The New Yorker: "Trump, Putin and The New Cold War"

[ancianita]

Last edited Wed Mar 1, 2017, 04:15 PM - Edit history (1)

This comes out March 6 but is already getting criticism from Glenn Greenwald and others who want to get out in front of the Left's historical memory and intellectual power.

Because I want my party to win again, I'd be on the lookout for our party's tendencies to liberal bias confirmation. I want honest scrutiny and reality to guide this party.

The article probably wouldn't exist if Clinton were president. If it did, it would likely be a response to some Republican-led House investigation (about "Russian hackery" during the election) which wouldn't get media traction because they'd be so "BENGHAZI!" in their approach and method.

We need peace-driven more than conflict-driven geopolitics, which is why this informs.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/trump-putin-and-the-new-cold-war

[BlueMTexpat]

1. This is an excellent article and

should be read in its entirety by all. Thanks for posting!

This part, long after most of the history and background that set the scene, really got to me:

On July 22nd, three days before the Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks released nearly twenty thousand e-mails, the most damaging of which suggested that the D.N.C., though formally impartial, was trying to undermine Bernie Sanders’s campaign. In one e-mail, the D.N.C. chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, said of Sanders, “He isn’t going to be President.” Her resignation did little to tamp down public anger that was fuelled by the themes of secrecy, populism, and privilege—already a part of Trump’s arsenal against Clinton. Months later, Wasserman Schultz reproached the F.B.I. for not reacting more aggressively to the hacking. “How do they spend months only communicating by phone with an I.T. contractor?” she said in an interview. “How was that their protocol? Something has to change, because this isn’t the last we’ve seen of this.”

The interim chair of the D.N.C., Donna Brazile, had worked on seven Presidential campaigns, but she was unprepared for the level of anger, including death threats, directed toward D.N.C. staff and donors. “I’m from the South, and I’ve been through the traditional kind of campaigns where everybody got to call you the N-word, the B-word, or the C-word,” she said. “But this was not the usual kind of antipathy that you find in American politics. It was something else.” Someone created a fake e-mail account in her name and sent messages to a reporter at the Times. “It was psychological warfare at its best,” she said. (CNN, where Brazile had been a commentator, cut ties with her when hacked e-mails revealed that, after attending network strategy sessions, she shared potential debate questions with the Clinton campaign.)

While officials in the Obama Administration struggled with how to respond to the cyberattacks, it began to dawn on them that a torrent of “fake news” reports about Hillary Clinton was being generated in Russia and through social media—a phenomenon that was potentially far more damaging. “The Russians got much smarter since the days of rent-a-crowds and bogus leaflets,” one Obama Administration official said. “During the summer, when it really mattered, when the Russian social-media strategy was happening, we did not have the whole picture. In October, when we had it, it was too late.”

In the weeks after WikiLeaks released the D.N.C. e-mails, John Mattes, a Bernie Sanders organizer who ran a Facebook page for supporters in San Diego, noticed a surge of new adherents with false profiles. One “Oliver Mitov” had almost no friends or photographs but belonged to sixteen pro-Sanders groups. On September 25th, Mitov posted to several pro-Sanders pages: “new leak: Here Is Who Ordered Hillary To Leave The 4 Men In Benghazi!—USAPoliticsNow.” It was a baseless story alleging that Clinton had received millions of dollars from Saudi royals. Mattes said, “The fake news depressed and discouraged some percentage of Bernie voters. When I realized it, I said, ‘We are being played.’ ”

We were indeed well and thoroughly played.

[ancianita]

5. Indeed! But it's no game. Lessons learned too late might now be buried under the next four years of

neo-con/neo-lib politics at the expense of our national security that depends on our Internet security. Unless there's a whole 'nother level of Internet that they've got that doesn't depend on servers the public uses.

AI bot programs have been used by our military to create millions of fake persona for years now, and why no military leader respects the civilian population's right to know this has gone too long unchecked. We all see bots every single day on live threads, social media and elsewhere, and so it would be silly for such revelations to be classified.

[yurbud]

11. oddly, that all sounds more like GOP standard dirty tricks and even what the CIA does to governments

WE are trying to undermine.

I still don't understand why Democrats are more willing to go after Russia than they are Republicans.

[malthaussen]

2. Much more cautious than expected...

... which might serve to make it even more chilling.

-- Mal

[ancianita]

3. Are you speaking of the article? If so, there's more coming. David Remnick is the

New Yorker editor-expert on Russia, and Garry Kasparov (Winter Is Coming 2015), among others, has his ear.

John McCain and the old cold warriors are watching events carefully and hopefully will come forward if/when an evidential case can prove treason beyond reasonable doubt. As if that evidence doesn't already exist.

This topic hangs like a dark cloud over this administration, as well it should.

[Hortensis]

4. "The D.N.C. hacks, many analysts believe, were just a skirmish

in a larger war against Western institutions and alliances."

Of course!? So they worked to defeat the one party still committed to those institutions and alliances.

Good article, Ancianita. Thanks for posting.

[ancianita]

6. ...

[red dog 1]

7. "Because I want my party to win again, I'd be on the lookout for our party's tendencies to...

...liberal bias confirmation. I want honest scrutiny and reality to guide this party."?

What does "our party's tendencies to liberal bias confirmation" even mean?

Did Glenn Greenwald say this?...If not, who did?

"I want honest scrutiny and reality to guide this party."?

Did Glenn Greenwald say this too?...If not, who did?



(From the New Yorker article)

In early January, two weeks before the Inauguration, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released a declassified report concluding that Putin had ordered an influence campaign to harm Clinton's election prospects, fortify Donald Trump's, and "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process."

