I'm closing in on 65. Years, not miles. And I do not recall a time where so many people willingly have accepted lies and falsehoods about the threat from Russia and Russians. The combination of delusion and lies about Russia and Putin have attached themselves to our body politic and our public discourse like the monster in the movie Alien. We are infested by a malevolent collection of beliefs. Left uncorrected or unchallenged, these delusions could set off a series of events that could ultimately cause the destruction of our country.
I realize that sounds over the top, but bear with me. Let's review the new obsession with Russia as the main threat we must defeat through the lens of Russian meddling in our election. Everyone knows, or so we are told on a daily basis, that Russia deliberately tried to subvert our democracy in last year's Presidential election and that Putin is a modern day Stalin intent of taking over the world. Here's an example from just the other day courtesy of CNN:
CIA Director Mike Pompeo stands by US intelligence assessments that Russia meddled in the 2016 election, the agency said Saturday, despite President Donald Trump saying he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin when he says his country didn't interfere.
I can understand the media getting this wrong. But the so-called intelligence community also is participating in this charade. What is Mike Pompeo's excuse?
What does “coordination” mean? Any analyst worth their salt at the CIA or the DIA are taught from their first day on the job that everything they write, especially if it uses material from the NSA and the State Department, must be reviewed and approved by their at State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research NSA. The purpose of such a review is to ensure that the source intelligence cited in the analysis is represented accurately.
It is different with the FBI. The FBI is not an intelligence organization per se. They don't gather "intelligence" that is shared with CIA and DIA. They collect evidence. Such evidence cannot be routinely shared with intelligence organizations.
If a CIA analyst is writing a piece on Russian computer hacking, and is using original intelligence generated by NSA, then the analyst would coordinate with his or her NSA counterpart. In addition, the analyst also would share the document with State INR and DIA. Only in the rarest circumstances would the analyst seek clearance from the FBI (this would mean the FBI produced and realized to the intelligence community a document that was not part of a criminal investigation).
Are you keeping count? We are talking about a maximum of four agencies. So why does the media insist that the number is 17? That claim originated with Hillary Clinton.
“We have 17, 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin. And they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing,” Clinton said during Wednesday's presidential debate in Las Vegas.
The ironically named "Politifact" added to the misinformation by insisting that Hillary was right and they cited the joint statement from DNI's Jim Clapper and Jeh Johnson at DHS (Homeland Security) issued on 7 October 2016:
The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow—the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.
What a joke!! Clapper and Johnson insisted that the USIC was "confident." That's just a weasel word for "belief." But belief is not the same as having actual evidence. More telling was the fact that their written statement was not accompanied by a Community Assessment or Intelligence Memorandum. Just take their word for it.
I agree with TTG that governments attempt to influence one another all the time. There is an interesting post currently on zerohedge about Germany trying to "interfere" in Polish elections:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-12/germany-clumsily-admits-supporting-regime-change-poland
Posted by: JamesT | 13 November 2017 at 11:11 AM
TTG,
How about Mexico?
Posted by: Fred | 13 November 2017 at 11:16 AM
Outthere,
That would be a neat trick since he's been dead half a decade and was out of the Senate almost 3 decades before that.
Posted by: Fred | 13 November 2017 at 11:22 AM
TP, picking up on some type of mental undercurrent.
Yes, without doubt Clinton's statement about the claimed unisono opinon of the 17 by Clinton was suspect from the very, very start. At least if degrading the US to some type of information tyranny wasn't her intention.
With a single statement she verbally turned the 17 into some type of echo choir. Without any doubt.
But: Can we assume she ever took the trouble to understand what the 17 actually signify? Did she ever try to seriously grasp it? Or did her statement suggest she may have never bothered to understand, and thus might even have misread whatever 'signals' she received? ...
Put another way: is she a highly well connected sly string puller, as your chronology may or may not suggest, well connected, relying on a neatly streamlined use or misuse of the US power under whatever US admin?
Hyperintelligent, since she studied law at Havard? Or alternatively stupid, or manipulating trying to score an easy point with the audience in a very, very special setting to get elected?
Less well connected to a more general public sentiment at the time?
******
Much harder to grasp the larger post 9/11 activities as far as cyberwar and related subjects: the semi-collective effort to open source intelligence (a new branch of business, it felt at one point) and the no doubt pretty neglected subject of cybercrime and its history within the respectively legal national limits to fight it in the real larger cyberworld out there for the commoners.
