I am writing this in response to a request from a longtime friend, a former CIA Operations Officer, who has watched the propaganda meme unfold, which declares that Russia stuck its runny red nose into our election and helped Trump win. My friend, a woman who had extensive field experience and worked on the Iraq weapons of mass destruction mess, has a personal experience witnessing the so-called "Intelligence Community" ignore real intel and seize on bullshit in order to justify a war that political masters were keen on launching. The actual intelligence was ignored (but that is a another story for another day).
She has a problem. She is a person of integrity and, despite her own politics, is unwilling to slant intelligence to serve a political agenda. She suffered terminal damage to her career because she refused to play the political game. God bless her. She exemplifies what a genuine intelligence officer is supposed to be.
She asked me the other day what I made of the repeated meme that the Russians–Vladimir Putin in particular–intervened in our election and put their (his) thumb on the political scale in order to help Trump. Here is my answer:
Let's begin with the continued refusal of the DNC to allow DHS or FBI to examine the computer/computers of the DNC where the alleged hack supposed took place. Instead of insisting that the FBI examine their computers, the DNC turned to a private organization–CrowdStrike.
It was CrowdStrike that uncovered the “Russian hacking” of the DNC, and when the DNC refused to allow the FBI access to their servers to see the evidence for themselves, it was CrowdStrike that told the FBI that it was the Russians.
Here’s the problem with this: CrowdStrike’s reputation is currently unraveling. Why? It seems that CrowdStrike is as politically motivated as everyone else in Washington, D.C. The company is itself an opponent of Vladimir Putin and Russia and was recently caught fabricating a report that attempted to blame Russian hacking for problems with Urkainian military technology.
Yes, you read that correctly. CrowdStrike was forced to retract portions of a report that blamed Russian hacking for problems that didn’t actually exist. This realization completely undermines any reason we have to trust their analysis of the DNC servers. Since the DNC refused to allow the FBI access, we only have CrowdStrike’s word that the Russians hacked the DNC. Now that we know CrowdStrike has been caught lying about Russian hacking in another instance, we simply cannot give them the benefit of the doubt on the DNC email leak.
One of the owners/founders of Crowd Strike is a Mr. Dmitri Alperovitch. Dmitri was born in Russia but does not like Russia. He is not an objective outsider. CounterPunch called out Crowd Strike and Alperovitch on their deficient objectivity:
The cyber security firm outsourced by the Democratic National Committee, CrowdStrike, reportedly misread data, falsely attributing a hacking in Ukraine to the Russians in December 2016. Voice of America, a US Government funded media outlet, reported, “the CrowdStrike report, released in December, asserted that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, resulting in heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine’s war with Russian-backed separatists. But the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) told VOA that CrowdStrike erroneously used IISS data as proof of the intrusion. IISS disavowed any connection to the CrowdStrike report.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense also has claimed combat losses and hacking never happened.” The maker of the military app allegedly hacked called CrowdStrike’s report “delusional,” and told VOA that CrowdStrike never contacted him either before or after they completed their report. VOA News noted Ukraine’s rebuttal to CrowdStrike received little media attention as CrowdStrike’s report was widely cited in media outlets throughout the United States as further evidence of Russia hacking the United States. Alperovitch, who gave several interviews on CrowdStrike’s initial report to the Washington Post and other media outlets, refused to comment on VOA News’ report.
The Washington blog lays out some of the problems with the Crowd Strike analysis:
The difference between Dmitri Alperovitch’s claims which are reflected in JAR-1620296 and this article is that enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors that need to be investigated for real crimes.
For instance, the malware used was an out-dated version just waiting to be found. The one other interesting point is that the Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine. How did Crowdstrike miss this when it is their business to know?
Later in this article you’ll meet and know a little more about the real “Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear.” The bar for identification set by Crowdstrike has never been able to get beyond words like probably, maybe, could be, or should be, in their attribution.
