Just like SPECTRE West is the Carlyle Group,

Ian Fleming got it right after all.

SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) is a fictional terrorist organisation …

A case of art mimicking life, or life mimicking art, I wonder?

…The goal of the organization is extortion and world domination. To achieve this, their basic strategy of the organization is illustrated by the analogy of the three Siamese fighting fish Blofeld keeps in an aquarium in the film version of From Russia with Love. Blofeld notes that one fish is refraining from fighting two others until their fight is concluded. Then, that cunning fish attacks the weakened victor and kills it easily. Thus SPECTRE's main strategy is to instigate conflict between two powerful enemies, namely the superpowers, hoping that they will exhaust themselves and be vulnerable when SPECTRE finally moves in to seize power…

That's so… Mayberry Machiavellian.

Wayne Madsen:
"…There is increasing evidence that the radioactive poisoning assassination of ex-KGB and FSB agent and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko was the result of a plot by anti-Vladimir Putin criminal syndicates based in Britain, Israel, Ukraine, and Poland to embarrass the Russian government.

"Suspicions about the role of the exiled Russian-Israeli criminal syndicates in the poisoning of Litvinenko, including that headed by Litvinenko's friend, wanted oligarch Boris Berezovsky, re-surfaced after former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar became violently ill after eating breakfast at a conference he was attending in Dublin, Ireland. Ireland's banking secrecy laws has made it a favorite location for the Russian-Israeli Mafia.

"Gaidar's sudden illness occurred a day after Litvinenko died in a London hospital from poisoning from polonium-210, a deadly radioactive isotope when ingested. Radioactive traces were later discovered at sites around London, including Berezovsky's offices in the West End.

"Gaidar was moved from a Dublin hospital to a Moscow hospital where he received a telephone call from Putin wishing him a speedy recovery. Putin's Mafiosi critics in Britain, Israel, Moscow, and other countries have accused the Russian leader of poisoning Litvinenko and attempting to kill Gaidar.

"However, Russian officials are claiming that the attacks were carried out by Putin's criminal opponents who want to create tension between Moscow and the West.

"Their arguments appear to have merit when the choice of radioactive isotope used to kill Litvinenko is considered. Intelligence experts point out that polonium was discovered by Marie Curie (nee Maria Sklodowska) in 1897 and named after her native homeland Poland (Polonia in Latin) to express her support for Polish independence against its partition by Russia, Prussia and Austria.

"Before Putin moved in to take over Yukos Oil from the Russian criminal syndicates, there were plans to build a Russian-German gas pipeline through Poland. After Poland was taken over by a neo-con team of identical twins Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who serve as President and Prime Minister, respectively, Poland not only began to conduct a witch hunt against ex-Communists but also became a base of operations for the anti-Putin Russian-Israeli exiled gangsters and oligarchs.

"Named as Defense Minister was former American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Radek Sikorski, who also happens to be married to Washington Post editorial board member and leading neo-con journalist Anne Applebaum, also a leading critic of Putin (along with a number of so-called "liberals," including Clinton ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke).

"After Putin decided, along with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, to bypass Poland and build the Russo-German pipeline under the Baltic Sea, Sikorski unleashed a barrage against Russia and Germany. He likened the pipeline deal to the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Agreement that carved up Eastern Europe, including Poland, between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Sikorski asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel to cancel the pipeline deal but she refused.

"We now know that Litvinenko was working on unspecified "energy issues" in London. We also know he has been described as a Russian-Israeli "double agent" and was reported to have transferred classified Russian documents in Yukos to a Russian-Israeli exiled oligarch in Tel Aviv. Double agents are always in danger from the party they are working against.

"Litvinenko's killers' use of polonium, named by Marie Curie in support of Polish independence, may mean that the assassins are more likely found in Warsaw's Russian-Israeli mob infested intelligence apparatus than in the Kremlin.

That would mean there's a SPECTRE East containing members of the American Enterprise Group and with agents on the editorial boards of major American newspapers.

It figures.

While SPECTRE East seems to dig the noir approach, SPECTRE West lately likes the patriotic Texas oil baron mystique:

Exxon Mobil CEO warns against congressional Democrats' plan to end industry tax breaks

BOSTON – Proposals by congressional Democrats to eliminate oil industry tax breaks and subsidies would set a bad example overseas and discourage new industry investments, Exxon Mobil's top executive said Thursday.

Rex W. Tillerson said moves suggested by leaders of the incoming Democratic congressional majority would encourage similar steps by governments abroad, where Exxon Mobil Corp. generates the bulk of its profit. ..

“I think the bigger concern I have is not so much the economic direct effect of the fact that they want to take a tax break off here or there. But it's the message it sends the rest of the world that you don't have to provide stable (regulatory) frameworks,” Tillerson told reporters after a speech to the Boston College Chief Executives' Club.

“And if that happens, none of us are going to be able to take the risk in this business.”

Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, earns about two-thirds of its profit from oil and natural-gas production outside the United States, and production is rising in Africa, the Middle East and Russia.

U.S. tax breaks intended to encourage steps such as refinery expansion and oil exploration “are not that material” to Exxon Mobil's profit, said Tillerson, who spent years leading Exxon ventures overseas before being named chairman and CEO in January.

House Democrats have said they plan to target billions of dollars in oil company tax breaks for a quick repeal next year – moves that come partly in response to high summer fuel prices and recent huge industry profit. For example, Exxon Mobil recently reported the second-largest quarterly profit ever for a publicly traded company: $10.49 billion in this year's third quarter, second only to the $10.71 billion Exxon Mobil posted in last year's fourth quarter…

Not that Exxon would really care, it's just the idea of Exxon paying taxes is so gauche. They really wouldn't want us to look silly to the rest of the world. Now that's what I call civic-mindedness, in the best SPECTRE tradition.