Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[blandy]

1 hour ago, peterms said:

It's been reported in many places that the family have said they have had no contact from him, nor seen any picture.  If that's false, it could very easily be disproved.  I imagine any calls would be from a controlled place under the supervision of the security services, and taped.

No, that’s not true, is it, the easy to disprove bit, I mean. A lady in Russia says her son, who was the victim of a poisoning, hasn’t called her. Even if the son were to appear and say the opposite, what proof is that?  He says she says. And why would anyone even bother? It’s not legal to publish tapes of private convos without the consent of both parties, and anyway, to what end? To counter something reported by RT?

as you said earlier, I think, he might be dead, he might be severely hampered, he might be relatively healthy. We don’t know, nor do we need to know the detail of any contact with his family. It’s private. “Victim of attempted murder yet to call mother says Russian state media” is low level tattle.

[peterms]

14 minutes ago, blandy said:

And why would anyone even bother? It’s not legal to publish tapes of private convos without the consent of both parties, and anyway, to what end? To counter something reported by RT?

To show that he's alive; to correct a false accusation that they have prevented him making contact; to counter the very bad impression created by refusing visas for his mother and niece to visit him, would be some reasons that immediately spring to mind.

As for the idea that they would be prevented from releasing the tape of a conversation because the law says they shouldn't,  well... 

 

[blandy]

Quote

....I worked for several years in one studio with moderators Ivan Kudryavtsev and Anna Shnaider, who were announcing the 146 percent results to the whole country. I asked Anna, Ivan, and Rossia-24 editor in chief Natalya Shchedrinskaya about this. Of course, it wasn't true as [then-Central Election Commission head Vladimir] Churov said that some employee got a nice house overseas for doing that. It was all a lot simpler: The instruction came to Rossia-24 from the Kremlin stating what percentage to show for [the pro-Kremlin party] United Russia. The editor asked, "And what about the other parties?" The answer came: "Just show whatever they got." The editor wasn't going to argue with them. After all, the Kremlin knows best. So she did exactly as she was told. And that's how you get 146 percent.

WATCH: Election results add up to 146 percent:

RFE/RL: In general, the discussion shows are all staged and the roles are set in advance. But don't unpredictable things happen sometimes?

Krivenkov: There were some guests who acted "appropriately" during the preliminary interviews but then began telling the truth when they got on the air live. There was one big scandal about a guest who was invited to a program about the use of chemical weapons by the forces of [Putin ally and Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad. The guest began telling the truth about the production and use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces. The editor, Aleksei Kazakov, was screaming at the moderator on the in-ear channel: "Don't you hear what he's saying? Shut him up immediately!"

The moderator immediately interrupted the expert and said there was no more time. Later, the Kremlin called and there was a scandal. That expert never appeared on television again....

Your turn to lie

 

[OutByEaster?]

9 hours ago, blandy said:

Your turn to lie

In fairness, that's a story presented by a news association that it directly owned managed and run by the US government to "further the cause of democracy". 

I'm not sure I'd take the CIA as a reliable source of news on Russia.

 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'm not sure I'd take the CIA as a reliable source of news on Russia.

Well, no. Nor would I. But it's not the CIA. It's a kind of US equivalent of the World Service. The inclusion of he actual TV broadcast clip kind of adds weight, don't you think?

Scepticism is right , refusal to believe anything if it's broadcast by X or Y is (IMO) both foolish and widespread, in part as a consequence of what's now called "Fake News". RT and many others from various nations mix genuine truth and true broadcasts with propaganda and with lies deliberately in order to try and add weight to the lies - well the bit they did on that incident was the same as the BBC's story, so they must be telling the truth here" mixed with innate viewer bias (we all have it) leads to people just not knowing what to believe as genuine and what is lies, and hence we get misled, confused, have our prejudices stoked, and fail to believe what we need to know.

Not aimed at you as a person, just a general observation.

[OutByEaster?]