And last but not least. could it be that simple information warfare is mixed up with some of the former in the larger Russiagate debate? And how exactly would we define it in our brave new post 9/11 universe?
*****
In which of the respective jobs offered by the 17 could the latter four be neatly fitted in precisely? Would the problems for the commoners surface at all?
Posted by: LeaNder | 13 November 2017 at 11:29 AM
TTG Sir,
The problem is not other states' putative meddling in American elections. The problem is the Deep State successfully creating a wave of McCarthyism II, keeping the American public emotional and off-balance, which leads to their being easily pulled in bad directions and brought down. Recall "The Crucible", and the wars with Iraq.
Posted by: Imagine | 13 November 2017 at 11:29 AM
Some evidence points to Internet Research Agency being a CIA false-flag operation. In particular, (1) this never was a real company, but apparently operated out of an address whose building had not been opened yet; (2) Russia apparently arrested the principals of IRA on charges of being foreign agents for America. If this line checks out, it would cast a whole new light on the matter.
https://thesaker.is/a-brief-history-of-the-kremlin-trolls/
Posted by: Imagine | 13 November 2017 at 11:35 AM
Other evidence points to this being a standard clickbait Internet marketing attempt. In particular, something like 56% of the "Russian" ads ran after the election. Clickbait artists run from all over the world, and it is certainly not surprising that some of them would be based in Russia. Basic steps: (1) Run ads based on what people are talking about; (2) Drive them to your website; (3) Capture names & emails, sell to other marketers; (4) and/or Sell them ebooks or widgets. Make a slim profit based on percentage sales vs. ad costs. Because none of the ads were "please overthrow your country in favor of glorious Mother Russia", this interpretation is actually the most likely explanation for the original ads. Why Congress is pumping the issue is a different matter.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/10/3000-facebook-ads-the-russian-influence-campaign-is-a-profitable-click-bait-scheme.html
Posted by: Imagine | 13 November 2017 at 11:48 AM
Sorry, first intended to respond to you, and then on the way seem to have changed my mind and addressed Publius instead ...
Will you forgive me, AIS?
Posted by: LeaNder | 13 November 2017 at 11:55 AM
PT -
I have no clue as to TTG's experience. But I have long been impressed with his many posts and his rational comments on this blog. I tend to believe his points of view. Yours too sometimes. But you should tell us of your experience and what makes your opinions superior to TTGs on this matter.
Posted by: GeneO | 13 November 2017 at 11:59 AM
well, you can vote for another candidate come 2020 then. What I remember is the MSM telling me that HRC was a shoe-in while my eyes told me that there were 42 Trump yard signs for every 1 of HRC's in my town. Laughing here.
Posted by: BillWade | 13 November 2017 at 12:06 PM
Fred,
I just don't know. I would think Mexico would be foolish to the point of criminality if they did not attempt to influence the colossus to the north. Perhaps all the "we're not paying for your f$%king wall" was part of this. I think it was more of a visceral reaction to a series of insults from Trump.
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 13 November 2017 at 12:07 PM
The portable thermobaric has been operational for quite a while, used in February by the Ukrainians to assassinate a DPR commander they could not take out in combat.
Posted by: jld | 13 November 2017 at 12:08 PM
TTG,
IMO, Your focus is way too narrow, too fixated and, frankly, way too far into the geek zone.
As PT says, the Russia interference narrative is destructive to US internal political culture and fraught with serious risks for the future for the both the US and international relationships.
There is no real evidence to date that Russian activities had any meaningful impact on the election results. To repeat the meme that Russia both made efforts to interfere and that those efforts had tangible results is irresponsible.
I will go farther to say that even *if* Russian efforts were real and had tangible results, the meme should still be killed. The damage caused and risk created by that knowledge in the minds of the general populace far outweighs any benefits. As you (and PT and Col Lang) are certainly aware, all kinds of things happen all the time that influence the US in very real ways that the general public is not aware of and likely never will be. The general public wouldn't know how to handle the info, how to put it in context, assign the proper meaning and tie into a larger picture of the world. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; more dangerous than no knowledge.
IMO, this is an issue that should be quietly studied and quietly addressed (if there's anything to it) by quiet professionals. That is what a responsible government would do.
Posted by: Eric Newhill | 13 November 2017 at 12:35 PM
GeneO
I do not want PT to describe his experience to you. To do so would be to reveal his identity. His experience is extensive. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 13 November 2017 at 12:37 PM
TTG,
Would that response include incentivising Mexican citizens to move North without visas, to register to vote in the US without citizenship and to work on campaigns without lawful ability to do so? If so how many election cycles do you think this occurred in and how many local and state level elections may have been decided by such efforts?
