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Russian hacking accusations looking an awful lot like WMD scam in 2002 - Rolling Stone

Blackjack200

Blackjack200

Lifer
Another journalist I respect casts doubt on the unverified claims set forth by our esteemed intelligence community. Whatever the truth of Russian email hacks turns out to be, 50% of Clinton voters now believe Russia hacked the vote tallies, a preposterous idea.

"The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up." - Matt Tabbi

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/something-about-this-russia-story-stinks-w458439

On January 20 the Oval Office falls to a man who distorts, lies, exaggerates, and misleads on a regular basis. If we want to demand transparency and accountability, better start now.
 
Well, well, well. Yet another case of those berating people that didn't buy the talking points have egg on their face.
 
The big difference was that we had high level senior officials outright lying about what the intelligence says about wmd's and Iraq. We also had an administration that had a vice president and cabinet members with unfinished business in Iraq and who stood to benefit from an Iraqi invasion.

Can you say the same motivation exists in the current admin?

I think tiabbi has a point in that reporters should be doing all they can to verify an administrations claims.

Of course pieces like this will be interpreted by idiots like the above poster as vindication that they were right about the Russians hacking the election as being bogus when the article doesn't say that.
 
Blackjack200 said:
Another journalist I respect casts doubt on the unverified claims set forth by our esteemed intelligence community. Whatever the truth of Russian email hacks turns out to be, 50% of Clinton voters now believe Russia hacked the vote tallies, a preposterous idea.

"The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up." - Matt Tabbi

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/something-about-this-russia-story-stinks-w458439

On January 20 the Oval Office falls to a man who distorts, lies, exaggerates, and misleads on a regular basis. If we want to demand transparency and accountability, better start now.
Click to expand...

It's intelligence, you will never get transparency. Ever.

As someone who loves Matt Taibbi generally this piece is trying way, way too hard. Iraq intelligence estimates actually came with all sorts of 'proof' (remember the UN presentation?) and it didn't change the fact that they were wrong. Sometimes intelligence is wrong. If it never was it would be playing things too safe.

Governments routinely lie and make up intelligence to serve their purposes but if you're not going to accept the unanimous opinion of the intelligence community when no credible evidence exists for a contrary opinion then what's the point?

Nobody has to accept intel estimates uncritically, and Taibbi's argument kind of rests on that accusation, which is awfully weak.
 
fskimospy said:
It's intelligence, you will never get transparency. Ever.

As someone who loves Matt Taibbi generally this piece is trying way, way too hard. Iraq intelligence estimates actually came with all sorts of 'proof' (remember the UN presentation?) and it didn't change the fact that they were wrong. Sometimes intelligence is wrong. If it never was it would be playing things too safe.

Governments routinely lie and make up intelligence to serve their purposes but if you're not going to accept the unanimous opinion of the intelligence community when no credible evidence exists for a contrary opinion then what's the point?

Nobody has to accept intel estimates uncritically, and Taibbi's argument kind of rests on that accusation, which is awfully weak.
Click to expand...

Let's not forget that Intelligence insiders were objecting to the Bush Admins conclusions at the time.
 
I do think it's odd that none of the MSM have reported yet on the Grizzly Steppe thing that has been posted a few times here as evidence of Russian involvement, when it provides very little. Although I like a good conspiracy and believe our government has worked against our interests enough times in the past to never trust anything they say at face value, I'm thinking that the delay in evidence is a matter of bureaucratic tape, nothing too nefarious. What would be the advantage of our government's intelligence agencies lying so unanimously if they weren't really certain that it was Russia? The most plausible conspiracy theory I can think of is that a couple of partisan Dem officials were quick to blame Russia in order to minimize damage to the Clinton campaign and now they're forced to double-down, but if that's the case it would be an absurdly dangerous move with repercussions that could last a generation, not to mention a conspiracy so massive as to dwarf any previous in our history.

I don't think Obama's move was particularly "weak" or whatever either. He has already been squeezing Russia hard since Crimea, the screws can't tighten much more without getting into really dangerous territory.

A lot of Rolling Stone's audience is young, self-viewed political revolutionary college kids primarily there for music news, afaik. They have plenty of incentive to play both sides of the aisle with regards to anything government related.
 
