Column - Moscow attacks!

A SENIOR CIA source tells me with a high level of certainty that Russia's Vladimir Putin was responsible for Pearl Harbour, the Korean War, Vietnam and Iraq. This miscreant was also behind 9/11 and the ring around the collar.
Not since Dr Fu Manchu have we seen such a wicked genius bent on wrecking the West. Vlad the Bad is so nefarious that he's managed to rig America's voting machines and probably the Super Bowl.
Watching the mounting Red Hysteria in the US is bizarre and amusing. But most amusing is the media furore claiming that the Kremlin has "meddled" in US elections. Or even threw the vote to Manchurian Candidate, Donald Trump. If there was any foreign meddling, it came from a Middle East ally, not Russia.
All very childish.
My answer: even if true (and I don't believe it), so what? Is great power meddling something new? That's what great powers do.
The US is hardly in a position to play the outraged virgin. Starting in 1946, the US and the Vatican financed Italy's right-wing Christian Democratic Party, helping it win three national elections against the Left even though it was heavy with former fascists and Sicilian bandits.
Washington organised the overthrow of Syria's government in 1949. In 1953, the US and Britain colluded to overthrow Iran's popular democratic government. In 1954, the US overthrew the government of Guatemala. There followed intervention in Lebanon in 1958. Three years later came the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion and over 50 attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro.
In 1965, the US invaded the Dominican Republic and overthrew its regime. And 1973 brought the US-backed coup against Chile's Marxist government.
Nicaragua's leftists were next on Washington's hit list. There was masked intervention in Haiti, then a bombing and sabotage campaign in Baghdad, Iraq. A failed attempt to overthrow Iran's elected government and more machinations in Syria and Libya, followed by outright invasions.
There are many more to mention: Bolivia, Brazil, Congo, Turkey, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Russia under Yeltsin, Ukraine's "Orange" Revolution, Georgia, and the overthrow of Ukraine's elected pro-Russian government. And now, of course, Syria.
Regime change has become as American as apple pie.
The US may even have tried to overthrow France's president, Charles de Gaulle. Lately, the US helped put Egypt's bloody dictator in power, overthrowing the democratic government and tapped the phone of close ally, German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
In the past, Soviet intelligence was very good at intrigue, professional spycraft and occasional "wet affairs". But the Soviets never measured up in sheer volume of meddling and regime change to the mighty US – and still don't.
I was the first western journalist admitted to KGB headquarters in Moscow – the dreaded Lubyanka – to interview its senior leaders. I also was closeted in the remarkable KGB museum with its curator for a review of intelligence operations since the 1917 civil war. I learned much about covert operations, but less than I wanted about the Soviet agents of influence who surrounded President Franklin Roosevelt.
As a seasoned intelligence watcher for the past three decades, I think claims by US Democrats that they lost the election due to Russian machinations are absolute bunk. One suspects all the noise and fake fury over Clinton's loss may foretoken an attempt to oust the Trump government by underhanded legal means (lawfare) and popular demos. Why not? We run them all the time in the Middle East and Russia.
The Dems lost because they ran a horrible, corrupt woman who was hated, and mistrusted by many. They tried to hide the shameful fact that the Democratic Party rigged the nomination to exclude an honest candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders. This was the scandal, not baloney about voting machine voodoo and red scares.
Claims by senior US intelligence officials that Moscow rigged the US elections show two things: first, if true, they were asleep on guard duty; second, that they have become shockingly politicised. Their job was to inform the White House, not manufacture conspiracy theories.
Some of them were shown to be frighteningly extreme, crazily anti-Russian, and likely agents of our deep government.
We need calm, seasoned professionals to run our intelligence, not wild-eyed ideologues bent on war against Russia. America was headed that way under Obama and Hillary Clinton. If Russia came to this conclusion, it was logical for them to try to sway the outcome of the election – if they really did.
The canard that Hillary Clinton was defeated by the godless Red spymasters are as believable as "the dog ate my homework". And here I thought my fellow Americans were a bit more grown up than this.
Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist, writing mainly about the Middle East and South Asia. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com