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To Keep Russiagate Alive ‘Officials’ Make New Claims Without Providing Evidence
There were allegations about emails that someone exfiltrated from the DNC and provided to Wikileaks. Russia must have done it. The FBI and other intelligence services were all over it. In the end no evidence was provided to support the claims.
There were allegations that Trump did not really win the elections. Russia must have done it. The various U.S. intelligence service, together with their British friends, provided all kinds of sinister leaks about the alleged case. In the end no evidence was provided to support the claims.
A British double agent, Sergej Skirpal, was allegedly injured in a Russian attack on him. The intelligence services told all kind of contradicting nonsense about the case. In the end no evidence was provided to support the claims.
All three cases had two points in common. The were based on sources near to the U.S. and British intelligence community. They were designed to increase hostility against Russia. The last point was then used to sabotage Donald Trump’s original plans for better relations with Russia.
Now the intelligence services make another claim that fits right into the above scheme.
Reporters from the New York Times and the Washington Post were called up by unnamed ‘officials’ and told to write that Russia pays some Afghans to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. There is zero evidence that the claim is true. The Taliban spokesman denies it. The numbers of U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan is minimal. The alleged sources of the claims are criminals the U.S. has taken as prisoners in Afghanistan.
All that nonsense is again used to press against Trump’s wish for better relations with Russia. Imagine – Trump was told about these nonsensical claims and he did nothing about it!
The same intelligence services and ‘officials’ previously paid bounties to bring innocent prisoners to Guantanamo Bay, tortured them until they made false confessions and lied about it. The same intelligence services and ‘officials’ lied about WMD in Iraq. The same ‘intelligence officials’ paid and pay Jihadis disguised as ‘Syrian rebels’ to kill Russian and Syrian troops which defend their countries.
The journalistic standards at the New York Times and Washington Post must be below zero to publish such nonsense without requesting real evidence. The press release like stories below from anti-Trump/anti-Russian sources have nothing to do with ‘great reporting‘ but are pure stenography.
The New York Times:
Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says
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.
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The officials familiar with the intelligence did not explain the White House delay in deciding how to respond to the intelligence about Russia.
While some of his closest advisers, like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have counseled more hawkish policies toward Russia, Mr. Trump has adopted an accommodating stance toward Moscow.
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The intelligence assessment is said to be based at least in part on interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals.
The Washington Post:
Russian operation targeted coalition troops in Afghanistan, intelligence finds
A Russian military spy unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to attack coalition forces in Afghanistan, including U.S. and British troops, in a striking escalation of the Kremlin’s hostility toward the United States, American intelligence has found.
The Russian operation, first reported by the New York Times, has generated an intense debate within the Trump administration about how best to respond to a troubling new tactic by a nation that most U.S. officials regard as a potential foe but that President Trump has frequently embraced as a friend, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive intelligence matter.
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The unit that officials identified as responsible for allegedly offering the bounties has also been linked to the poisoning and attempted murder of former Russian military spy Sergei Skripal in Britain in 2018.
Yes, this is hardly surprising or even newsworthy.
Most of the purpose of these sorts of stories is to further the agenda of the warmongers in the US government, that is to say, it’s propaganda intended to gin up a case for war, as well as keep the public in fear of the “enemy out there” and thus to justify the continued rape of the taxpayer, transferring their taxes to the corporations involved in the military-industrial complez. There may also be some sort of hidden intelligence agenda wherein these stories are meant to get a reaction from various parties the “intelligence officials” wish to manipulate.
The same sort of thing is done with regard to China, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, in short, anyone the US (or Israel) doesn’t like.
The main take-away is that the US government has gone past “ordinary” corruption to full-on criminal status. As a former criminal myself, it’s interesting that the government can get away with crimes that dwarf anything us “ordinary” criminals can possibly commit. And they can do with the full support of the US taxpayer, both because most taxpayers are ignorant of the depth of the government’s crimes and the ones that aren’t are complicit. Both continue to pay taxes and continue to elect the same criminals every two and four years.
It’s a perfect criminal enterprise. As we anarchists like to say, “Government *is* organized crime.” People who believe it could be otherwise are deluded.
As I’ve said before, there is only one “solution”, or rather, not a solution but merely the only effective way to fight back. One has to 1) engage in assassination of those who rule behind the scenes, and 2) steal the assets and information of the rulers and distribute it to the people, and 3) develop the technologies to combat the government’s technology.
In short, the only effective way to fight nation-state crime is with what might be called “cyberpunk crime” – after the sci-fi fiction and RPGs of the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s.
For a fictional view of what that might look like, check out the upcoming RPG called “Watch Dogs – Legion”:
Watch Dogs Legion – E3 2019 Gameplay Walkthrough
For a “real” view, check this little Twitter video out:
Cyberpunk resistance in #Chile: they use lasers to knock down the regime’s drones.
The attitude is summed up in this quote from a cyberpunk Web site:
A cyberpunk has attitude. This attitude is culturally and socially aware, just like the fiction from which they take their name. They question everything and anyone and decide for themselves what they believe is true. This path to understanding yields different world views and opinions, but diversity is key to a successful population. A cyberpunk knows that the system isn’t in your favor, and the deck is stacked against you. A cyberpunk knows how to hack the system so that doesn’t matter. Don’t fuck with a cyberpunk.
Cyberpunk as political theory is discussed here:
Cyberpunk as Social and Political Theory
Gareth Branwyn (Rucker et al.,1993: 64-66) provides a useful description of cyberpunk as both a literary perspective and as an actual worldview which gives a clear indication of its major concerns: ‘The future has imploded onto the present. There was no n uclear Armageddon. There’s too much real estate to lose. The new battle-field is people’s minds…The megacorps are the new governments… The U.S. is a big bully with lackluster economic power…The world is splintering into a trillion subcultures and de signer cults with their own language, codes and lifestyles …Computer-generated info-domains are the next frontiers… There is better living through chemistry…Small groups or individual ‘console cowboys’ can wield tremendous power over governments, co rporations etc…The coalescence of a computer “culture” is expressed in self-aware computer music, art, virtual communities, and a hacker/street tech subculture…the computer nerd image is passé, and people are not ashamed anymore about the role the com puter has in this subculture. The computer is a cool tool, a friend, important human augmentation…We’re becoming cyborgs. Our tech is getting smaller, closer to us, and it will soon merge with us.’
These themes were first given expression in Gibson’s novels which, as befits a postmodern aesthetic form (McHale, 1992a; 1991b), derive from a veritable jumble of cultural antecedents. Kadrey and McCaffery (1991) suggest the following influences: classic novels such as Frankenstein and The Big Sleep; the literary avant-garde represented by William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon and Kathy Acker; the science fiction of Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock and J.G. Ballard; the cultural analyses of Marshall McLuhan -‘to the 1960s what Baudillard, Kroker and Cook, and Deleuze and Gauttari are to the postcyberpunk era’ (Kadrey and McCaffery, 1991: 18); the Situationist International’s analysis of contemporary society (Plant, 1992); the music of the Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, the Talking Heads, mid-1970s David Bowie, Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson and, crucially, the Sex Pistols and the Clash; films such as Cronenberg’s Videodrome, Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth and, especially, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (itself based upon Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?); MTV and its ‘youth TV’ emulators; and, finally, one might also add the IBM PC and the Macintosh computer, the cultural and representational impact of which was at least as great as its economic and technological importance.
I find it fascinating that most of the persons and movement who influenced me and that I have referenced here before are mentioned: Burroughs, Dick, the Situationists, etc.
As the cyberpunks say, “The future is here. It’s just unevenly distributed.”
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 27 2020 15:43 utc | 9
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