Posted on 06/30/2020 5:23:31 AM PDT by gattaca
Watch nearly the entire corporate media establishment run wild with claims from completely anonymous sources in the intelligence community this week.
Much of the case for the Iraq War was based on the Bush administrations claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. When the United States declared an end to the war late in 2011, more than 4,400 American military members had been killed and nearly 32,000 wounded. No weapons of mass destruction had been found.
Its one of the most significant and catastrophic intelligence errors in U.S. history. A bipartisan commission found that U.S. intelligence seriously misjudged Iraqs weapons program because of their heavy reliance on a human sourcecodenamed Curveballwhose information later proved to be unreliable. The commission wrote, Even more misleading was the river of intelligence that flowed from the CIA to top policymakers over long periods of timein the Presidents Daily Brief (PDB) and other reports that were more alarmist and less nuanced.
Curveball was Germanys codename for Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, an Iraqi defector who claimed to have built mobile weapons laboratories. President George W. Bush highlighted the claims in his 2003 State of the Union address.
Secretary of State Colin Powells speech to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, relied heavily on Curveballs claims. My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What were giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources.
Powell went on to describe Janabis claims at length, concluding, This defector is currently hiding in another country with the certain knowledge that Saddam Hussein will kill him if he finds him. His eyewitness account of these mobile production facilities has been corroborated by other sources.
Years later, Curveball admitted he had completely fabricated his claims out of a desire to oust Saddam Hussein from power.
The intelligence failure became a widespread media failure when reporters uncritically regurgitated the weapons of mass destruction claims from their intelligence community sources. Academics, pundits, and journalists themselves have decried the medias performance in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The New York Times and Washington Post even published their regrets about their own coverage, which frequently took the intelligence communitys claims at face value.
Its important history to remember as you watch nearly the entire corporate media establishment run wild with claims from completely anonymous sources in the intelligence community this week. By comparison, the reporters back in 2002 and 2003 seem to have been downright judicious in their handling of the intelligence community claims.
Our Latest Intel Drama On Russia On Friday, three New York Times reporters wrote that American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan including targeting American troops amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.
This allegedly airtight intelligence was briefed to President Trump, and officials came up with ideas for potential responses, including a diplomatic complaint and sanctions, but the White House had yet to authorize anything. The intelligence, the reporters claimed, had been shared with the British government.
The anonymous leakers of the information, the reporters claimed, are totally certain that Russian operatives offered and paid bounties, but they have greater uncertainty about who authorized the plan. The reporters included some speculation about why such a bounty operation would be done. There was no speculation about the motivation of the leaking officials.
Reaction to the Anonymous Report It is worth noting that the three New York Times reporters Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt, and Michael Schwirtz also played key roles in disseminating the Russia collusion hoax, in which anonymous intelligence officials worked with co-conspirators in the media for years to put out a false and defamatory narrative that President Donald Trump had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election or was otherwise compromised. The New York Times was one of the biggest outlets engaged in the Russia hoax. The reporters even include some of their previous Russia collusion hoax spin, and omit key facts about Trumps actions against Russia, in their bounty story.
Literally nothing about the political medias use of anonymous sources to spread republic-damaging disinformation in recent years should lead anyone to treat further anonymously sourced reports with any deference. Yet the entire corporate media establishment immediately ran wild with the story and used it to suggest it was further evidence that Trump was an agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The story dominated cable news over the weekend and into the following week.
Republicans who support continuing the war in Afghanistan indefinitely, even though it has been going on for 19 years, expressed grave concern about the report. Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, whose father had authoritatively claimed in August 2002 there was no doubt Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, reflexively accepted the anonymously sourced reports and demanded answers and action.
It turned out that key details of the story were disputed by on-the-record sources. When the White House press secretary said neither Trump nor Vice President Mike Pence had even been briefed on this intelligence, reporters tried a new line of attack.
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe added, I have confirmed that neither the President nor the Vice President were ever briefed on any intelligence alleged by the New York Times in its reporting yesterday. The White House statement addressing this issue earlier today, which denied such a briefing occurred, was accurate. The New York Times reporting, and all other subsequent news reports about such an alleged briefing, are inaccurate.
White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah disputed that the intelligence was as airtight as the New York Times reporters had claimed, based on their anonymous and unaccountable sources: POTUS wasnt briefed on the reports related to Afghanistan because there is no consensus within the intelligence community on the allegations at this point. The veracity of the underlying allegations continues to be evaluated.