Posted by: Fred | 13 November 2017 at 01:19 PM
If there was any reflexive control used, it was used directly on Obama and Clinton, rather than the US public.
Clinton kicked of Russian meddling as an election tool, and Obama cemented this in many peoples minds in the days after the election by publicly initiating an investigation and expelling Russian diplomats.
After a decade or so of being the sole superpower, the US moved to a wonderland where nothing is real, it could do or say anything. Political hacks posing as heads of intelligence...
Russia is now in the enviable position in the current information war where it only needs to put out facts, reveal information, be it ISIS oil convoys, emails or NSA/CIA hacking tools.
Posted by: Peter AU | 13 November 2017 at 01:52 PM
The Russian influence was secondary; it was Victoria Nuland and her Ukrainian
meddlingnulanding who changed a lot of votes.Posted by: rjj | 13 November 2017 at 01:54 PM
Clapper is a perjurer.
Posted by: sid_finster | 13 November 2017 at 02:05 PM
Stephen F Cohen knows so much about Russia, and for so long. He just went again to attend the ceremony for the opening of the new memorial for Stalin's victims. He sat with his old friend Gorbachev. Here is the report:
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-unheralded-putin-russias-official-anti-stalinist-no-1/
Posted by: outthere | 13 November 2017 at 02:07 PM
Personnaly I don't buy much of this Russia meddling, and anyway that's not the point I want to emphasize:
apart from the usefullness of the Putin did it during the camapign and after to bring some sollace to Hillary Clinton, the Russia story has now a very clear and strong utility: limiting the power to act of the newly elected POTUS.
and thus bringing a very divided population quite often clause to hysteria and rather unable to do some deep reflexion on itself and the real state of the Union.
Posted by: Charles Michael | 13 November 2017 at 02:11 PM
Tel,
Not all. Some bernie supporters, even if only a few, came out and voted for Trump as a matter of principle AND vengeance . . . and saving America from the spectre of a President Clinton.
Posted by: different clue | 13 November 2017 at 02:41 PM
PT:
I agree with you about the dangers.
The failure of the Enlightenment Project (or a child thereof) in USSR has removed the pretension and the convenience of a common language between the these two antagonists, US and the Russian Federation (the successor to USSR).
That means that as this antagonism persists and develops fully, it will become another civilizational confrontation at the level of religion, culture, historical experience and what constitutes Justice.
Just like the antagonism with Iran.
At such a point, the differences will be cemented and frozen, with nary even the theoretical possibility of a resolution - a Hopeless Armed Peace.
The turbine-based jet-engines can reach Mach 2.5; the Ramjet ones start at Mach 3.5. US, Russia, China, India, Western European states are all working on developing hyper-sonic weapons to deliver a bomb within 15 minutes on any point on the surface f Earth.
The technology for seeding of the Earth's oceans with passive and active sensory arrays feeding manned and unmanned semi-autonomous submerged weapons-platforms is only a matter of time and money.
We are rapidly approaching a great dystopia, with robots, sub-humans, and humans slugging it out across the planet.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 13 November 2017 at 02:41 PM
JohnB,
The ruling upper classes within this country also fear the longer term threat that the non-ruling middle and lower classes right here might want a
National-Economic Sovereignty system right here for this country.
The better the Russian economy does behind the unintended protection of the sanctions, the better Protectionism looks and the more Americans might want it for America. The globalist elites don't want Russia to live long enough to make the case for Protectionism by Russia's own better example.
Posted by: different clue | 13 November 2017 at 02:45 PM
Fred,
Do you have any evidence of widespread, or even minimal, voter fraud perpetrated by Mexicans? As far as I know the only people pushing that story line are the same ones saying the moon landing and the Sandy Hook killings were both hoaxes.
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 13 November 2017 at 03:04 PM
Russia does not want to see a unified US government
Actually, Russia wants to see a US government which is treaty-worthy and could be reasoned with. This, by definition, requires unified government. The fact that Russia completely rejects neocon or US exceptionalist vision is not a secret and it is reflected properly from military Doctrine to the whole spectrum of opinions in media. It is not a secret. The other issue here is that this very "exceptionalist" approach to foreign relations is damaging to the US itself and mechanism of this increasing and accelerating damage is not something hidden--it is in the open.
Posted by: SmoothieX12 | 13 November 2017 at 04:05 PM