A Self Inflicted Distrust by the U.S.

Earlier today I came across a thought provoking piece from Rolling Stone magazine in regards to the latest media fest allegations of Russian tampering in the U.S. elections. In the article, it compared the latest hysteria to that of the WMD story on Iraq (we all know how accurate that was):

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

www.rollingstone.com...

Now my first thought on the DHS report actually reminded me of the NIST report on 9/11 (which I shall mention later), in that it was a whole lot of theory, an omission of some relevant details, with no definitive aspects of substance. Evidently, I’m not the only one who wasn’t satisfied with the DHS report:

But security experts say that the document provides little in the way of forensic "proof" to confirm the government's attribution. Private security firms — like CrowdStrike, who investigated the DNC breach — went much further, they say.

"The DHS statement is a restatement of already known public information, a series of technical indicators that are intended for use by cybersecurity professionals in finding and remediating APT28 malware on private sector networks, and some generic advice for companies as to how to improve their network security," said Matt Tait, founder of the U.K.-based security consultancy Capital Alpha Security.

thehill.com...

Now collectively, all of this has led to me to a main point, the distrust of the U.S. government and alphabet agencies, is it self-inflicted?

Iraq:

Let me start with Iraq and the lack of WMD's, I remember during the invasion, I watched a lot of press conferences, and it went pretty much as they do today; a lot of evasive answers, no conclusive proof of points being made and some kind of blind trust that's to be expected from us as good citizens of the West, and yet I'm still wondering 'what the hell is going on here, where's the proof?', even as the first bombs were being dropped.

As to be expected, it transpired that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction:

And the conservative glee is understandable: after all, Bush said Iraq had WMD, and here they are. Unfortunately for the right, however, they are just as wrong about this issue now as they were in 2003 — but for a peculiar, little-understood reason: Saddam Hussein was not trying to hide the chemical munitions found by the U.S. Just the opposite, in fact.

theintercept.com...

But yet, a lot of people still died, probably upward of a million Iraqi's:

en.wikipedia.org...

Additionally I still remember a joke from the early '90's that went:

-U.K. authorities have stopped a truck with 50 tons of leather aboard.

-Apparently it was meant as a holster for the Iraqi super gun.

Obviously trying to establish that Iraq had amazing weapons was an early idea

International Meddling:

For those of you who have done the research, it is pretty much known what various U.S. administrations and alphabet agencies have been up to around the globe over the years, I am of course talking about the meddling in political affairs of other countries:

Behind a firewall of impunity and protection from the State Department and the CIA, U.S. clients and puppets have engaged in the worst crimes known to man, from murder and torture to coups and genocide. The trail of blood from this carnage and chaos leads directly back to the steps of the U.S. Capitol and the White House. As historian Gabriel Kolko observed in 1988, “The notion of an honest puppet is a contradiction Washington has failed to resolve anywhere in the world since 1945.” What follows is a brief A to Z guide to the history of that failure.

www.salon.com...

I think if the death tolls could be added up from the examples listed above, the scale of U.S. hegemony may only then be realized.

Global Surveillance and Dishonesty:

Now, in the U.K. we've just been subjected to an illegal law (as deemed by the E.U.'s highest court) in the form of Snooper's Charter which allows for:

The Draft Communications Data Bill (nicknamed the Snoopers' Charter or Snooper's Charter) is draft legislation proposed by then Home Secretary Theresa May in the United Kingdom which would require Internet service providers and mobile phone companies to maintain records of each user's internet browsing activity (including social media), email correspondence, voice calls, internet gaming, and mobile phone messaging services and store the records for 12 months. Retention of email and telephone contact data for this time is already required by the Data Retention Regulations 2014.[1] The anticipated cost is £1.8 billion.

This whole concept was sold using the 'terrorist card', which left me wondering, yet again, what the hell is going on here and how is this justifiable at a cost of £1.8 billion?

Of course, the big story on surveillance is that of the NSA, and the lying involved in regards to the scale of it:

Wyden: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?
Clapper: No sir.
Wyden: It does not?
Clapper: Not wittingly. There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect—but not wittingly.

This was a lie. Many people believed it was a lie at the time, but that was confirmed thanks to the documents leaked by Ed Snowden, who later claimed that seeing that bit of testimony helped convince him that he needed to go through with his plan to leak this information.

