Com­ment: On the heels of Pres­i­dent Obama’s appar­ent diplo­matic rap­proche­ment with Russ­ian pres­i­dent Medvedev, in which progress on var­i­ous mat­ters appears to have been achieved, a “Russ­ian spy scan­dal” has dom­i­nated recent headlines.

“Spy Scan­dal Casts Shadow on Obama-Medvedev ‘Burger Diplo­macy’” by Ria Novosti; Eura­sia Review; 6/29/2010.

Com­ment: In FTR #706, we exam­ined John Lof­tus’ con­tention that there are two CIA’s–one Demo­c­ra­tic that serves the inter­ests of the United States and one Repub­li­can, which serves the inter­ests of the trans-national corporations.

Is the “Repub­li­can CIA” work­ing to poi­son rela­tions between the two coun­tries, thereby weak­en­ing Obama’s administration?

The inci­dent brings to mind the U-2 inci­dent of 1960, in which the CIA’s appar­ently delib­er­ate sab­o­tage of a U-2 spy plane deep-sixed a pro­posed sum­mit con­fer­ence between Pres­i­dent Eisen­hower and Pre­mier Khr­uschev of the U.S.S.R. (This was dis­cussed in Part I of “The Guns of Novem­ber.”)

Also inter­est­ing to con­tem­plate in this con­text is a Decem­ber 2009 pro-jihadist con­fer­ence in Geor­gia, held with appar­ent U.S. sup­port, dis­cussed in FTR #710. Part of the rap­proche­ment achieved between Medvedev and Obama con­cerned America’s place­ment of a jihadist ter­rortist on the inter­na­tional ter­ror watch list, as desired and requested by Russia.

“Obama, Medvedev Meet, Rus­sia Pleased with U.S. Chechen Move”; World Bul­letin; 6/25/2010.

Excerpt: . . . .Mean­while, The United States on Wednes­day said it had listed [sic]  Chechen insur­gent leader as a “ter­ror­ist”, a step that is likely to please the Krem­lin on the eve of talks between Obama and Medvedev.

The State Depart­ment said the list­ing, approved by Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton, would help to stem the flow of funds to Chechen insur­gent leader Doku Umarov, who styles him­self the “Emir of the Cau­ca­sus Emirate.”

“The des­ig­na­tion of Umarov is in direct response to the threats posed to United States and Rus­sia,” Daniel Ben­jamin, the Depart­ment of State’s Coor­di­na­tor for Coun­tert­er­ror­ism, said in a statement.

One of the most pop­u­lous regions in the mainly Mus­lim north Cau­ca­sus, Chech­nya which declared inde­pen­dency after the col­lapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 but was attacked by Russ­ian forces in two wars since the mid-1990s. Still low-level insur­gency con­tin­ues in Mus­lim states. . . .

Com­ment: Did this move run counter to the wishes of a pro-Muslim Broth­er­hood, pro-jihadist ele­ment asso­ci­ated with transna­tional petro­leum com­pa­nies? Are they, in turn, seek­ing to sep­a­rate the Cau­cau­sian and Cen­tral Asian fos­sil fuel resources from Rus­sia? Will it serve the inter­ests of the Under­ground Reich, seek­ing to man­i­fest tra­di­tional Ger­man Ost­poli­tik, while exac­er­bat­ing ten­sions between the U.S. and Rus­sia? Will it serve the inter­ests of the GOP, by weak­en­ing Obama’s for­eign pol­icy?

With the strange tim­ing of the sur­fac­ing of this Russ­ian spy­ing scan­dal, are we see­ing ‘U-2, II”?