Yet the frenzy from the media continued, almost as if coordinated as part of an operation.
Anonymous Sources Cant Confirm Anything A quick note on anonymous sourcing. Following the New York Times report, other media outlets ran with stories on the matter also based on anonymous sources. Frequently, this was described as independent confirmation.
However, anonymous sources cant confirm anything for a reader, on account of being anonymous. And because theyre anonymous, there is no way to tell if one media outlets sources are independent from anothers.
While this should be obvious, perhaps an example from the Russia collusion hoax will help. On Dec. 8, 2017, CNNs Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb reported that multiple anonymous sources had confirmed an email was sent to Donald Trump, Jr., with advance information about a WikiLeaks document release.
The story was a train wreck, in that it didnt include any evidence that the random guy who emailed Trump, Jr., was correct in his emailed claims, that the email had been opened, or that the emailer was connected to Russia. But even more than that, it turned out that the multiple anonymous sources had somehow gotten the date of the email wrong. Rather than the email giving advance notice of a WikiLeaks document release, it was an email about a document release that had already happened to great public fanfare.
Before that embarrassing ending for CNN, though, other media outlets claimed to have independently confirmed CNNs story. CBS claimed to have confirmed the story. Russia collusion hoaxer Fusion Ken Dilanian claimed two sources had confirmed CNNs report to him.
So what happened? Well, probably two buddies working on a congressional committee both sold the false story to all three outlets. Two buddies working together on a committee that leak the same false information to multiple outlets arent independent of each other, much less independent confirmation for each network. Theyre just two leakers who somehow arent bright enough to know how to properly read dates on emails.
Whats the Criminal Leakers Motivation? DNI Ratcliffe notes that leaks of information such as what the leakers are spreading throughout the media can be quite damaging.
Intelligence collection and intelligence analysis are more art than science. If the Curveball information was presented as airtight and used to launch a protracted war, this intelligence seems to be in only the earliest stages of analysis and heavily in dispute. So why is it being leaked, a criminal offense? And why are the media so anxious to use this sketchy information?
Perhaps their goal is to fight the Trump administrations efforts to end the 19-year-war in Afghanistan, damage international relations, distract from the Russia collusion hoax currently under investigation, or any number of other things. Sometimes leaks are about internal bureaucratic wars involving people who dont care about the damage caused by their leaking.
One goal seems to be to paint Trump as someone who does not care about American soldiers. This talking point is odd. Iran reportedly offered the Taliban $1,000 bounties in 2010 for American soldiers deaths in Afghanistan. Not only was no action taken by President Obama at the time, six years later, he authorized the payment of $1.7 billion to the regime.
By contrast, President Trump authorized the killing of Irans Qasem Soleimani, responsible for the deaths of more than 600 U.S. service members. When that happened, based on what the Trump administration said was responsibility for those deaths and intelligence that further attacks were planned, many in the media questioned the strength of that intelligence analysis.
The Story Keeps Changing The story also seems to keep changing. At first it was about how Trump had been given airtight intelligence and refused to do anything about it. Then the goalposts shifted to how White House officials knew something or other.
An Associated Press story now asserts without evidence that John Bolton, who is on a book tour right now, told colleagues he briefed Trump on the intelligence assessment in March 2019. But in a softball interview Sunday by Jake Tapper, a reporter who played a key role in initiating the false Russia collusion hoax at CNN, Bolton repeatedly stressed his lack of knowledge about the story and his suspicion it might not be true.
First we have to stress there is much we dont know about this, he said. With all due respect to the highly esteemed news services you mention, they get stuff wrong time to time, he added. My only caution is before we go too far down the track, just because there are press reports doesnt mean its accurate. After a record-breaking use of the word if from Tapper, Bolton said, Well again, underlining the word if on whether its true
It is of course entirely possible that Bolton is leaking to the Associated Press and lying about his views now, or that he was lying then, or that Boltons colleagues are leakers and they are lying. But it seems the media arent caring about the facts so much as the overarching plan to believe this intelligence is airtight no matter what, that the intelligence was definitely briefed to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, no matter what, and that this story must continue to be pushed on airwaves no matter its deficiencies or the obvious coordination of its rollout.
Democrats, Media Using Story to Perpetuate Russia Hoax Most exasperating, the media and other partisans seem eager to run back into the comforting arms of the Russia collusion hoax they perpetrated against the country for years.