When the DNC alleged hack occurred, the Clinton campaign charged right out of the gate and blamed Russia for the leaked email. They insisted that the FBI informed them that the Russians were responsible. But hoow could the FBI know such a thing so quickly if they had not been able to conduct a forensic exam?
Here is the US News report from 25 July 2016:
The FBI said Monday it is investigating how thousands of Democratic National Committee emails were hacked, a breach that Hillary Clinton's campaign maintains was committed by Russia to benefit Donald Trump. . . .Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta added fuel to the debate Monday, saying there was "a kind of bromance going on" between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump. The Clinton campaign says Russia favors Trump's views, especially on NATO.
Then you have the NY Times, one day later, making the claim that the “INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES” agreed it was Russia but they weren’t certain of the motive:
American intelligence agencies have told the White House they now have “high confidence” that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee, according to federal officials who have been briefed on the evidence.
But intelligence officials have cautioned that they are uncertain whether the electronic break-in at the committee’s computer systems was intended as fairly routine cyberespionage — of the kind the United States also conducts around the world — or as part of an effort to manipulate the 2016 presidential election. also reported:
How do the “intelligence agencies” reach such a conclusion without having access to the actual forensic evidence? If this was the “conclusion” based on CIA sources then that means it had to be based on a human source. Similarly, if it was based on NSA evidence–i.e., we intercepted a communication between Russian sources–then NSA could have weighed in. But they did not have such evidence. If such evidence existed it would have been written up in a Top Secret document and briefed to the President and key members of Congress. That did not happened. Here’s the reality—we do not get a written assessment until January 2017. And that so-called assessment, as I wrote about in a previous piece, did not offer one shred of actual intelligence to buttress their claim. Which begs the question. How in the hell can they brief Obama in July but then not come up with a “judgment” until six months later? The truth is simple. They did not have such information.
Also, if you have read the January “Assessment” it is a joke. Compare that to the White Paper on Iraq, which was at least full of sourcing (of course, the Iraq White Paper was still a pack of lies). The ironically labeled "National Intelligence Assessment" was not a genuine Intelligence Community product. Such an Assessment normally goes through the National Intelligence Council and ensures that all agencies/analysts with substantive expertise on the matter are given the chance to coordinate and comment on the assessment. That did not happen in this case. In fact, the Defense Intelligence Agency–which has significant expertise on the Russian GRU–was excluded from the process.
I made some inquiries of my own. This exclusion of DIA caught my eye. An old friend and seasoned intelligence professional who still occupies a senior slot in the Intel Community, responded to my inquiry by archly noting that there is no there there. In other words, no intel to back up the anti-Russian propaganda.
If we step back and look objectively at the media blitz/propaganda campaign being directed against Russia I think we are dealing with something that goes far beyond Hillary’s campaign. This is far bigger than her. I don’t think there is one single source for the anti-Russia meme. In fact, it involves several players. First, the pro-Nato crowd that wants to expand NATO and do more on Russia’s frontiers. Second, the anti-Iran crowd who see Russia as a great enabler of Tehran and want to punish both (the Saudis, along with their money, are very active on this front). Third, the military/industrial complex that reaps enormous financial benefits, such as building missile defense systems, to confront the IMPERIAL RUSSIAN threat. You’ve heard the message repeatedly I’m sure, i.e.”Vladimir Putin is keen on reconstituting the Soviet Empire and is working, like Hitler, to make it happen.”
I suppose it is easy to swallow that lie as long as we ignored our own sins in threatening Russia. We ignore the promise that Bill Clinton made to the Russians to not expand NATO and not conduct operations on Russia’s western border. Well, both Clinton and Bush broke that promise. We directly “meddled” in the Ukrainian elections (hell, Victoria Nuland is caught on tape discussing some of our manipulation). That’s just the latest in our fifty year history of backing coups and funding opposition political parties and planting stories in the media. I wonder if Iraq, Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Greece, Italy and the Dominican Republic consider our past actions “meddling?”
