But make no mistake: this is not an Intelligence report. It is an embarrassment. It is a Series of Hysterical Assertions, Manipulative Propaganda, and Official Obfuscation (SHAMPOO). With the combined weight of all those "intelligence professionals" behind it, wouldn't you expect to see something that at least had the appearance of having been written by "intelligent" professionals? Instead, what they put out was a pamphlet that looked like all the specialists had already knocked off for Christmas, and so having no-one else around when the President came demanding his report, the interns, who were supposed to be "manning the shop" over the holiday period, went on to Google and Twitter, and after cutting a pasting a bit here and a bit there, and padding it out a lot, came up with the final report. Whether Play-Doh was used in the process is something we may never find out.
Frankly, I can't be bothered to debunk something so asinine in any great length. If I had a few interns around I might get them to do it. But since others have done so admirably (here, here and here) there's little purpose. I would, however, just make a few points:
- The fact that the US Intelligence Agencies seem to be unaware that Russia, along with Europe, uses the dating system DD/MM/YYYY rather than MM/DD/YYYY, does rather give rise to the suspicion that the interns who produced the SHAMPOO had The Muppet Christmas Carol on the office TV and none of them wanted to miss it this year
- One of the main parts of the SHAMPOO is devoted to uncovering a motive. What did the interns come up with? Apparently many in the upper echelons of Russian politics seemed to be extremely happy about Mr Trump's victory. Proves it then, dunnit? What they failed to mention, however, was that while Mr Trump had indicated on more than one occasion that he was keen to mend the US/Russia relationship — i.e. seek peace - , the other candidate happened to be a delusional psychopath who once cackled when she heard about the brutal sodomization of Muammar Gaddafi, and who wanted to go to war with Russia. War or Peace? Apparently the Russians wanted peace and so preferred Mr Trump? Who'da thunk it?
- Interestingly, the NSA is said to be only "moderately" confident of the results of SHAMPOO. Did they "moderately" rebel against the findings? And if so, why were these "moderate" rebels only moderately convinced? Given the nature of the All-Seeing Eye of the NSA, which misses no incoming or outgoing emails, the fact that they were only "moderately" convinced doesn't exactly inspire confidence in us mere mortals who don't have that All-Seeing Eye capability, does it?
- The assessment that "...the Kremlin sought to advance its longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order..." is really rather funny. If Russia wanted to do this, the best means of achieving it would be to "do nothing". And the reason for that is that the United States is more than capable of undermining the "US-led liberal democratic order" without anybody else's help. It is in fact the inevitable outcome of the Government, media and Intelligence Agencies convincing themselves of their own invincibility, exceptionalism and indispensability. God strikes them with a kind of judicial blindness, whereupon they become delusional and irrational, and instead of being known for their exceptional greatness, are marked out by buffoonery. Pride, as it is said, goeth before a fall, and what more evidence do you need that the journey from exceptionalism to buffoonery has been travelled than the SHAMPOO itself?
- The rest of the report is devoted to attacking RT for the sin of providing coverage of things which the Global Pravda Network (aka CNN, MSNBC, Fox, NYT, WaPo etc) doesn't like to mention. Of course the answer to all those out there who think RT shouldn't be doing this is simply this: stop turning your wrath upon them and instead turn it on the hordes of stenographers in your own media who think their job is to write the thoughts of the Global Elites after them. If you want a free press, that is. And if at any time they start doing their jobs again, the "problem" of RT and all those pesky alternative sites out there will just disappear
Secondly, the horror with which the US elites have reacted to having someone — whoever it was — meddling in their election, is a wonder to behold. I remember that chap coming across the Atlantic to meddle with the vote on EU membership by threatening us Britons with a sort of Trade Purgatory if we voted to leave. I remember the phone call between Vickie "the Cookie Monster" Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, already setting up the new government of Ukraine whilst the old elected one was still governing. And time would not allow to tell of all those other instances of election rigging and regime changing and coup d'etatting around the world since the CIA was established. Amongst them, interestingly enough, was the interfering in the 1996 Russian elections. This is not some conspiracy theory. No they openly boasted about. Well Hello Mr Pot, here's Mr Kettle. What goes around, comes around. Or more fundamentally: "Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap" (Galatians 6:7).
But having said all that, the SHAMPOO does actually answer one huge question which has remained a puzzle for centuries:
Q. Why did God make Russia so big?
A. So the US Intelligence Community could find it on a map!
For all the document's waffle it does give some interesting insights into the delusional minds occupying IC
Tradecraft Standards... clearly expressing uncertainty, distinguishing between underlying information and analysts’ judgments and assumptions, exploring alternatives" ..Well they certainly did not apply and such standards to the document
"Some social media accounts that appear to be tied to Russia’s professional trolls—because they previously were devoted to supporting Russian actions in Ukraine—started to advocate for President-elect Trump as early as December 2015"
If you believe Killary is a criminal, in poor health and not suitable to run the country as well as not buying the western narrative on Ukraine, then you must be a Russian troll ... there is no other possibility, tradecraft standards would have explored any possible alternatives!
The document is moan fest that Clinton's little foibles were discussed during an election
"Coverage of Secretary Clinton ... was consistently negative"
"focused on her ...corruption, poor physical and mental health, and ties to Islamic extremism"
"Do WikiLeaks Have the E-mail That’ll Put Clinton in Prison"
"Clinton and ISIS Funded by the Same Money"
"How 100% of the Clintons’ ‘Charity’ Went to…Themselves"
Really, no shit .... she was up from president of the USA and all the above are very relevant issues
The paranoia
"We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes"
Oh dear, do we need another "coalition of the willing" for this terrible new danger