Octopus Overlords

Rip wrote:

Alefroth wrote:And then some things never change. You don't have to think Trump is Putin's lapdog to realize that a Russian propaganda campaign targeting the U.S. with the intent to influence a presidential election is a very bad thing.

Of course not, nor is it a new thing. Just like us using propaganda campaigns to influence the same in Russia, Israel, and numerous other countries. As noted in the Intel report this is hardly a new occurrence. It has been going on for decades.

Max Peck wrote:

Rip wrote:

Alefroth wrote:And then some things never change. You don't have to think Trump is Putin's lapdog to realize that a Russian propaganda campaign targeting the U.S. with the intent to influence a presidential election is a very bad thing.

Of course not, nor is it a new thing. Just like us using propaganda campaigns to influence the same in Russia, Israel, and numerous other countries. As noted in the Intel report this is hardly a new occurrence. It has been going on for decades.

We're crossing the streams threads.

Hacking into networks and selectively dumping information obtained therein is hardly the same as a propaganda campaign. If the only thing they did was support a disinformation campaign, I'd agree with you but they went way beyond that.

malchior wrote:

Max Peck wrote:

Rip wrote:

Alefroth wrote:And then some things never change. You don't have to think Trump is Putin's lapdog to realize that a Russian propaganda campaign targeting the U.S. with the intent to influence a presidential election is a very bad thing.

Of course not, nor is it a new thing. Just like us using propaganda campaigns to influence the same in Russia, Israel, and numerous other countries. As noted in the Intel report this is hardly a new occurrence. It has been going on for decades.

We're crossing the streams threads.

Hacking into networks and selectively dumping information obtained therein is hardly the same as a propaganda campaign. If the only thing they did was support a disinformation campaign, I'd agree with you but they went way beyond that.

I agree - I was writing something similar but couldn't get the phrasing right. The skinny is that they actively committed crimes against a political organization in our country and stole data. This is a completely different beast.

Max Peck wrote:

malchior wrote:

Max Peck wrote:

Rip wrote:

Alefroth wrote:And then some things never change. You don't have to think Trump is Putin's lapdog to realize that a Russian propaganda campaign targeting the U.S. with the intent to influence a presidential election is a very bad thing.

Of course not, nor is it a new thing. Just like us using propaganda campaigns to influence the same in Russia, Israel, and numerous other countries. As noted in the Intel report this is hardly a new occurrence. It has been going on for decades.

We're crossing the streams threads.

Hacking into networks and selectively dumping information obtained therein is hardly the same as a propaganda campaign. If the only thing they did was support a disinformation campaign, I'd agree with you but they went way beyond that.

I agree - I was writing something similar but couldn't get the phrasing right. The skinny is that they actively committed crimes against a political organization in our country and stole data. This is a completely different beast.

Also, don't forget that they attacked voter registration databases in the lead-up to the election.

Rip wrote:Which will be fine when they actually prove that the Russian government did it. Saying you know it but can't show the proof is weaksauce. If they did then they already know the details and who those supposed sources are. The only people these sources and methods are being protected from is the American people. Sounds more like they are working on hearsay and educated guesses. Not good enough for starting a major conflict.

Of course why would it matter, we already had plenty of things they have certainly done that could justify a major conflict but we backed down. So what magic answer do you guys propose we do now, that hasn't been an option over the past 8 years?

Rip wrote:Which will be fine when they actually prove that the Russian government did it. Saying you know it but can't show the proof is weaksauce.

If course why would it matter, we already had plenty of things they have certainly done that could justify a major conflict but we backed down. So what magic answer do you guys propose we do now, that hasn't been an option over the past 8 years?

malchior wrote:

Rip wrote:Which will be fine when they actually prove that the Russian government did it. Saying you know it but can't show the proof is weaksauce.

You keep saying it and it is as usual ludicrous. And as usual just shows how big a hypocrite you are. You went on and on about Clinton's email server because anyone might have taken the classified information - and there wasn't any indication that any were. But that possibility was enough for you. 2 major agencies says they have high confidence and the other moderate and that isn't good enough because they won't show the classified data. Ridiculous. Be honest - you are a cheerleader. It doesn't matter if it is true. I suspect you know it is true but don't care because your team "won". So again you are a complete hypocrite and appear to have absolutely no integrity.

If course why would it matter, we already had plenty of things they have certainly done that could justify a major conflict but we backed down. So what magic answer do you guys propose we do now, that hasn't been an option over the past 8 years?

This is unbelievable. Asked time and time again what Obama should have done you have the cajones to ask this?!?

“We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.”

This part says more directly that Russia actually worked to elect Trump and contrast him with Hillary Clinton in a way that would help him. Trump hasn't even acknowledged that Russia is behind the hacking, and he and his supporters have said it had no effect on the outcome of the election. But the intelligence community — the CIA and FBI with “high confidence” and the NSA with “moderate confidence” — say it was a pro-Trump effort.