The article goes on:

'Secretary of State Kerry proposed the creation of an independent bipartisan group to investigate Russian interference in the election.
It would have been modeled on the 9/11 Commission, a body consisting of five Republicans and five Democrats who interviewed more than twelve hundred people.
According to two senior officials, Obama reviewed Kerry's proposal but ultimately rejected it, in part because he was convinced that Republicans in Congress would regard it as a partisan exercise.
One aide who favored the idea says, "It would have gotten the ball rolling, making it difficult for Trump to shut it down..Now it's a lot harder to make it happen."



So what really happened in the 2016 presidential election?

FACT
Vladimir Putin, the dictator of a foreign adversarial nation, over a period of several months, "attacked" the infrastructure of the United States electoral process using cyber-warfare to ensure that Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton, became the POTUS.

FACT
In spite of Putin's treachery, HRC would still have defeated Trump anyway, and was between 11 & 14 points ahead of Trump in the polls just 2 weeks before the election, (after the tape came out where Trump proudly boasted that he liked to "grab 'em by the pussy.&quot

FACT
On October 28, just 11 days before the election, FBI Director James Comey violated the Hatch Act of 1939 by sending a letter to GOP Congressional leaders informing them that the FBI had discovered "more Clinton emails" (which were actually Anthony Weiner's emails), and this caused Clinton to lose her significant lead over Trump, which resulted in Trump's victory days later on November 8, 2016.

You wanted "honest scrutiny and reality"?..Well, there it is!...and it has nothing at all to do with "our party's tendencies to liberal bias confirmation," whatever the hell that even means!

[ancianita]

8. Nothing in the OP is from Greenwald. Anything I'd quote, I'd highlight as 'excerpt' and link.

Nothing in the OP is from The New Yorker article but the direct link, because it's already getting criticism in The Intercept, and interested readers might not have access to the New Yorker link unless they subscribe.

As for your three facts:

Per
FACT
Vladimir Putin, the dictator of a foreign adversarial nation, over a period of several months, "attacked" the infrastructure of the United States electoral process using cyber-warfare to ensure that Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton, became the POTUS.

This is not fact until the classified info that proves it is released. Officials' agreeing or denying it are considered expert hearsay that has to be backed by evidence. Even after Obama saw the evidence, he didn't allow the evidence to be released since intel agencies say that releasing it would reveal their methods. But if they want to nail 45, they'll find a way, I'm sure. So you're not yet there in "FACT."

FACT
In spite of Putin's treachery, HRC would still have defeated Trump anyway, and was between 11 & 14 points ahead of Trump in the polls just 2 weeks before the election, (after the tape came out where Trump proudly boasted that he liked to "grab 'em by the pussy.&quot

But in fact, she didn't win, so any shoulda/woulda/coulda statement is not fact but moot. If I have to prove confirmation bias in the Democratic Party, you'll have to give a credible link for this claim, though linking it doesn't in any way make it a fact.

FACT
On October 28, just 11 days before the election, FBI Director James Comey violated the Hatch Act of 1939 by sending a letter to GOP Congressional leaders informing them that the FBI had discovered "more Clinton emails" (which were actually Anthony Weiner's emails), and this caused Clinton to lose her significant lead over Trump, which resulted in Trump's victory days later on November 8, 2016.


The probable immediate reason for her loss, I agree. But that's my liberal confirmation bias, since you provide no credible link as your source, and I really want to believe it's true.



"Whatever the hell that is..."

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/11/11/why-has-trust-in-the-news-media-declined/liberal-news-media-bias-has-a-serious-effect

.. Clustering of left-of-center viewpoints in the newsroom leads to a cloistering, and thus reporters end up unfamiliar with conservative viewpoints. This shows up in the tone of daily coverage (for instance, “property rights” gets put in scare quotes, while “abortion rights” doesn’t). The problem has flared up this election year....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Confirmation bias can be a factor in creating or extending conflicts, from emotionally charged debates to wars: by interpreting the evidence in their favor, each opposing party can become overconfident that it is in the stronger position.[114] On the other hand, confirmation bias can result in people ignoring or misinterpreting the signs of an imminent or incipient conflict. For example, psychologists Stuart Sutherland and Thomas Kida have each argued that US Admiral Husband E. Kimmel showed confirmation bias when playing down the first signs of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.[74][115]

You sound exasperated or angry.

Anyway, thanks for your post.

[red dog 1]

9. I'm neither "exasperated" nor "angry"

I was just a little confused by your little editorial at the top of your OP.

As far as my "facts"...I stand by all of them, especially the FACTS regarding James Comey's "pack of lies" letter to Congress 11 days before the election.

Are you saying that Comey did NOT send such a letter?

Are you saying that I need to provide you with a "credible source" for Comey's letter?

Are you implying that Comey's Oct. 28 letter to Congress did NOT cost HRC the election?

If you believe any of my facts to be untrue ,in any way, then why don't you provide credible sources to disprove them?

[ancianita]

10. Great. Glad there's more clarity. Of course I don't argue the fact of Comey's letter. And I'm

pissed that the whole issue framing was to claim that the possibility of her lawbreaking was worse for national security than his actual lawbreaking! I can still claim that, given the voter suppression and gerrymandering, the technical win through the Electoral College was the parallel strategy that lost her the election.

As for my own sources, I linked my answers to your challenge.

Are you trying now to say that your knowledge of the election hacking is more to the point of our national security than the money laundering and territorial maneuvers that preceded it? That the climate of deceit was separate from eliminating a Putin opponent in the West?

Are you dismissing this article because your focus is on the outcome of the 2016 election only?

My OP is thinking out loud. Trying to see the forest and trees simultaneously.