Yet amazingly, it seems everything is ok:

James Clapper, of course, is the Director of National Intelligence, and the heads of the various intelligence agencies basically report in to him. He's still in that job, which many people argue is a complete travesty. He flat out lied to Congress and got away with it.

www.techdirt.com...

The 9/11 Issue:

As I said earlier, I'd thought I'd throw in 9/11 here. With everything I've mentioned earlier and regardless of whether you believe the official line or not, 9/11 was used (obviously this proves the Iraqi mythical weapon idea wasn't successful) as a catalyst in the 'manufacturing of consent' as Noam Chomsky puts it, to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. It should also be said, that the amount of people I have talked to who weren't aware that WTC 7 also fell on 9/11, let alone which agencies (Secret Service, CIA, & IRS) resided there, is surprising to me. Or maybe I am just overly skeptical, but with a track record such as that of the U.S, can you blame me.

Maybe it's time to be truthful, might just be more successful in making people believe you

Additionally, here's another example of what I mean:

Creator of NSA’s Global Surveillance System Calls B.S. On Russian Hacking Report

I expected to see the IP’s or other signatures of APT’s 28/29 [the entities which the U.S. claims hacked the Democratic emails] and where they were located and how/when the data got transferred to them from DNC/HRC [i.e. Hillary Rodham Clinton]/etc. They seem to have been following APT 28/29 since at least 2015, so, where are they?

Further, once we see the data being transferred to them, when and how did they transfer that data to Wikileaks? This would be evidence of trying to influence our election by getting the truth of our corrupt system out.

And, as Edward Snowden said, once they have the IP’s and/or other signatures of 28/29 and DNC/HRC/etc., NSA would use Xkeyscore to help trace data passing across the network and show where it went. [Background.]

In addition, since Wikileaks is (and has been) a cast iron target for NSA/GCHQ/etc for a number of years there should be no excuse for them missing data going to any one associated with Wikileaks.

www.washingtonsblog.com...

a reply to: Zcustosmorum

I noticed that the recent actions against Russia were issued without first providing the actual evidence itself.

That was strange and something that Russia pointed out, but which the US oldstream media made no mention of.

It's just considered gpspel now, no evidence needed.

It was the same thing with 9/11 and Colin Powell's statement that the evidence of bin Laden's involvement would be provided, but it never came.

It's all really a type of brainwashing, but why doesn't the press investigate these things before just running with the talking points they're given? It's pathetic. CNN and Jake Tapper is pathetic.

a reply to: Zcustosmorum


Thanks , OP - nice . It's a terrible thing , what WE'VE done . And now , you cannot escape the Mil IND COMP... even if you go live in a cave . They will just ' look ' for you . Terrible .

A savvy prepper I know just told me that Russia is also now being blamed for hacking the grid . If it goes down and is blamed... the ww3 folks will have been right...


The people you mention missed Pearl Harbor ( NSA was founded in 1941) , Kennedy , and 911- to name a few ; but, they know where you and I are right now .


Useless !

They burned their bridges of the benefit of the doubt with that Iraq fiasco and WMD.

No more benefit of the doubt if they can`t or won`t produce solid evidence then in my eyes there isn`t any.
they can save the sob story about how the info is classified so they can`t release the proof but I`m not buying into that again. they were caught red handed lying about the WMD so they don`t get a pass from me anymore to play the "it`s classified, just trust us" card.
They have proven that they can and will lie about anything.

I believe it was in July when comey gave his, Hillary get out of jail free speech,that he said that there was no evidence that hillarys server was hacked by foreign powers,then 4 months later on November 2nd he says the FBI is %99 sure that at least 5 agencies had hacked Hillary`s server.
maybe in another 4 months they`ll decide that the Russians didn`t hack it after all.
They knew in july that her server was hacked but they lied about it to cover Hillary`s ass, they can`t be trusted,they are proven liars.

They have willing helpers...

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.

There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.

The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?

We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.

(Source: Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.)"


This speech is from 1880 not 2016. Is it better or worse now?

Who to believe?

U.S. destabilization in Africa:

Just as there was no al Qaeda or ISIS to attack in Iraq until the U.S. bombed its government, there was no ISIS in Libya until NATO bombed it.

theintercept.com...

Africa has seen the most dramatic growth in the deployment of America’s elite troops of any region of the globe over the past decade, according to newly released numbers.

theintercept.com...