[Peace-discuss] Something About This Russia Story Stinks

[David Johnson]

Something About This Russia Story Stinks

Nearly a decade and a half after the Iraq-WMD faceplant, the American press
is again asked to co-sign a dubious intelligence assessment

Description:
http://img.wennermedia.com/article-leads-horizontal/putin-obama-russian-hack
ing-9a4dced8-5545-4299-a469-0bfe5bf52519.jpgThe Obama administration
announced this week that nearly three dozen Russian nationals will be
expelled from the country. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP 

By  <http://www.rollingstone.com/contributor/matt-taibbi> Matt Taibbi 

2 days ago 

In an extraordinary development Thursday, the
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-punishes-russia-over-election-hacking-with-
sanctions-1483039178> Obama administration announced a series of sanctions
against Russia. Thirty-five Russian nationals will be expelled from the
country. President Obama issued
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/12/29/statement-president-
actions-response-russian-malicious-cyber-activity> a terse statement seeming
to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails.

Related

 
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/washington-post-blacklist-sto
ry-is-shameful-disgusting-w452543> Description:
http://img.wennermedia.com/featured-promo-551/rs-washington-post-6d9f914c-84
7b-4204-8761-7a24a54bfb42.jpg

 
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/washington-post-blacklist-sto
ry-is-shameful-disgusting-w452543> Taibbi: 'Washington Post' 'Blacklist'
Story Is Shameful and Disgusting 

The capital's paper of record crashes legacy media on an iceberg 

"These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by
the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote.

Russia at first pledged, darkly,
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/kremlin-criticizes-new-u-s-sanctions-1483046159
> to retaliate, then backed off. The Russian press today is even reporting
that
<https://www.novayagazeta.ru/news/2016/12/30/127841-putin-otkazalsya-vysylat
-amerikanskih-diplomatov> Vladimir Putin is inviting "the children of
American diplomats" to "visit the Christmas tree in the Kremlin," as
characteristically loathsome/menacing/sarcastic a Putin response as you'll
find.

This dramatic story puts the news media in a jackpot. Absent independent
verification, reporters will have to rely upon the secret assessments of
intelligence agencies to cover the story at all.

Many reporters I know are quietly freaking out about having to go through
that again. We all remember the WMD fiasco.

"It's déjà vu all over again" is how one friend put it. 

You can see awkwardness reflected in the headlines that flew around the
Internet Thursday. Some news agencies seemed split on whether to
unequivocally declare that Russian hacking took place, or whether to hedge
bets and put it all on the government to make that declaration, using "
<http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/29/malicious-cyber-activity-has-happend-in-prev
ious-us-elections-obama-said.html> Obama says" formulations. 

The New York Times was more aggressive,
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/us/politics/russia-election-hacking-sanct
ions.html> writing flatly, "Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election
Hacking." It backed up its story with
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/29/us/politics/document-Report-o
n-Russian-Hacking.html> a link to a joint FBI/Homeland Security report that
details how Russian civilian and military intelligence services (termed
"RIS" in the report) twice breached the defenses of "a U.S. political
party," presumably the Democrats.

This report is long on jargon but short on specifics. More than half of it
is just a list of suggestions for preventive measures.

At one point we learn that the code name the U.S. intelligence community has
given to Russian cyber shenanigans is GRIZZLY STEPPE, a sexy enough detail.

But we don't learn much at all about what led our government to determine a)
that these hacks were directed by the Russian government, or b) they were
undertaken with the aim of influencing the election, and in particular to
help elect Donald Trump.

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.

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.

Description: President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference in the
Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House December 16, 2016 in
Washington, DC. In what could be the last press conference of his
presidency, afterwards Obama will be leaving for his annual family vacation
in Hawaii."Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin," President
Obama said in a December 16th news conference while discussing Russian
hacking allegations. The Asahi Shimbun/Getty 

Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham
<https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/john-mccain-lindsey-graham-obama-san
ctions-russia-hacking> noted the "small price" Russia paid for its "brazen
attack." The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, said Thursday that
taken alone, the Obama response is "
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/punishment-alleged-russian-hacking-expected-
announced-today/story?id=44449518> insufficient" as a response to "attacks
on the United States by a foreign power."

The "small price" is an eyebrow-raiser. Also, like the WMD story, there's an
element of salesmanship the government is using to push the hacking
narrative that should make reporters nervous. Take this line in Obama's
statement about mistreatment of American diplomats in Moscow:

"Moreover, our diplomats have experienced an unacceptable level of
harassment in Moscow by Russian security services and police over the last
year."

This appears to refer to
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/russian-fsb-guard-attacks-us-diplom
at-outside-moscow-embassy/2016/06/28/2c42c98c-3d7f-11e6-a66f-aa6c1883b6b1_st
ory.html> an incident this summer in which an American diplomat was beaten
outside the diplomatic compound in Moscow. That followed a 2013 case in
which a U.S. diplomat named Ryan Fogle was arrested in similar fashion.

Fogle was
<https://ria.ru/photolents/20130514/937268298.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&ut
m_medium=twitter?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter> unequivocally
described as a CIA agent in many Russian reports. Photos of Fogle's
<https://ria.ru/photolents/20130514/937268298_937257010.html?utm_source=twit
terfeed&utm_medium=twitter?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter>
shpionsky rekvisit, or spy kit – including wigs and a city map that were
allegedly on his person – became the source of many jokes in the Russian
press and social media. Similar to this hacking story here in the states,
ordinary Russians seemed split on what to believe.

