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| Missing from the Intelligence Report: The Word ‘Podesta' |
| 2017-01-09 |
| [National Review] Disclosure of embarrassing information should not be confused with disinformation. There is a word missing from the non-classified report issued Friday, in which three intelligence agencies assess "Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election." The FBI, CIA, and NSA elide any mention of . . . "Podesta." Seems like a pretty significant omission -- not just because of how the 2016 campaign played out but also in light of the intelligence community’s recent history of politicizing its analyses. The report is replete with references to Russian "cyber espionage," "covert intelligence," "false-flag," "propaganda," and "influence" operations by which Vladimir Putin is alleged to have tried to put his thumb on the electoral scale. Very sinister stuff, to be sure. But when the public hears these terms, it thinks of spies, misdirection, disinformation campaigns -- i.e., schemes intended to deceive the target audience. People don’t instantly think, "Oh, you mean an effort to publicize true but embarrassing information"; they don’t read "covert operation" and say to themselves, "That must mean they subjected only one side of a political contest to a high level of scrutiny." That’s the kind of behavior people associate with the American media, not the Kremlin. The three intelligence agencies’ report pointedly declines to tell us what specific information gives them such "high confidence" that they know the operation of Vladimir Putin’s mind. They plead that the nature of their work does not allow for that: To tell us how they know what they purport to know would compromise intelligence methods and sources. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #11 Raj, are you part Russian? That was too good. |
| Posted by: gorb 2017-01-09 20:50 |
| #10 Close enough, Raj. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2017-01-09 17:53 |
| #9 Would that be 'fuck off and eat the corn out of my shit', Pappy? |
| Posted by: Raj 2017-01-09 15:46 |
| #8 First off, National Review, from its actions during the election year can... well, Raj can fill that in. Second, judging by my research, it's likely that the Russian government or its authorized agents did whatever the IC said it did, for whatever reason it did. Lastly, it's also interesting that the same USG non-IC entities and, more importantly, the media are not discussing the validity of any of the purloined information presented. Funny how that was done on the Wikileaks' Iraq or Snowden releases. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2017-01-09 14:42 |
| #7 JohnQC - Absolutely! |
| Posted by: 3dc 2017-01-09 14:31 |
| #6 No mention of Podesta's password which was "PASSWORD." No mention of all the shenanigans of Hillary with her home brew server? I started tuning out much of this as so much political noise at some point--particularly when no one really seemed very concerned about all the intelligence and pay-for-play transgressions of Hillary and Bill. It seemed like a case of "No need to look here, look over there "Unhingement Syndrome." When the MSM, the politicians and many of the Obama appointees to the intelligence agencies are all lined up pointing fingers at Russia, I begin to get suspicious--particularly in the absence of any proof that anyone can cite. I suspect that many in the outgoing government are connected in some way to the Clinton Foundation and that many are just trying to shush it up. Write it off to JohnQC's paranoia if you like, but much of this smells odiferous to me. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-01-09 14:17 |
| #5 Also missing is the sick content, of the email, that the leaks disclosed. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2017-01-09 13:26 |
| #4 There's a difference, gorb? They could be synonyms, ya know. |
| Posted by: Raj 2017-01-09 12:57 |
| #3 Missing from the Intelligence Report: The Word ‘Podesta' I didn't read the whole thing. Didn't the word 'moron' or 'chump' show up somewhere? |
| Posted by: gorb 2017-01-09 12:30 |
| #2 What about "intelligence" - how dumb do they think we are? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-01-09 05:06 |
| #1 Key takeaway: The report concludes that while Putin appears to have been rooting for Trump, the Russians assumed [like many of us] Clinton was going to win and were mainly trying to undermine the effectiveness of her anticipated presidency, not swing the election to Trump. Emphasis added. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-01-09 04:37 |