On one side, we have our own govt cyber people & several private cyber security firms & on the other side we have conservatives & internet wannabbees denying that Russia gave Donald a helping hand. They can't figure out why Putin would do that, of course, cuz Donald, he's their illusion of a Strong Leader!

Putin knows otherwise. Trump as prez will undercut our influence throughout the world thru sheer ignorance & ineptitude.
 
fskimospy said:
It's intelligence, you will never get transparency. Ever.

As someone who loves Matt Taibbi generally this piece is trying way, way too hard. Iraq intelligence estimates actually came with all sorts of 'proof' (remember the UN presentation?) and it didn't change the fact that they were wrong. Sometimes intelligence is wrong. If it never was it would be playing things too safe.

Governments routinely lie and make up intelligence to serve their purposes but if you're not going to accept the unanimous opinion of the intelligence community when no credible evidence exists for a contrary opinion then what's the point?

Nobody has to accept intel estimates uncritically, and Taibbi's argument kind of rests on that accusation, which is awfully weak.
Click to expand...

Matt Tabbi accepts that it could be completely true that the Russian Government was responsible for the DNC hack. What I, and I think he if I'm reading the piece correctly, object to is the way this is being sold. Look at this fucking quote by a "senior administration official"

Evgeniy Bogachev and Aleksey Belan are not being connected to alleged Russian efforts to interfere with U.S. election processes, according to the Treasury Department, although sanctions against them were announced at the same time as sanctions against Russian individuals and entities allegedly involved in efforts to interfere with U.S. election-related institutions.

"As all of these actions make clear, we will not tolerate the abuse of our systems, including our election systems, by foreign actors," the senior administration official said of the sanctions in a call to reporters.

Paraphrasing: 'We will not tolerate the abuse of our election systems.' This is how you end up with 50% of Clinton voters believing that Russia hacked the vote tallies. Totally irresponsible.

The hack happened in July, why are these measures being taken today?
 
Blackjack200 said:
Matt Tabbi accepts that it could be completely true that the Russian Government was responsible for the DNC hack. What I, and I think he if I'm reading the piece correctly, object to is the way this is being sold. Look at this fucking quote by a "senior administration official"

Evgeniy Bogachev and Aleksey Belan are not being connected to alleged Russian efforts to interfere with U.S. election processes, according to the Treasury Department, although sanctions against them were announced at the same time as sanctions against Russian individuals and entities allegedly involved in efforts to interfere with U.S. election-related institutions.

"As all of these actions make clear, we will not tolerate the abuse of our systems, including our election systems, by foreign actors," the senior administration official said of the sanctions in a call to reporters.

Paraphrasing: 'We will not tolerate the abuse of our election systems.' This is how you end up with 50% of Clinton voters believing that Russia hacked the vote tallies. Totally irresponsible.

The hack happened in July, why are these measures being taken today?
Click to expand...

I agree that conflating the email hack with hacks of election systems is bad and shouldn't be done. The thing is that's a single quote, comparing that to the concerted disinformation campaign that led up to the Iraq War is about five bridges too far.

As for measures taking place today instead of in July if you go check out some recent stories Obama wanted to take action sooner but was worried that it would appear partisan. He had a bipartisan meeting with congressional leadership about putting forward united action against Russia but McConnell declared that he would denounce any efforts by Obama as partisan electioneering.

So basically Obama was too worried about what Republicans would say and Mitch McConnell is a gigantic piece of shit.

In a secure room in the Capitol used for briefings involving classified information, administration officials broadly laid out the evidence U.S. spy agencies had collected, showing Russia’s role in cyber-intrusions in at least two states and in hacking the emails of the Democratic organizations and individuals.

And they made a case for a united, bipartisan front in response to what one official described as “the threat posed by unprecedented meddling by a foreign power in our election process.”

The Democratic leaders in the room unanimously agreed on the need to take the threat seriously. Republicans, however, were divided, with at least two GOP lawmakers reluctant to accede to the White House requests.

According to several officials, McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.
Click to expand...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html
 
Blackjack200 said:
Matt Tabbi accepts that it could be completely true that the Russian Government was responsible for the DNC hack. What I, and I think he if I'm reading the piece correctly, object to is the way this is being sold. Look at this fucking quote by a "senior administration official"

Evgeniy Bogachev and Aleksey Belan are not being connected to alleged Russian efforts to interfere with U.S. election processes, according to the Treasury Department, although sanctions against them were announced at the same time as sanctions against Russian individuals and entities allegedly involved in efforts to interfere with U.S. election-related institutions.