If the Russians messed with an election, that's enough on its own to warrant
a massive response – miles worse than heavy-handed responses to ordinary
spying episodes. Obama mentioning these humdrum tradecraft skirmishes feels
like he's throwing something in to bolster an otherwise thin case.

Adding to the problem is that in the last months of the campaign, and also
in the time since the election, we've seen an epidemic of factually loose,
clearly politically motivated reporting about Russia. Democrat-leaning
pundits have been unnervingly quick
<https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/813878628593401856> to use phrases
like "Russia hacked the election."

This has led to widespread confusion among news audiences over whether the
Russians hacked the DNC emails (a story that has at least been backed by
some evidence, even if it
<https://theintercept.com/2016/12/14/heres-the-public-evidence-russia-hacked
-the-dnc-its-not-enough/> hasn't always been great evidence), or whether
Russians hacked vote tallies in critical states (a far more outlandish tale
backed by
<http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/12/opinions/russia-role-shocking-but-not-hacked-
douglas/> no credible evidence).

As noted in The Intercept and other outlets, an Economist/YouGov poll
conducted this month
<https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/12/27/belief-conspiracies-largely-depend
s-political-iden/> shows that 50 percent of all Clinton voters believe the
Russians hacked vote tallies.

This number is nearly as disturbing as the 62 percent of Trump voters who
believe the
<http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/trump-illegal-voting-clinton-231860>
preposterous, un-sourced Trump/Alex Jones contention that "millions" of
undocumented immigrants voted in the election.

Description: December 19, 2016 People protest against U.S. President-elect
Donald Trump as electors gather to cast their votes for U.S. president at
the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. December
19, 2016. Pennsylvania's twenty electors are assumed to be committed to
Trump by virtue of his having won the popular vote in the state, but the
vote that is usually routine takes place this year amid allegations of
Russian hacking to try to influence the election. A December 19th anti-Trump
protest in Pennsylvania. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters 

Then there was the episode in which the Washington Post ran that
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-h
elped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-
4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html?utm_term=.c309077126b0> breathless story
about Russians aiding the spread of "fake news." That irresponsible story
turned out to have been largely based on one highly dubious source called
"PropOrNot" that identified 200 different American alternative media
organizations as "useful idiots" of the Russian state.

The Post eventually distanced itself from the story,
<https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/12/07/washington-post-appends-editors-no
te-russian-propaganda-story/> saying it "does not itself vouch for the
validity of PropOrNot's findings." This was a very strange thing to say in a
statement that isn't an outright retraction. The idea that it's OK to
publish an allegation when you yourself are not confident in what your
source is saying is a major departure from what was previously thought to be
the norm in a paper like the Post.

There have been other excesses. An interview with Julian Assange by an
Italian newspaper
<https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of-julian-assange
s-interview-went-viral-and-was-completely-false/> has been bastardized in
Western re-writes, with papers like The Guardian crediting Assange with
"praise" of Trump and seemingly flattering comments about Russia that are
not supported by the actual text. (The Guardian has now "
<https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/24/julian-assange-donald-trump-h
illary-clinton-interview> amended" a number of the passages in the report in
question). 

And reports by some Democrat-friendly reporters – like Kurt Eichenwald, who
has birthed some real head-scratchers this year, including what he admitted
was a
<http://www.businessinsider.com/kurt-eichenwald-trump-mental-hospital-tweet-
2016-12> baseless claim that Trump spent time in an institution in 1990 –
have attempted to argue that
<http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-russia-hillary-clinton-
united-states-europe-516895> Trump surrogates may have been liaising with
the Russians because they either visited Russia or appeared on the RT
network. Similar reporting about Russian scheming has been based entirely on
unnamed security sources.

Now we have this sanctions story, which presents a new conundrum. It appears
that a large segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of
electoral interference emanating from the Obama administration.

Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported
to the max. But the press right now is flying blind. Plowing ahead with
credulous accounts is problematic because so many different feasible
scenarios are in play. 

On one end of the spectrum, America could have just been the victim of a
virtual coup d'etat engineered by a combination of Donald Trump and Vladimir
Putin, which would be among the most serious things to ever happen to our
democracy.

But this could also just be a cynical ass-covering campaign, by a Democratic
Party that has seemed keen to deflect attention from its own electoral
failures.

The outgoing Democrats could just be using an over-interpreted intelligence
"assessment" to delegitimize the incoming Trump administration and force
Trump into an embarrassing political situation: Does he ease up on Russia
and look like a patsy, or escalate even further with a nuclear-armed power?

It could also be something in between. Perhaps the FSB didn't commission the
hack, but merely enabled it somehow. Or maybe the Russians did hack the DNC,
but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone else? There is even a
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4034038/Ex-British-ambassador-WikiL
eaks-operative-claims-Russia-did-NOT-provide-Clinton-emails-handed-D-C-park-
intermediary-disgusted-Democratic-insiders.html> published report to that
effect, with a former British ambassador as a source, not that it's any more
believable than anything else here.

We just don't know, which is the problem.

We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do
governments lie, they won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate
moment, they'll use any sucker they can find to get a point across.

I have no problem believing that Vladimir Putin tried to influence the
American election. He's gangster-spook-scum of the lowest order and capable
of anything. And Donald Trump, too, was
<http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/26/hillary-clin
ton/hillary-clinton-claims-donald-trump-invited-russia/%27> swine enough
during the campaign to publicly hope the Russians would disclose Hillary
Clinton's emails. So a lot of this is very believable.

But we've been burned before in stories like this, to disastrous effect.
Which makes it surprising we're not trying harder to avoid getting fooled
again.

 

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