he just clicks Submit once. A few special ops guys or regular old reservists (?) are targeted, and some grunts in far-away Yakutskistan increase the never-ending war’s never-stopping death toll by an imperceptible blip… but increase the 24-hour news cycle’s headline war by a nearly tectonic plate shift. Brilliant! But expect nothing less from good ol’ just-havin-fun Vlad, real-life centaur who can score nine goals in a hockey game.
Step 1: Groom an asset. Oldest story in grift: favors, favors, favors. Unasked-for favors work best. Just read Nelson Demille’s Gold Coast.
Step 2: Watch this. I’ll bet I can get a guy elected U.S. President. That was too easy. Shouldn’t I get some sort of award?
Step 3: How can I top that? Watch this. I’ll bet I can get a U.S. President chased out of office. I can make him; I can break him. Please understand, he had no power; it was I. Do you understand that now?
Now everyone go back to Facebook. You don’t even need to read Twitter anymore; nothing to see there anymore.