I don’t trust a single US intel agency to do the right thing. They all have a proven track record of lying and deceit. They oxymoronic Intelligence Community insisted in late 2002 and early 2003 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But they knew that was not true. They also knew what the White House wanted to hear. The leadership could have stood up and don) the right, honorable thing, but they chose to play politics. That is what I’m still seeing. It does not matter whether Trump or Obama is sitting at the White House. The CIA and NSA serve their own interests and, if those interest don’t jibe with those of the Republic, the Republic is told to fuck off.
The CIA is very well versed in the art of "meddling" in elections. We have a robust historical record of how this is down. But we have not limited ourselves to just meddling in elections. We have helped organize and mount coup d' etats. You doubt me? Just ask Iran and its Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. How about Guatemala's Jacobo Arbenz (1954). We could add to that list the Dominican Republic, Panama, Chile, Vietnam, Greece and Italy. Hell, even Barack Obama got into the act with Israel in 2013 and 2014.
According to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), the State Department gave $349,276 in U.S. taxpayer-funded grants to a political group in Israel to build a campaign operation, which subsequently was used to try to influence Israelis to vote against conservative Benjamin Netanyahu in the March 2015 election for prime minister.
Sure sounds like "meddling" to me. The rest of the world watches our faux outrage with a mixture of bemusement and bewilderment. Surely, they wonder, we cannot be so clueless. Answer. We are. As Colonel Lang perceptively noted in a previous piece, the average American knows more about Captain America and Wonder Woman than they do about our actual deeds in mucking around in the affairs of other countries.
Now we are feigning outrage at a Russian intervention that never occurred. We are oblivious to facts. We go only with emotion and fantasy. This is a dangerous concoction.
As a companion piece to this I recommend Craig Murray’s recent summary of “The Stink Without a Secret”, with the bonus that he claims to have been personally involved in leaking the DNC mails:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/07/stink-without-secret/
Craig Murray says he still hasn’t been questioned regarding his claims that the Podesta emails were a leak from the intelligence community and that the DNC emails were from an insider at the DNC, something he says he facilitated. Then again him being interviewed would be an indication that there was any vaguely serious investigation in to the matter. We might be different ends of the political spectrum but I have no doubts regarding Murray’s credibility.
Anyway I appreciated Trump’s Podesta tweet, Trump clearly realised that ‘Russian hacking’ would be the meme the usual suspects would deploy, so why not set the agenda. As much as this is now being turned back on the authors I still don’t expect Clinton, Obama, Comey, Clapper et al. to get the justice they deserve. At least though it has opened people’s eyes that they should be a little bit more cynical.
Enough evidence to simply not vote for Hillary Clinton. Case closed. Slammed shut. I have trouble believing that the following statement is actually true. But somehow I know that it is.
“Let’s begin with the continued refusal of the DNC to allow DHS or FBI to examine the computer/computers of the DNC where the alleged hack supposed took place. Instead of insisting that the FBI examine their computers, the DNC turned to a private organization–CrowdStrike.”
So, the Democratic Party elected Donald Trump. Case closed. Slammed shut. We will have to wait for the midterms for the results of the autopsy, but I think the Democratic Party is going to get a big surprise.
Politically the United States is probably the most interesting case study in the history of the world. Name the industrialized nations that do not have universal health insurance. The political party that currently controls every branch of government nationally and locally is trying to dismantle the feeble attempt at universal health insurance in the U.S. because it interferes with “freedom of choice”.
Putin? The man is an absolute master of international strategy. Israel is attacking Syrian forces just across its border? We’ll declare a truce there with the backing of the U.S. and Jordan with international observers. You think Rex had trouble signing off on that? I don’t. Trump is so far out of his league he can’t see the league. He tweets while Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron eat his lunch.
PT
Thanks for being on the Russian meddling in our election story. No facts will change the opinion of all the NeverTrumpers. And the MSM will continue to feed the meme as well as the hysteria. Mueller has another self-licking ice cream cone as his budget and staff will keep growing. At the end he’ll not find anything but will indict a few people for some legal technicality and force some kind of plea deal.