"As all of these actions make clear, we will not tolerate the abuse of our systems, including our election systems, by foreign actors," the senior administration official said of the sanctions in a call to reporters.

Paraphrasing: 'We will not tolerate the abuse of our election systems.' This is how you end up with 50% of Clinton voters believing that Russia hacked the vote tallies. Totally irresponsible.

The hack happened in July, why are these measures being taken today?
Click to expand...

Idiots will believe whatever they want and no one has a monopoly on idiots. That being said, so far on the left leaning MSNBC network, all the pundits have been clear to express that there isn't evidence of election hacking. In fact, the only people even bringing that up are from the right who are obviously trying to straw man the issue.
 
fskimospy said:
I agree that conflating the email hack with hacks of election systems is bad and shouldn't be done. The thing is that's a single quote, comparing that to the concerted disinformation campaign that led up to the Iraq War is about five bridges too far.
Click to expand...

Here's how the NYT reported the sanctions. "Election Hacking". I agree that it doesn't come anywhere near the WMD lie, because the Democrats are not trying to justify a war like the Bush administration was. But it's the same kind of behavior.

Politics
Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

As for measures taking place today instead of in July if you go check out some recent stories Obama wanted to take action sooner but was worried that it would appear partisan. He had a bipartisan meeting with congressional leadership about putting forward united action against Russia but McConnell declared that he would denounce any efforts by Obama as partisan electioneering.

So basically Obama was too worried about what Republicans would say and Mitch McConnell is a gigantic piece of shit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html
Click to expand...


Yes, it was a political gamble based on the assumption that Clinton would win. Now that she lost I think it's hard to say "oh, this is a horrible thing that Russia did, but we didn't do anything about it at the time because we didn't want to seem partisan."

McConnell is horrible piece of shit in this story, worse than Obama. I guess I don't even bother mentioning that anymore because everyone should know, but I shouldn't do that. We should say it every time.

ivwshane said:
Idiots will believe whatever they want and no one has a monopoly on idiots. That being said, so far on the left leaning MSNBC network, all the pundits have been clear to express that there isn't evidence of election hacking. In fact, the only people even bringing that up are from the right who are obviously trying to straw man the issue.
Click to expand...

That's good. Let's see how it unfolds.
 
I mean, at some point we have to move on from the Iraq War and WMD. The establishment does mess up, but they also get a lot right. If you want a place where the establishment got it badly wrong...look at China in the 19th century.

I do think that the D party apparatus will be poisoned for quite some time with Russia hatred. This is starting to feel like the D party's watergate aftermath.
 
Blackjack200 said:
https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/12/27/belief-conspiracies-largely-depends-political-iden/

Second chart from the bottom. Matt Tabbi linked it in the article.
Click to expand...

I'm genuinely surprised. OTOH, it has nothing to do with the hacks of the DNC, Podesta & the opinion of the intelligence community as to who's responsible.

Or is the intelligence community all libruhl pinkos?

Probably not, I suspect.

The most interesting part of all this is just how desperately conservatives want to deny that Putin helped Trump win so that they don't have to contemplate why Putin would do that.

Why would he do that? To make America great again? Or something else?
 
Is it mandatory that all posters with snoopy avatars be complete retards, or is that just a happy coincidence?
 
ivwshane said:
The big difference was that we had high level senior officials outright lying about what the intelligence says about wmd's and Iraq. We also had an administration that had a vice president and cabinet members with unfinished business in Iraq and who stood to benefit from an Iraqi invasion.

Can you say the same motivation exists in the current admin?

I think tiabbi has a point in that reporters should be doing all they can to verify an administrations claims.

Of course pieces like this will be interpreted by idiots like the above poster as vindication that they were right about the Russians hacking the election as being bogus when the article doesn't say that.
Click to expand...
Pride causes people to make odd choices. Taibbi is not contending equivalence but is observing disturbing parallels.

W, in the wake of the most devastating terrorist attack in American history, and riding what was at the time a wave of war time Presidential popularity and a population demanding a military response, received very bad advice from his inner circle and made what I am sure he perceived as decisive what the rest of us and history will forever judge as irresponsible. Intelligence was bent and twisted to fit a narrative that the media, and even many Democrats, lacked the political will or courage to question.

