CIA claims Russia helped rig U.S. election

Cool story, bro.

Nah, too easy.

I'm not okay with Trump being elected. I blame the people who voted for him, who promoted him, and ensured that his opponent was so weak. I don't blame the fact that the electorate had access to damaging information about said opponent, nor do I think that that should have been withheld from them in order to produce a result that you or I prefer.

Of course, the irony of the CIA moaning about foreign powers manipulating elections is beyond satire given their own record in doing the same thing, using much more brutal methods. And the less said about their alleged commitment to the truth (which I see referenced upthread) the better.

You'd be far better off suggesting that something be done about the system that ensured that these two were the candidates in the first place, the fact that the one who got significantly fewer votes "won" and the situation where the real issues got so little airtime during the campaign.

People on the liberal-left are intent on adopting a measure of introspection following this defeat. Let's start by dropping the idea that the electorate can't be trusted with the truth.

Yes, but -- and this is as addressed to @RickDeckard as well -- the WMDs were recognisable as fake news because those claims were both internally incoherent and at odds with other allies' intelligence reports and publicly available information. In addition to all of this, there was a clear motive for faking that story as a casus belli.

The current claims of the CIA not only fit the results from our own BND, but also fit precisely what was publicly observable about the coordination of Russian state news and WikiLeaks as well as the selective approach to the leaks. And what would the motive of Russian media, the German secret service, and the CIA be to fool us into believing this if it weren't true?

Feel free to read my post again. I didn't say there wasn't just cause, I said it was politically impossible. And I'd imagine the same impossibility applied in France.
Apart from anything else, this explains why Chamberlain was PM and Churchill was in Nowheresville.
Things changed later, but that was later. Britain was desperately rearming, but talking publicly as if Nothing Special was going on.

Unlike the Balkans, Ukraine is in the "near abroad" and thus one of the rim of countries that figure in Traditional Russian Enclirclement Paranoia. So are the Baltic states.

NATO and the US in particular have behaved as if they wanted to deliberately jab the Bear straight in the balls. George Bush Sr and James Baker promised Gorbachev that NATO wouldn't expand "a single inch eastwards". Well, LOL. Now it's all over eastern Europe. I wonder how the US would react if Russian allies had Russian missiles set up in Mexico and Canada. Wait a sec. Remember 1962? (I do.) THAT is how the US would react.

As I say, the Ukrainians, the Georgians, the Estonians -- whoever -- have my sincere sympathy. But their fate isn't worth Nuclear Armageddon. Finlandization is the way.

I've since replied to Dr Krieg's post, making this very point. I hadn't yet seen your post.

According to your own source republicans were targeted but there's been no confirmation from the RNC nor anyone on record that they were actually hacked. The whole article is relying on a "blind" source.

Your source also mentions that Russia targeted both parties in 2012. Where was the concern for Russia's meddling then? Oh that's right, the narrative at that time was to accuse the Republican nominee of "cold war" thinking for even daring to say that russia was our number one geopolitical foe. Facts were less important than scoring political points.

As I said before, reap what you sow.

In what numbers?
And is that why, when the Battle of Britain came, kids were being sent up against the Luftwaffe with, like, seven hours on type?

Which is why an attempted German invasion of the UK almost certainly would not have succeeded. Here we are, three quarters of a century later, happily opining like this. Hindsight has 20-20 vision.

I doubt this is true, but don't have a PhD in 20th-centruy history. I think Chamberlain did what he could to maintain calm on the home front while the Brits rearmed like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

You're forgetting the extremely prominent Bear-ball-poking role played by that bonehead Saakashvili, with Dubbya's boneheaded encouragement.

Which is a lie that came from Vice President Cheneys Office of Special Plans, not the CIA. Next futile attempt please.

You definitely don't have a PhD in history. Wow.

Russia has been "surrounded" since day one. Who was on the other side of the iron curtain? If Russia didn't want it's former satellites joining NATO, maybe they shouldn't have treated them like shit for 70 years. Seems like a lot of crying on Russians part, they're no more surrounded than they were in the Tsarist days. But, hey, a little land grab here, a little murder and repression there, who gives and shit, right? Also, I'd like you to explain what you meant by the Saakashvili comment, if you would. Is asserting your nations sovereign borders poking the Bear in his butt hole, or whatever?

Shouldn't the U.S. be building and deploying ABMs like crazy?

Say five or six for EVERY Russian nuclear missile of any kind.

Thank you for the keen observation, Professor. Now tell us where I went wrong.

I have kids, and it's football sunday, I don't have time to refute all that's wrong with your post. Try reading a book, guy. That's a good start for you.

A wilful misreading of my post.