The bottom line with respect to the DNC and Podesta hacks are that the TRUTH was released. There was no fabrication. This fact has been conveniently lost as it does not comport with the objectives of the IO – to delegitimize Trump, to absolve the Democrats for rigging their primary and their poor choice of candidate, to provide a convenient excuse for Hillary’s losing campaign and above all to vilify Russia as they provide a counter to the Borg’s hegemonic desires.
Sadly, you like Old Microbiologist, note how corrupt and self-serving the government/contractor nexus has become. Like a cancerous cell that keeps growing it can’t be stopped and slowly kills the host by consuming all the resources. We are exactly there where this big government/oligarchy nexus has metastasized and is destroying our srength from the inside.
Now, TTG believes the Russians were deeply involved in their own IO campaign to influence the election. I trust his judgment. But, IMO, this would be no different than the IO campaigns run by the Israelis and Saudis who have been influencing our elections for a long time with big money, think tanks and various media outlets.
My own view is that we meddle all over the place and the hysteria of the NeverTrumpers is like the pot calling the kettle black. I would rather we focus on superior intel collection and analysis, drop our hegemonic policies, withdraw our forces from around the world and reform our economy & politics away from big government. Our emphasis should be economic development and trade relations that benefits the bottom 90%. The only chance of that happening is after catastrophe.
All,
An update on British interference in your electoral processes.
Immediately following the claims by Dmitri Alperovitch of ‘CrowdStrike’ that his company had demonstrated that the DNC hacks were the work of the Russian intelligence services, a former GCHQ employee called Matt Tait, who runs a company called Capital Alpha Security, backed up the story.
He ‘discovered’ various pieces of information in the ‘metadata’ of the documents produced by ‘Guccifer 2.0’, which supposedly were conclusive proof of Russian intelligence involvement – the main suspect, according to Alperovitch, being the GRU.
Among the supposedly clinching evidence was that the discovery of the words ‘Felix Edmundovich’, the name and patronymic of the founder of the Cheka, the organisation that did devastating damage to both the Red Army General Staff and more specifically its military intelligence in the lead-up to ‘Operation Barbarossa’.
(For Tait’s account, see https://www.lawfareblog.com/need-official-attribution-russias-dnc-hack .)
This is not conclusive evidence that ‘Guccifer 2.0’ was part of an ‘information operation’ orchestrated by Western intelligence agencies, but it certainly points that way.
Well, Tait has resurfaced again. From a recent piece on ‘The MaddowBlog’, on MSNBC.
‘On Thursday night, the Wall Street Journal published an important piece on Donald Trump’s Russia scandal, noting that a longtime Republican operative, Peter Smith, assembled a team that set out to obtain Hillary Clinton emails. To that end, Smith and his cohorts reached out to people they believed to be Russian hackers, affiliated with Russia’s government, because Smith and his cohorts thought these hackers may have stolen the materials.
‘The point, as we discussed last week, was to then use the stolen documents in the United States, exploiting materials from Russia to affect the American election. In other words, we’re talking about a group of folks who, in a rather literal sense, tried to collude with Russia as part of the country’s attack on our election.’
And the report goes on to link to another post by Matt Tait, which is entitled ‘The Time I Got Recruited to Collude with the Russians.’
This looks to me like a rather clumsy instance of the familiar technique sometimes known as ‘dead men talking’ – as when the MI6 agent Alexander Litvinenko, then probably being run by Christopher Steele, supposed author of the ‘BuzzFeed’ dossier, claimed that the former FSB deputy director General Anatoly Trofimov had described Romano Prodi as ‘our man’ in Italy: that is a KGB/FSB agent.
As Trofimov had been assassinated, aged 64, he could not confirm or deny the report – and it was easy to suggest that he had been silenced to prevent him revealing more. As Smith was 81, and there appeared to be nothing to suggest foul play, I had assumed that he would not be put down as another of Putin’s supposed victims. But it seems this assumption was premature.