There are surprising parallels here. Obama, one of the most popular Presidents in recent history, riding a wave of clear electoral mandate, is facing an angry constituency of people assured an inpenetrable electoral coalition and the forever destruction of the obstructionist GOP, just suffered a humiliating defeat against a candidate that represents their nightmare scenario. There is similar twisting of intelligence to fit a narrative, an enemy to blame, because the alternative introspection of Clinton's loss is far too painful a pill to swallow.

If there is any validation, it is that an author like Taibbi, the last any would expect, is the one throwing a flag on the field and calling bullshit given how the evidence is being presented. He is not denying Russian intervention. He is challenging how Obama is using that intelligence in a self serving political manner. Pride and legacy are at stake.
 
Starbuck1975 said:
Pride causes people to make odd choices. Taibbi is not contending equivalence but is observing disturbing parallels.

W, in the wake of the most devastating terrorist attack in American history, and riding what was at the time a wave of war time Presidential popularity and a population demanding a military response, received very bad advice from his inner circle and made what I am sure he perceived as decisive what the rest of us and history will forever judge as irresponsible. Intelligence was bent and twisted to fit a narrative that the media, and even many Democrats, lacked the political will or courage to question.

There are surprising parallels here. Obama, one of the most popular Presidents in recent history, riding a wave of clear electoral mandate, is facing an angry constituency of people assured an inpenetrable electoral coalition and the forever destruction of the obstructionist GOP, just suffered a humiliating defeat against a candidate that represents their nightmare scenario. There is similar twisting of intelligence to fit a narrative, an enemy to blame, because the alternative introspection of Clinton's loss is far too painful a pill to swallow.

If there is any validation, it is that an author like Taibbi, the last any would expect, is the one throwing a flag on the field and calling bullshit given how the evidence is being presented. He is not denying Russian intervention. He is challenging how Obama is using that intelligence in a self serving political manner. Pride and legacy are at stake.
Click to expand...

You'll have to show me where Obama has spun this other than presenting the facts.

Again, the only one spinning this is the right who keep claiming that the left is spinning it. Prove it. Show me three predominant Democrats who have stated something other than the facts? In fact show me any lefty on this board who has spun this any other way.

Tiabbi isn't calling bullshit on Obama, he's simply saying that the situation feels similar and that journalist should be cautious. Which should be a given but real journalism is dying so I guess they need reminders like this.
 
fskimospy said:
It's intelligence, you will never get transparency. Ever.

As someone who loves Matt Taibbi generally this piece is trying way, way too hard. Iraq intelligence estimates actually came with all sorts of 'proof' (remember the UN presentation?) and it didn't change the fact that they were wrong. Sometimes intelligence is wrong. If it never was it would be playing things too safe.

Governments routinely lie and make up intelligence to serve their purposes but if you're not going to accept the unanimous opinion of the intelligence community when no credible evidence exists for a contrary opinion then what's the point?

Nobody has to accept intel estimates uncritically, and Taibbi's argument kind of rests on that accusation, which is awfully weak.
Click to expand...

The contrary opinion isn't making the claim. The onus of providing evidence is on the claimant. What you've said is akin to theists saying "well you can't prove a deity doesn't exist can you?"
 
ivwshane said:
You'll have to show me where Obama has spun this other than presenting the facts.

Again, the only one spinning this is the right who keep claiming that the left is spinning it. Prove it. Show me three predominant Democrats who have stated something other than the facts? In fact show me any lefty on this board who has spun this any other way.

Tiabbi isn't calling bullshit on Obama, he's simply saying that the situation feels similar and that journalist should be cautious. Which should be a given but real journalism is dying so I guess they need reminders like this.
Click to expand...
That is fair, but when I read this passage, it sure sounds like he is calling bullshit on Obama:

"If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices in both parties are saying this now."

What you accept as truth and evidence is nothing more than Obama's word on the matter. Granted, I am willing to take Obama for his word because he has little to gain in lying given the implications, and it is virtually impossible to release hard evidence as it relates to intelligence at risk of revealing sources and methods, but that does not necessarily mean the case as presented by Obama is irrefutable truth.
 
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