Combustible Lemur wrote:

Rip wrote:Which will be fine when they actually prove that the Russian government did it. Saying you know it but can't show the proof is weaksauce. If they did then they already know the details and who those supposed sources are. The only people these sources and methods are being protected from is the American people. Sounds more like they are working on hearsay and educated guesses. Not good enough for starting a major conflict.

Of course why would it matter, we already had plenty of things they have certainly done that could justify a major conflict but we backed down. So what magic answer do you guys propose we do now, that hasn't been an option over the past 8 years?

Didn't you spend the last 2 years screaming about how releasing classified material is a national security issue that should without question end with people in jail. And now your complaint is the intelligence community is keeping info of an active investigation/ operations classified when facing a hostile incoming administration who has multiple personal, business, and cabinet connections with the country they KNOW is guilty?

Max Peck wrote:

malchior wrote:

Rip wrote:Which will be fine when they actually prove that the Russian government did it. Saying you know it but can't show the proof is weaksauce.

You keep saying it and it is as usual ludicrous. And as usual just shows how big a hypocrite you are. You went on and on about Clinton's email server because anyone might have taken the classified information - and there wasn't any indication that any were. But that possibility was enough for you. 2 major agencies says they have high confidence and the other moderate and that isn't good enough because they won't show the classified data. Ridiculous. Be honest - you are a cheerleader. It doesn't matter if it is true. I suspect you know it is true but don't care because your team "won". So again you are a complete hypocrite and appear to have absolutely no integrity.

If course why would it matter, we already had plenty of things they have certainly done that could justify a major conflict but we backed down. So what magic answer do you guys propose we do now, that hasn't been an option over the past 8 years?

This is unbelievable. Asked time and time again what Obama should have done you have the cajones to ask this?!?

Just to clarify a point, the "high/moderate confidence" pertains to their assessment of whether the activity was intended to help Trump, not whether the Russians were behind the hacking. So far as I know from what I've been reading, the entire intelligence community agrees that the activity was conducted by Russian state/state-sponsored actors.

“We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.”

This part says more directly that Russia actually worked to elect Trump and contrast him with Hillary Clinton in a way that would help him. Trump hasn't even acknowledged that Russia is behind the hacking, and he and his supporters have said it had no effect on the outcome of the election. But the intelligence community — the CIA and FBI with “high confidence” and the NSA with “moderate confidence” — say it was a pro-Trump effort.

Rip wrote:The NSA only having moderate confidence is a sign they have no smoking gun because if there was one the NSA would be the one to find it.

Is it possible or even probable, sure. Certain, far from.

Rip wrote:

Combustible Lemur wrote:

Rip wrote:Which will be fine when they actually prove that the Russian government did it. Saying you know it but can't show the proof is weaksauce. If they did then they already know the details and who those supposed sources are. The only people these sources and methods are being protected from is the American people. Sounds more like they are working on hearsay and educated guesses. Not good enough for starting a major conflict.

Of course why would it matter, we already had plenty of things they have certainly done that could justify a major conflict but we backed down. So what magic answer do you guys propose we do now, that hasn't been an option over the past 8 years?

Didn't you spend the last 2 years screaming about how releasing classified material is a national security issue that should without question end with people in jail. And now your complaint is the intelligence community is keeping info of an active investigation/ operations classified when facing a hostile incoming administration who has multiple personal, business, and cabinet connections with the country they KNOW is guilty?

No, I said it being leaked or improperly released is a national security issue. Releasing it to prove that another country has criminally acted against the US and its citizens is why we do it.

But in the end I don't care if they release it as long as they don't care that I and much of the world will dismiss it if they don't. So I guess it is a simple matter of whether they think the sources and methods are more important than people actually believing them. I don't really care since they have no idea what to do about it either way, apparently.

So still waiting for someone to tell me what they think we should do about it.

Combustible Lemur wrote:commander and chief

Max Peck wrote:

Rip wrote:The NSA only having moderate confidence is a sign they have no smoking gun because if there was one the NSA would be the one to find it.

Is it possible or even probable, sure. Certain, far from.

Not necessarily, given that we're talking about the assessment of motive. If anything, the CIA's assets may be better positioned than the NSA's assets for this particular problem.

Combustible Lemur wrote:

Rip wrote:

Combustible Lemur wrote:

Rip wrote:Which will be fine when they actually prove that the Russian government did it. Saying you know it but can't show the proof is weaksauce. If they did then they already know the details and who those supposed sources are. The only people these sources and methods are being protected from is the American people. Sounds more like they are working on hearsay and educated guesses. Not good enough for starting a major conflict.