Tapper, for example, asked Bolton, Do you think its possible that Putin has information on President Trump? The New York Times reporters also dredged up the debunked Russia collusion theories. And not coincidentally, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi spent several minutes pushing the debunked Russiagate conspiracy theory in an interview with ABC News George Stephanopoulos.
With him, all roads lead to Putin. I dont know what the Russians have on the president politically, personally, financially, or whatever it is. But he wants to ignore, he wants to bring [Russia] back into the G8 despite the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Ukraine despite what they yielded to him in Syria, despite his intervention into our elections which is well documented by our intelligence community and despite possibly this allegation which we should have been briefed on, Pelosi said.
Pelosis pushing of the conspiracy theory met virtually no pushback from the former press secretary to President Bill Clinton. In fact, there has been no accountability for any of the actors who spread the false and damaging conspiracy theory about Russia.
None of the criminal leakers have been held accountable. Neither have the reporters who conspired with them to harm the republic, damage the Trump administration, hurt foreign relations, and destroy the lives of conservatives who allied themselves with Trump.
In fact, theyre free to continue their operation with the latest round of Russia stories, seemingly designed to undermine the Trump administration, hamper foreign policy changes that might lead away from the interventionist foreign policy of recent administrations, and otherwise hurt the country.
It is as if our political and media establishments refuse to learn anything from the weapons of mass destruction and Russia collusion hoax intelligence failures of recent years.
What was the Taliban doing before they were paid to kill Americans? Killing Americans? None of this makes sense.
The media sure wasn’t very interested in the Rooskies back when they were spreading communism all over the world.
The IC in this country is more of a danger to this country than what they pretend to protect us from.
This is another play from the Obama, DNC and a Brennan playbook. Fake Russia intel is leaked to NYT. Democrats have prepared talking points to slam Trump as a Putin puppet. Demands for an investigation follow. Investigations are scheduled. Dems and CNN have talking points to bolster the Russia hoax narrative. It’s all so predictable.
I think it is an attempt to say Obama was warranted to spy on Trump, overthrown his admin and commit treason.
This is why indictments are coming. Track needs to be laid.
Of course, which makes the tepid GOP response an indication that they are incompetent and unprepared.....
Theres a period missing that changes the context.
This is why. Indictments are coming. Track needs to be laid.
“I think it is an attempt to say Obama was warranted to spy on Trump, overthrown his admin and commit treason.”
Without solid evidence, and a conflicted Bolton is not any evidence, I completely agree with you. Further, the Taliban have been trying to kill Americans in Afghanistan since 2001. Why wouldn’t you accept money for what your already doing? The Russians, they take risk by ‘paying’ them for what they are already doing, and what is the upside? The whole thing is a dog and pony show, without a single verifiable source and corroborating source, to say it’s real. In an election year, it’s dirty politics......unless it is IC leaks......then it becomes Sedition and Treason.
Bolton, if he confirms this now has now gone the way of Sedition and Treason, those are secret conversations with the POTUS.
Barr needs to learn from Obama, and do the Roger Stone arrest thing on these people until they get the message. If guilty, Hanging in Washington DC (like the Democrat Lincoln conspirator) is an effective tool.
Imagine the mischief the ‘intelligence community’ could get into if the CinC was someone who forgets what day/year it is.
“None of the criminal leakers have been held accountable.”
That is why the leaks continue. The ones responsible for tracking down the leakers should be cleared out, and investigators appointed who will enforce the law.
2020 Election Season.......Russia Russia Russia!....
2016 Election Season......."All roads lead to Putin".....
Apparently the CIA and FBI are still planting false news stories in violation of law
2012
Obama: Russia? Hey Mitt, the 80s want their foreign policy back!
Pelosi arrived in Jordan and Afghanistan saying ..Meeting with and hearing directly from our troops and diplomats on the ground is essential for Congress to conduct effective oversight of our mission in Afghanistan, Pelosi said in a statement after the Afghanistan stop.
Pelosi arrived in Jordan and Afghanistan saying ..Meeting with and hearing directly from our troops and diplomats on the ground is essential for Congress to conduct effective oversight of our mission in Afghanistan, Pelosi said in a statement after the Afghanistan stop.
IIRC, many foreign intel agencies also believed Saddam to have WMD's or developing then. Practically the entire western world believed it. I'm still curious about all the truck convoys heading to Syria just before we invaded.
Credits to: The Federalist ^ | June 30, 2020 | Mollie Hemingway
Thanks RACPE.
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