Mata Hari's ghost on US soil?

"A harlot? Yes, but a traitor, never!"

​UPDATE: Aug.6 - YouTube Video; Butina's lawyer discusses her case with CNN.

Mata Hari's ghost on US soil?

She and all of her reincarnations should be named "Patsy". It's deja vu all over again!

Call me a traitor, but I think the original story about Maria Butina being interested in learning more about the NRA as a cover for spying for Russia was just not lurid enough - or even credible - so now she's being denigrated as a Russian spy who uses "sex, lies, and guns" to get confidential information on behalf of Putin himself.

Talk about lack of originality.  She's being described as "flame haired" and a "honey trap" in loving memory,  one has to assume, of Anna Chapman (2010). Wouldn't you think that men of influence might have learned by now to avoid such traps, and that spies and media would demonstrate some originality in their shrieking condemnations?

Then there was that whole Canadian spy scare in 1945 that involved even Members of Parliament

• "The Soviets were trying to get information about North American technology including the atom bomb."

Haha; is that why Soviet technology is so far ahead of ours?

Almost everyone who has read history in a more than casual manner knows that when the great figure of [sex] appears in a controversy, the [spy charges] cannot be far off. (Apologies to author Stewart H. Holbrook)

The truth is probably more like this: there is money to made from the sale of guns; Butina was/is an assistant to Russian oligarch Alexander Torshin. Like George Soros, whom Canada's Foreign Minister touts as a close friend, Tolshin likes to hobnob with state leaders in order to boost his own image and, ultimately, to increase his wealth.

Also like George Soros, he has no loyalty to anyone or any state whatsoever.

Aside from the fact that weapons are huge moneymakers these days, what possible dark secrets could the NRA reveal that Russia wouldn't already know? Was its president Charlton Heston some kind of double agent? Or was he simply against gun control?  Who knows, he may even have been an investor in weapons manufacturing.

From Wikipedia:

• At the 2000 NRA convention, he raised a rifle over his head and declared that a potential Al Gore administration would take away his Second Amendment rights "from my cold, dead hands" ... Heston became an honorary life member.

(That "cold, dead hands" phrase reminds me of my daughter who, as a teenager, hated Heston's acting so much that she declared she would  watch one of his movies only if he died in it.)

Have I mentioned how tired I am of always having to defend Russia? Mostly, it's because I resent having my intelligence insulted by the media. The Russians are no better nor worse than any country in the world. It's so gaggingly clear that the western corporate media are paid to keep pushing our panic buttons so that another lucrative (for some) cold war can be maintained.

Instead of reading the media, look at the actual FBI statement of probable cause. Note that, almost right off the bat, much of what it says is not first-hand information gained through personal investigation, but through word of mouth and Russian text that had to be translated to English; which means the actual investigators could not read the original text.

They don't name Aleksandr Torshin at all, but only hint at him in referring to a "Russian official" who "directed Butina's activities in furtherance of the conspiracy". Which, to me, sounds more like gossip than a thorough investigation.

Note, where a Wikipedia article states that he is "believed to be involved in the Russian mafia" it might be wise to consider the source of that tidbit. Maybe it's true, but "belief" is not "fact".  Neither is "suspected".

The Independent quotes Yahoo news:

• Torshin “had been named by Spanish police as a suspected “godfather” of an organised crime and money-laundering ring,”

Yahoo, as quoted by The Independent, also states regarding the hoped-for meeting with Trump:

• “There were no specific questions or statements that Mr Torshin had in mind during what we assumed to be a five-second handshake,” Mr Torshin’s assistant, Maria Butina, wrote in an email to Yahoo."

The FBI document states, as if proven fact, that: 

• The Russian Federation, or Russia, is one of the leading state intelligence threats to U.S. interests, based on its capabilities, intent, and broad operational scope. 

Anecdote: In my nursing days - a long, long time ago - I worked for a while in a nursing home. One day they brought in a woman who had a sort of dementia that caused her to suspect everything and everybody of being up to no good. As the stretcher bearers moved her gently into her new bed she shouted, "So what hell-hole am I in now?"  She behaved as if she were in a prison and that everybody there was out to get her. She ate very little because she feared the food contained poison. She would use the bedpan when it was offered to her, but would loudly declare that it was not she who had left the pee in it. I felt so sorry for her, but I knew she needed the sedative the doctor ordered in order for her to be able to sleep, and to this day I feel sad at how I actually validated her suspicions by forcing her mouth open and shoving a pill down her throat with my fingers, scratching the roof of her mouth in the process, while an assistant pinned down her arms.

Paranoia is dangerous thing, and active spooks of all kinds either suffer from it severely or are trying to secure their own personal positions.  They talk about Russian oligarchs and weapons trading companies as if the western states had no such thing, and they get away with not naming any of the players they mention in their court document except Maria Butina.

It's like reading the most inflammatory news rag when they quote U.S.Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin - as if that made it fact - that "The Russian government engages in a range of malign activity around the globe".

All that Mnuchin has going for him is that he's a Yale grad like Bush and Kerry and all the other lame wannabes who ended up in high places. He earned his current position by donating over $400,000 to the Repugs in 2016. He's a former film producer - four films, in one of which called "Rules Don't Apply"  he played himself,  - and of course he's a Goldman Sachs ("synonymous with greed and duplicity") baby, so he probably knows first-hand about getting around rules.

Surely his use of government aircraft for personal reasons is not his only sin.

But the kicker, for me, in the FBI affidavit is this from a private email from "US Person 1" to Butina:

• Your challenge in your "special project" will be to balance two opposing imperatives: Your desire to communicate that you speak for Russian interests that will be ascendant (still around) in a post-Putin world while simultaneously doing nothing to criticize the President or speed the arrival of his successor. This restriction is easily understood in private meetings with political and business leaders. It will SEVERELY limit your interactions with media.

My understanding of that email is that both Butina and Tolshin are anti-Putin -- therefore not working on his behalf -- but are careful not to speak of that out loud.

The FBI has misunderstood that email.

Watch this YouTube video to find out what Putin thinks of Russia's oligarchs. The truth is that oligarch Tolshin wants Putin gone but is hiding that fact; perhaps because he'd like to get back inside Russia.

There's nothing wrong with wanting regime change in one's own country, but if that's what this is about - reinstating the means of wealth for the oligarchs (and where on earth is this not the desire?) then Butina is in no way spying for Putin!

From Wikipedia:

• "A harlot? Yes, but a traitor, never!" That was the last cry of Mata Hari, an exotic dancer who was executed for spying for the German government in 1906.
• The Canadian historian Wesley Wark stated in a 2014 interview that Mata Hari was never an important spy and just made a scapegoat for French military failures which she had nothing to do with, stating: "They needed a scapegoat and she was a notable target for scapegoating". Likewise, the British historian Julie Wheelwright stated: "She really did not pass on anything that you couldn’t find in the local newspapers in Spain"

FBI agents and the media, who thrive on conspiratorial gossip while ignoring the very real American conspiracies, only a few of which are listed here, are too young or too lethargic to know or care that they are merely prolonging a very dubious historical trend.

Read: Putin and Russian Oligarchs
Throughout the ’90s there was no bigger name and bigger oligarch in Russia than Boris Berezovsky, until Putin got on his case.