Of course why would it matter, we already had plenty of things they have certainly done that could justify a major conflict but we backed down. So what magic answer do you guys propose we do now, that hasn't been an option over the past 8 years?

Didn't you spend the last 2 years screaming about how releasing classified material is a national security issue that should without question end with people in jail. And now your complaint is the intelligence community is keeping info of an active investigation/ operations classified when facing a hostile incoming administration who has multiple personal, business, and cabinet connections with the country they KNOW is guilty?

No, I said it being leaked or improperly released is a national security issue. Releasing it to prove that another country has criminally acted against the US and its citizens is why we do it.

But in the end I don't care if they release it as long as they don't care that I and much of the world will dismiss it if they don't. So I guess it is a simple matter of whether they think the sources and methods are more important than people actually believing them. I don't really care since they have no idea what to do about it either way, apparently.

So still waiting for someone to tell me what they think we should do about it.

Not having you commander and chief -elect publicly side with foreign powers over your own nation would be a start. Sanctions are a thing, until your executive - elect who has a man crush on the guilty party removes those sanctions because he thinks Putin is a great leader. (Which is true if even if he's our adversary)

But whatever, Obama was a Pussy, and Hillary was corrupt. At least you can look in the mirror at night that you helped promote Trump.

Rip wrote:

Max Peck wrote:

Rip wrote:The NSA only having moderate confidence is a sign they have no smoking gun because if there was one the NSA would be the one to find it.

Is it possible or even probable, sure. Certain, far from.

Not necessarily, given that we're talking about the assessment of motive. If anything, the CIA's assets may be better positioned than the NSA's assets for this particular problem.

Who needed assessment of motive? Of course they had motive. The question is whether there is evidence of actual direct involvement of the hack and of relaying the data from the hack to Wikileaks. Obvious motive is obvious.

Max Peck wrote:

Rip wrote:

Alefroth wrote:And then some things never change. You don't have to think Trump is Putin's lapdog to realize that a Russian propaganda campaign targeting the U.S. with the intent to influence a presidential election is a very bad thing.

Of course not, nor is it a new thing. Just like us using propaganda campaigns to influence the same in Russia, Israel, and numerous other countries. As noted in the Intel report this is hardly a new occurrence. It has been going on for decades.

We're crossing the streams threads.

Hacking into networks and selectively dumping information obtained therein is hardly the same as a propaganda campaign. If the only thing they did was support a disinformation campaign, I'd agree with you but they went way beyond that.

The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries – it’s done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University.

That number doesn’t include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn’t like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does it include general assistance with the electoral process, such as election monitoring.

Levin defines intervention as “a costly act which is designed to determine the election results [in favor of] one of the two sides.” These acts, carried out in secret two-thirds of the time, include funding the election campaigns of specific parties, disseminating misinformation or propaganda, training locals of only one side in various campaigning or get-out-the-vote techniques, helping one side design their campaign materials, making public pronouncements or threats in favor of or against a candidate, and providing or withdrawing foreign aid.

In 59% of these cases, the side that received assistance came to power, although Levin estimates the average effect of “partisan electoral interventions” to be only about a 3% increase in vote share.

The U.S. hasn’t been the only one trying to interfere in other countries’ elections, according to Levin’s data. Russia attempted to sway 36 foreign elections from the end of World War II to the turn of the century – meaning that, in total, at least one of the two great powers of the 20th century intervened in about 1 of every 9 competitive, national-level executive elections in that time period.

In the 1990 Nicaragua elections, the CIA leaked damaging information on alleged corruption by the Marxist Sandinistas to German newspapers, according to Levin. The opposition used those reports against the Sandinista candidate, Daniel Ortega. He lost to opposition candidate Violeta Chamorro.

In Czechoslovakia that same year, the U.S. provided training and campaign funding to Vaclav Havel’s party and its Slovak affiliate as they planned for the country’s first democratic election after its transition away from communism.

“The thinking was that we wanted to make sure communism was dead and buried,” said Levin.

Even after that, the U.S. continued trying to influence elections in its favor.

In Haiti after the 1986 overthrow of dictator and U.S. ally Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the CIA sought to support particular candidates and undermine Jean-Bertrande Aristide, a Roman Catholic priest and proponent of liberation theology. The New York Times reported in the 1990s that the CIA had on its payroll members of the military junta that would ultimately unseat Aristide after he was democratically elected in a landslide over Marc Bazin, a former World Bank official and finance minister favored by the U.S.

The U.S. also attempted to sway Russian elections. In 1996, with the presidency of Boris Yeltsin and the Russian economy flailing, President Clinton endorsed a $10.2-billion loan from the International Monetary Fund linked to privatization, trade liberalization and other measures that would move Russia toward a capitalist economy. Yeltsin used the loan to bolster his popular support, telling voters that only he had the reformist credentials to secure such loans, according to media reports at the time. He used the money, in part, for social spending before the election, including payment of back wages and pensions.