23 minutes ago, blandy said:

Well, no. Nor would I. But it's not the CIA. It's a kind of US equivalent of the World Service. The inclusion of he actual TV broadcast clip kind of adds weight, don't you think?

Scepticism is right , refusal to believe anything if it's broadcast by X or Y is (IMO) both foolish and widespread, in part as a consequence of what's now called "Fake News". RT and many others from various nations mix genuine truth and true broadcasts with propaganda and with lies deliberately in order to try and add weight to the lies - well the bit they did on that incident was the same as the BBC's story, so they must be telling the truth here" mixed with innate viewer bias (we all have it) leads to people just not knowing what to believe as genuine and what is lies, and hence we get misled, confused, have our prejudices stoked, and fail to believe what we need to know.

Not aimed at you as a person, just a general observation.

All true in general, but Radio Free Europe isn't the best example. It was openly a part of the CIA's operations throughout the fifties, sixties and early seventies and publicly funded through the CIA. It's consistently seen as the propoganda arm of the US. It's not a benign news agency and you could argue isn't first and foremost a news agency at all; it's purpose it political. 

The rest of your post, the actual point I think, I thoroughly agree with - the real tragedy of fake news is how difficult it is to separate from actual news -with the way news is owned now, it doesn't appear there are many openings for anyone to write news just on the basis that it's news anymore and a healthy does of cynicism is a good idea from every source - heck, even the Independent and the Evening Standard are Russian owned! 

 

 

[bickster]

 

[peterms]

 

[VILLAMARV]

33 minutes ago, peterms said:

 

[blandy]

9 hours ago, peterms said:

 

It's quite revealing what gets tweeted and commented on. It's all very "look at me, come to my thread, twitter followers and retweet me, so I matter". That's twitter I suppose.

A Newspaper has an article that claims someone who spoke to someone who..etc. says the CIA woman had to show pictures of ducks and children to Trump to persuade him to act ...

and the twitter man, there, decides to ask whether the UK Gov't or the CIA or both are lying about Russia. Not whether the report is correct (the part he's commenting on) - he knows it's not true. A better question would surely be around how Trump has to be "managed" by the grown ups - and that's the whole direction of the article. But no, take a known false condition and use that to do a twitter about whether the CIA director or the UK Gov't are lying (about Russia). What a bell.

 

[peterms]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

A better question would surely be around how Trump has to be "managed" by the grown ups - and that's the whole direction of the article. But no, take a known false condition and use that to do a twitter about whether the CIA director or the UK Gov't are lying (about Russia).

The Independent covered the story as well, reproducing the line with very little curiosity.

Quote

She reportedly showed photos of young children who were hospitalised after being exposed to the Novichok nerve agent, the same one that poisoned the Skripals. 

She also showed photos of dead ducks that British officials said were killed by the “sloppy” work of Russian operatives during the poison attack, the New York Times reported.

It seemed  to work. Mr Trump  was reportedly fixated on photos of the sick children and dead ducks, which prompted him to take on the tougher stance of expelling 60 Russian diplomats.

There's a few lines of thought they might have pursued here, but choose not to.

Is it true that Trump was shown such photos?  (Deborah Haynes, of the Integrity Initiative, is now being wheeled out to say there were no children hospitalised, and she wonders what the photos were).

Is the head of the CIA lying to the President of the US and presenting fake evidence?  Is that what "being managed by the grown ups" involves?  What are the implications of that?  Those would be interesting things for professional journalists to discuss.

If they wanted to think about it a little more, they might have noted that there was CCTV footage of Skripal feeding ducks, and handing bread to children to feed ducks, and the footage was shown by the police to the parents of the children but has not been publicly released.  They might then have wondered why there weren't any photos of dead ducks and hospitalised children, since this happened after Skripal left home and before he collapsed, ie when he had on his hands a military-grade nerve agent many times more deadly than the VX agent that was used to kill Kim's relative.

I expect I'm asking too much of them.

[blandy]

41 minutes ago, peterms said:

If they wanted to think about it a little more

I think I see the problem here.