I'm just telling you how it is, not how it should be. You can rail against the Russian mindset till the cows come home ... it isn't going to change it. You have to live with reality as it is. And whether you like it or not, Russia is bristling with nukes.

In a nutshell, Bush (boneheadedly) invited Georgia to prepare for NATO membership. Saakashvili 'mistakenly' took this to mean that the US would back a Georgian venture to recover "lost lands" that are actually part of historical Russia. (Saakashvili may not like that fact, but a fact it is.) So the poor fool attacked South Ossetia. The Russians promptly chucked the Gerogians out and a hell of a lot of innocent people got killed in the process. Then the Russians really took over South Ossetia, and Abkhazia as well, making the situation even worse than before.

Of course, the US did not send troops to help Saakashvili. Big Surprise!!

Fortunately, Nicolas Sarkozy took swift action and defused a situation that could have become much uglier still, leaving a lot of people to suggest that Saakashvili just quietly blow his brains out.

Dr Krieg, you can't wish into existence a roll-back of the Russian sphere of influence.

Translation: I have no come-back to your post so I'm going to make excuses for mysedf and insult you by suggesting you read a book. Congratulations, Krieger.

Welcome to wordforge, sport.

Historical Russia? How much does the Kremlin pay you to regurgitate this hot garbage?

You won't credit this of course, but nothing at all. Ah done did it fer free!

If I'm regurgitating anything, it's Moscow's world-view. Believe it or not, I don't share that world view. But then I haven't been invaded by Napoleon and Hitler either.

Nor do I have any freaking nukes. But they sure as hell do.

I dispute that there's any evidence from Russian media or the German secret service. That stuff is threadbare at best. All of this is just leaks to newspapers and hearsay.

It's fairly clear that there are factions within the US military and intelligence apparatus jockeying for position and interfering with political processes. This worrying activity is increasingly being conducted in the open. We had seen it during the election with the outrageous intervention of Comey's FBI and we're seeing it again.

I mean, it's possible that Russia hacked the emails, but we should remain skeptical of anonymous claims which serve other purposes. The uncritical stampede demanding acceptance of this narrative is not warranted.

The evidence from Russian media is pretty obvious. German intel isn't evidence, just the claim that there is some evidence there, which could of course be a lie.

And what do you base this on?

I guess you don't realize that the U.S. military is arguably the most "apolitical" public institution in America?

Is this the one that they supposedly posted something before Wikileaks had it up?

Not the case.

It's pretty incredible to think that Wikileaks would knowingly act on behalf of Russia, don't you think?

Having actually served in the US Military, (unlike you), I can attest that this is probably one of the most ridiculously ignorant things I have ever heard.

There's nothing BUT politics in the US Military at every level of organization.

No, it's the constant lockstep with Russian popular and political media.

I would have said it's incredible if you had told me so 18 months ago. Now, unfortunately, I have to say it is rather obviously the case.

Ah! I see you have uncovered @Dayton3 's one true skill in life.

I've said this somewhere already but can't remember where. Anyway, James Bamford (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bamford) said back in September that he felt the DNC job was carried out by some new Snowden who --- like the rest of us --- figured Clinton was going to win anyway ...
If so, that person must be kicking himself but good now.

Not seeing any evidence of that either. Can you present it?

It's awfully convenient that this stuff serves in different ways to discredit Wikileaks, Clinton, Trump and Russia all at once. Lots of agendas in play.

The selection and timing of leaks repeatedly benefited Russia, and Russian media usually had long in-depth reports ready that were difficult to explain unless they knew the material before anyone else did; and WikiLeaks in turn published new batches of emails and other material when Russian media were about to be questioned on the details of the previous batches and their knowledge of them. Best case scenario, WikiLeaks has simply been fed those leaks from Russia and published them with short turnarounds. Worst case, it's a deliberate cooperation.

Since this is about patterns, no one case is the smoking gun, but see Oct 13/14/15th as one example:

https://ria.ru/world/20161014/1479276567.html

https://lenta.ru/news/2016/10/17/gotobed/

https://lenta.ru/news/2016/10/13/clinton_putin/

Or in English, targeted at a US or international readership, see Oct 22nd responding to a Oct 21st state department release for a great example -- note timestamps:

https://www.rt.com/usa/363703-clinton-email-fbi-dump/

https://www.rt.com/viral/363709-clinton-campaign-rt-wkileaks/

https://www.rt.com/shows/redacted-tonight-summary/363748-press-freedom-wikileaks-dump/

https://www.rt.com/usa/363773-clinton-benghazi-podesta-emails/

https://www.rt.com/usa/363779-clinton-trump-putin-isis/

And some summaries of the general tactic:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/europe/wikileaks-julian-assange-russia.html?_r=0

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/13/politics/russia-us-election/