(See, for example, http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/peter-w-smith-beyond-collusion-big.html .)
Particularly given that there has never been a convincing denial of the claims that GCHQ was employed to enable elements in American intelligence to conduct surveillance in support of their campaign against Trump without leaving a ‘trail’, there is I think very good reason to suspect that Tait has been acting as an agent of his former employers.
In relation to Steele, there is certainly very strong reason to suspect this.
Why you Americans are prepared to put up with having we British interfere in your electoral processes, to be frank, defeats me.
Dear Publicus Tacitus, please pass on my gratitude to your longtime friend.
Seems like if the IC is going to produce politicized assessments, they should be replaced by an intern in a basement making sh-t up – would cost just a few thousand dollars a year.
Meanwhile our politicos get a free pass on responsibility for making the decisions they want to make. Our politicos should man (or woman) up and take responsibility – Explain to the public – yes the intelligence disagrees, but I am deciding as such because my gut (or whatever) tells me that this is the right decision. And then let history and the voters judge.
Perhaps thats why 72% of Americans disapprove of congress. http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx
“We are oblivious to facts. We go only with emotion and fantasy. ”
I would say that we are creating “our own reality” (Rove) to fulfill the desires of MIC, FedReserve, the Lobby, and oilmen.
“Two groups perpetrated the hack: COZY BEAR and FANCY BEAR, the same attackers that used Android malware to track Ukrainian artillery field units back in late-2014.”
https://www.grahamcluley.com/lithuania-says-three-cases-of-russian-spyware-infected-government-computers/
I don’t know why the people at CrowdStrike would fabricate their findings. They get paid regardless of what’s in their report.
Dmitri Alperovitch of Crowdstrike is not just a Russian born, anti-Putin expatriate living in the US, but he has connections with the Ukrainian nationalists that live in the US (these are people descended from the Ukrainian nazis that the US let in after WWII when the US govt rebranded the Bandera forces who fought in the Nazi army as “anti-communist freedom fighters”). Dmitri has close ties to the Chaluba sisters, one of whom was a major player in the Hillary campaign and brought him in to “investigate” the leak inside the DNC. The older sister is close to the Bandera movement inside the current Ukrainian government. These gals are not just descended from that big influx of Ukrainian Nazis that came in after WWII but are closely connected to Pravy Sektor today.
“The rest of the world watches our faux outrage with a mixture of bemusement and bewilderment.”
In a lot of places there may be bemusement but not bewilderment. They have to build weapon systems and defences because they understand exactly what is occurring.
Russia, China and many other places see the US (state) exactly as it is.
The US is, and has for a long time been this Goring quote…
Göring: Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Much of the world have not been bemused by the trail of destruction the US has left in its wake in the last couple of decades.
The reaction of Americans to North Korea in the last thread was interesting. If you lot want security, it will not come about by attacking NK. Security will only come if you clean up your IC community and media so that Americans have access to accurate information.
Huh? Your comment makes no sense.Surely you recognize the absurdity of what you wrote. If Crowd Strike gets paid “REGARDLESS OF WHAT’S IN THEIR REPORT,” then what is their incentive to tell the truth?
I wish that everyone in the US read this article.
The US has tried to meddle in the elections of other countries. Other countries do the same, except for the Russians? You appear to be making the case that the Russians alone do not try to interfere in the elections of other countries. I don’t find that credible. They have their own interests and I expect them to act on them. (Also, I hope you realize that the guy propagating the Seth Rich theory is the same guy who was claiming that our country is swamped with lesbians carrying pink guns kidnapping people and forcing them to turn gay.)
Steve
To paraphrase Col. Lang, of course the Russians interfere in our elections, just as we interfere in theirs.
Okay Stevie, please explain how the Russians “meddled” in the Presidential election and provide evidence. I’ll wait.
