18-01-2017, 04:33 PM
David Guyatt Wrote:Tracy Riddle Wrote:David Guyatt Wrote:Tracy Riddle Wrote:Let's follow the logic here. Because the CIA has lied in the past (usually via the Operations wing, not the Analysis wing - remember they had to create Team B because the regular analysts weren't hawkish enough about the USSR's military spending), that must mean they lie about everything all the time.
But we also know that Trump lies almost daily (hourly sometimes), and Russian officials have assured us that they have never engaged in the collection of compromising material. No sir, not us!
"Without a doubt, we gather kompromat. . . . In the Kremlin, there's piles of it, as there are in all the security agencies," said Gennady Gudkov, also a former legislator who was forced out of parliament for his opposition to Putin. "As a rule, the special services collect information on everyone, like a vacuum, picking up anything and everything."
But, but, Western intelligence agencies do it too! And so therefore, we must shut off our minds and stubbornly sit in our ideological sandboxes and play with our hobby horses.
Yes, of course the West has been trying to encircle Russia with NATO forces for 20+ years. And if you were Vladimir Putin, how would you respond to that? How would you respond to Hillary's accusations that your party rigged Russian elections in 2011? It's not rocket surgery, people! You would try to do everything you could to defeat her and place a more pro-Russian candidate in power, plus have your trolls feeding fake news stories to idiot Americans' social media. I'd be amazed if Putin didn't respond that way. It's a much more cost-effective way to combat the US than using military power.
Given the known quality of the numerous and highly respected independent journalists who have reported on how the IC have tried to smear Trump with false Russian hacking stories and/or gone to war against him using the fabricated MI6 report --- many of them have their articles present in this thread: Chris Hedges, Robert Parry, Glen Greenwald, Patrick Cockburn, Peter Hitchins and Peter Oborne amongst them, and given that the nature of the reporting some are relying on - the now thoroughly discredited partisan group-think NYT's and WaPo for example - then it is exceedingly evident that some of us have shut of their minds and are stubbornly sitting in their ideological sandboxes.
Allow me also to add to the foregoing partial list almost every single intelligence whistleblower I can think of-- Annie Machon's article above being typical I should say.
Altogether it is an array of independent free-thinkers versus the established media and the existing order. So far as I can tell not one of them like or wanted Trump - but they recognise he won the election, and they all also recognise that the US neocon faction (both Democrats and Republicans) want rid of him at any cost, including all the usual intelligence community bag of dirty tricks.
I think for myself, David. I've read these articles, and so far I haven't been overly impressed with their arguments. The basic problem is, you've got a guy (Trump) who is so far up Putin's ass, you'd have to be blind not to see it. But apparently a lot of very smart people are not able or willing to see it.
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe all those smart people are seeing it but you're not, Tracy.
Then, by all means, explain it to this simpleton, David. I haven't heard any real analysis from you - only references to other peoples' articles. I've repeatedly asked people on this forum for some independent thinking and discussion about this subject, but all I get is shallow analysis and "CIA lies! Media lies! USA lies! Julian Assange said it was a leak!" That's it. Very disappointing.