In the Middle East, the U.S. has aimed to bolster candidates who could further the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In 1996, seeking to fulfill the legacy of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the peace accords the U.S. brokered, Clinton openly supported Shimon Peres, convening a peace summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik to boost his popular support and inviting him to a meeting at the White House a month before the election.

hepcat wrote:Ah, so you view it as just rewards. Next up, Rip excuses ISIS for their actions because we're not super nice either.

Max Peck wrote:You compared it to prior propaganda campaigns. I said it went beyond a propaganda campaign. Yes, I'm sure.

And again, why are you so obsessed with trying to make the Russians seem like just a bunch of good ol' boys? For the amount of effort you're putting into it, I hope they're paying more than a token stipend.

P.S. The allegations that the CIA was fucking over other other countries during the Cold War is why a good chunk of the world is getting its schadenfreude on about Putin pwning your ass now. It doesn't make the Russian shenanigans any less serious to point out, repeatedly, that 'Merica had it coming.

Rip wrote:

Max Peck wrote:You compared it to prior propaganda campaigns. I said it went beyond a propaganda campaign. Yes, I'm sure.

And again, why are you so obsessed with trying to make the Russians seem like just a bunch of good ol' boys? For the amount of effort you're putting into it, I hope they're paying more than a token stipend.

P.S. The allegations that the CIA was fucking over other other countries during the Cold War is why a good chunk of the world is getting its schadenfreude on about Putin pwning your ass now. It doesn't make the Russian shenanigans any less serious to point out, repeatedly, that 'Merica had it coming.

Where did I say Merica had it coming? I am simply pointing out that they would be trying to do it just like I can guarantee we are attempting to infiltrate their messaging systems and if we do we will use info obtained therein via "leaks" etc. Acting as though this is all some miraculous and unprecedented action is silly.

The real and practically only useful message here is that we are woefully inadequate at defending against such intrusions and should prepare to be unsurprised about these things becoming common unless we get much better at it.

Rip wrote:Acting as though this is all some miraculous and unprecedented action is silly.

Rip wrote:You can bet Russia is far from the only people digging around and the results could be far more damaging than exposing Podesta and the DNCs dirty laundry.

Rip wrote:I'm not excusing it.

Rip wrote:Still waiting to hear exactly what you guys propose we do?

Rip wrote:Should I warm up the missiles?

Zarathud wrote: Where's your OUTRAGE!??

Zarathud wrote:You're being disingenuous, Rip. How about proposing a new Secretary of State whose only qualification isn't the ability to do business in Russia, for starters? Or stop being an apologist for Russia? Where's your OUTRAGE!??

Rip wrote:I'm not excusing it. Still waiting to hear exactly what you guys propose we do?

Grifman wrote:

Zarathud wrote:You're being disingenuous, Rip. How about proposing a new Secretary of State whose only qualification isn't the ability to do business in Russia, for starters? Or stop being an apologist for Russia? Where's your OUTRAGE!??

Trump in the last couple of weeks has praised Putin while denigrating his own intelligence agencies. How about starting by stop praising a dictator and start thanking and appreciating the effort of those who will be working hard to provide you the best intelligence information possible. That would be a nice start.

Grifman wrote:

Rip wrote:I'm not excusing it. Still waiting to hear exactly what you guys propose we do?

None of us hear says that we have the answer to the correct response. What we are complaining about is Trump's lack of any response other than to praise Putin and put down his intelligence agencies.

As for responses, I'm still waiting for your to tell me what Obama should have done differently regarding Ukraine/Crimea. You complained about his weakness and downplayed the effectiveness of sanctions. I've asked you several times as to what you would do and so far all I've heard is deafening silence. So answer how about answering my question since you have complained about Obama's response.

Rip wrote:and I would kick some ass on their friends like Iran and Syria.

Rip wrote: So how would you like Trump to respond? Some of those stern words that have been so effective for Obama?

Rip wrote:What I would do is bolster our military and sink lots of effort and money into it

and cyber weapons and defense systems.

I would begin infiltrating their C3 systems with reckless abandon

and I would kick some ass on their friends like Iran and Syria.

Some of those stern words that have been so effective for Obama?

Deploy four multinational battalions to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland
Enlarge the existing NATO Response Force from 13,000 to 40,000 troops
Create a new very high readiness force (VJTF) of around 5,000 troops
Appointing a country, drawn from a pool of seven nations, to lead this force
Significant increase in size and number of exercises
Pre-position equipment in Baltics and Eastern Europe
Establish small headquarters in Baltic and eastern European states
Speed up the decision-making for the Response force