Yeah, mostly agree, though not really the last para, as the article was about another subject (Trump's inabilities and how people have to engage with him for anything to happen - Like Father Ted talking to Dougal, only with pictures of Ducks and Hospitals).

 

[peterms]

5 minutes ago, blandy said:

Yeah, mostly agree, though not really the last para, as the article was about another subject (Trump's inabilities and how people have to engage with him for anything to happen

I think the fact that the article was about another subject perhaps led to the stuff about the ducks and children slipping through, and probably it was only when our intelligence people saw it that they realised it was actually pretty undermining of the story they put out.  Probably the journo wrote it just as a way of bigging up torturer Haspel and mocking the Clown Prince, not realising the wider implications over here.

It seems that when Integrity Initiative helper Haynes first publicised the story, she didn't clock that either, but someone later seems to have had a word.  I imagine they weren't best pleased with her.

 

[VILLAMARV]

It's quite stunning really how they gloss over the torture and evidence destruction of Haspel in that article by saying experience is a great teacher and she's more experienced now.

Of course the president gets managed by the MIC. He's only the president. It's never been any different in my lifetime. Why would anyone expect anything different?

Perhaps 'grown ups' is a bit too soft of a term for torturers and warmongers?

The whole direction of the article seems to be a nice, soft piece about the nice CIA lady, who is a lady don't you know. And experienced. And cleverer than Trump.

And a torturer.

As for Twitter man, he is indeed a man with a twitter. But one who is also an ex-army, ex police counter terrorism officer, Lawyer with some degree or other in International Politics. Whether we agree with him or not, based on that CV, he's far from some inconsequential numbnuts.

[blandy]

58 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

As for Twitter man, he is indeed a man with a twitter. But one who is also an ex-army, ex police counter terrorism officer, Lawyer with some degree or other in International Politics. Whether we agree with him or not, based on that CV, he's far from some inconsequential numbnuts.

Shoebridge, Beeley, Murray, Hayward, and a few others whose names slip my mind at the moment. There's a collective noun for them, but the word filter removes it. Russia likes them though, so there's that. And it's mutual. Keeps that nice kind Vladimir happy - he's got his Wiki people, his Brexity People, his Trumpy people and these muppets all beavering away for him, wittingly or unwitingly. Champion.

[VILLAMARV]

I understand the concern for the possibility of unknown influences. But what gets lost when we play this game is that the actual point/truth gets swamped in an argument over whose propaganda is the one worth listening to imo.

 

[blandy]

55 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

I understand the concern for the possibility of unknown influences. But what gets lost when we play this game is that the actual point/truth gets swamped in an argument over whose propaganda is the one worth listening to imo.

Definitely. These people (and others) promote, and that's the right word, I think, an anti-Western pro Russian outlook, treating anything Western in origin with the deepest scepticism, cycnicism and disdain, whilst simultaneously doing the exact opposite for anything coming from Russia or Russian sources. It's a very lopsided world view they present. Some of them are full on propagandists, or in the pay of...

Of course sometimes what they say, their scepticism and so on can be well placed. The West and the US particularly so are not exactly squeaky clean in so many aspects. It's the lack of consistency of approach that particular annoys me. For an example, take the Skripal story. Whatever the merits and arguments and evidence, these useful idiots were on there, on the internet coming up with all kinds of motives and possibilities and options as to how it was all staged by the West, by Israel or by the US or MI6 and etc. ..then when the photos of "the Cathedral visitors" were released it was all about how they couldn't possibly be Russian agents and they'd been wrongly identified and etc. Questioning of the ludicrous lines coming out of the Russian MFA or the TV inteview with the Agents and such like - barely a squeak. All seemingly accepted. There's a clear agenda to these self appointed numpties, wonky journo's, and corbynite academics. Beeley or Bartlett,  Murray, Hayward and others. Whoppers the lot of them. Not for being sceptical, but for being biased and  uneven in their application of rigour. The ystart from an anti-western viewpoint and seek to make an argument around any event to suit that viewpoint, so rather than looking at the information and forming an opinion, they start with the opinion and look to bolster it. They hold themselves out as beacons of light and fairness and independent thinking and it's utterly risible. Some of them do it for money, of course.