“I don’t know why the people at CrowdStrike would fabricate their findings.”
To further their own political agenda.
“They get paid regardless of what’s in their report.”
Then there is no barrier to them using said report to further their own political agenda, and get paid for the privilege.
That’s one sweeeeeeeeat gig, and if I were in their shoes I’d milk it for all it is worth.
You referring to former Ambassador Craig Murray?
Richardstevenhack,
you’re setting up a straw man. Just because the US operates a certain way, doesn’t mean that Russia has to operate the same way or that that is even the most effective tack these days.
I’d recommend anyone interested in the evolution of the Russian social media influence machine read this article on a Finnish journalist’s attempt to investigate the “Troll Factories.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/world/europe/russia-finland-nato-trolls.html
The PI, Rod Wheeler.
TTG is the pro. I will let him handle that. And, I will repeat that I find it difficult to believe that anyone more than casually interested in foreign policy would believe that the Russians would not attempt to do such stuff in the US and elsewhere. They have the capabilities and the motivation. It would almost be criminal, from their POV, to not try.
Steve
You assert certain things as true but are incapable of giving specifics. Why do you even waste my time commenting? You have nothing to add to the discussion.
Also, there is not “one” guy claiming the so-called Seth Rich theory. Please deal with facts. Seth Rich worked at the DNC. Seth Rich had contact with Wikileaks. Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, posted a reward for info on who killed Rich. That’s not a theory smart guy.
Speaking of Brent Budowsky,
this column of his might be of interest:
“Will Trump appease Putin?”
by Brent Budowsky, 2017-07-05
http://thehill.com/opinion/brent-budowsky/340742-budowsky-will-trump-appease-putin
Not only does Budowsky explicitly compare Putin to Hitler
(his denial of that seems patently invalid):
but Budowsky also makes the following thinly-veiled threat:
How about that for putting pressure on Trump.
It is also interesting to compare Budowsky’s comparison of Putin to Hitler
to the fact that some on TV think Russia is still a communist nation:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/07/the-eastern-bloc-and-the-communist-country-meme.html
Seems that Russia and Putin are getting hit from both sides:
Putin is Hitler, Russia is communist.
Exactly. They have no incentive to tell the truth and every incentive to write something alarmist and frightening in order to sell more of their service. I have no way to prove it, and it’s difficult to evaluate the reliability of the stories about a small group of professional Democrats fabricating the Russia Hack thing, but given Dmitri Alperovitch’s anti-Russian history it is not unthinkable that the entire report is a fabrication just like their report on the Ukrainian artillery hack. There is no reason to insist that Seth Rich was the leaker. His death might be an unrelated coincidence. The leaker could just as well have been somebody else and support for Bernie need not have been the motivation. Clapper, who might possibly have been telling the truth, said on the day of his retirement that he had not yet seen any evidence of the hack.
The Seth Rich story is not necessary for the leak story. Rich’s murder might very well be an unrelated coincidence and the real leaker might still be happily working in the bowels of the DNC. Or unhappily working, who knows? To me the bigger source of suspicion in Assange publicly affirming that the source was a leaker. Wikileaks is not supposed to reveal any information that might help investigators find their source, so this might be a purposeful distraction, but it’s true that if the package of emails was transmitted over the internet the NSA would know who did it. Whether they would reveal that is another question.
No one has explained why Wikileaks would lie about the source of the documents.
Oh, come on. One reason whistleblowers are willing to send information to Wikileaks is that Wikileaks promises to do everything in their power to protect their identity. Craig Murray may or may not be telling the truth that he was one of the intermediaries. We really have no way of knowing. The reward for the murderer of Seth Rich might be a diversion. Seth Rich’s death might very well be an unrelated coincidence. That tells us nothing about the actual leaker, which is what Wikileaks would want. Hey, look over there, a shiny thing.
This was my analysis, from April 2.
https://caucus99percent.com/content/okeydoke-americans-were-supposed-get