[peterms]

On 17/04/2019 at 16:32, blandy said:

Beeley or Bartlett,  Murray, Hayward and others. Whoppers the lot of them. Not for being sceptical, but for being biased and  uneven in their application of rigour. The ystart from an anti-western viewpoint and seek to make an argument around any event to suit that viewpoint, so rather than looking at the information and forming an opinion, they start with the opinion and look to bolster it. They hold themselves out as beacons of light and fairness and independent thinking and it's utterly risible. Some of them do it for money, of course.

It's more a case of plugging a few of the gaps left by the mainstream media.  There's no shortage of outlets repeating the official line unquestioningly, but there's certainly a lack of objective assessment of whether what we are being told is correct, and it's useful to have some people doing some of that, even if their views are mostly drowned out by the media (ie the people who actually do what they do for money, by the way).

In the Skripal case for example, the official story had numerous gaping inconsistencies and contradictions, and the mainstream media didn't choose to examine them.  When a D notice was issued instructing them not to mention Sripal's handler Pablo Miller and his connection to Orbis Intelligence and Christopher Steele (he of the pissy bed dossier), they complied, instead of seeing that as a very interesting line of enquiry.  They fail to ask basic questions about the events of the day, from the unharmed boys and ducks who ate bread handled by Skripal's supposedly poisoned hands, to the Skripal's phones being silenced all morning, to the simultaneous collapse several hours after application of the nerve agent, to their fortuitous discovery by the head nurse of the British Army.  They don't ask why the roof of the house has to be removed, where Skripal is, why he has not contacted his mother after a year to reassure her that he's alright.

The last thing we need is more people like Luke Harding, writing nonsense for money, or the network set up by the Integrity Initiative, friendly journos repeating the official line, keeping this network secret and purporting to be acting independently.

It's noticeable that criticism of those who debunk the official position is generally not an evidence-based rebuttal of what they have argued, but some kind of hand-waving dismissal of them as either conspiracy theorists or agents of a foreign power; ironic when it's the Integrity Initiative lot who demonstrably are acting as agents of a foreign power, part-funded as they are by the US Department of State.

[blandy]

3 hours ago, peterms said:

It's noticeable that criticism of those who debunk the official position is generally not an evidence-based rebuttal of what they have argued

I think that's possibly true to an extent, as is the reverse. There's plenty of evidence based rebuttal of what these folks post on their blogs etc, but ultimately, as with many things, it's like wrestling with a pig. There's almost never any recognition "actually, I got that one wrong, it wasn't the same child at all" (or whatever). They either just move on, or double down.

It's why I'm so disappointed to the extent of extreme irritation by them. As you say sceptical analysis or discussion of whatever subject would benefit us all, but what we've got is two sides who just espouse their views, seeking to justify their views, rather than start with what they or we know, and then take it to wherever is goes.

It's like, say, the White helmets. They are funded by the UK, US etc. So it's reasonable to ask "are they just western agents, doing the bidding of the UK, US etc. in terms of propaganda"? It's also reasonable to ask "Does the West genuinely want to avoid some deaths that can be avoided, and does it make sense to help volunteers with funding and equipment to carry out rescues etc"?

What we get is "we know the White helmets are American collaborators and they don't rescue people, they just fake it for propaganda purposes" or "we know the Russians and Syria are desperate to discredit the White helmets, so you can't listen to any claims about fakery, because it's just propaganda aimed at discrediting the west"

Neither of those lines is at all likely to be the whole truth, but that's the starting point we are presented with. It would seem possible, if not highly probable that there's a grey line where they do a great deal of genuine rescuing and stuff, but also that as they are basically a disparate group of civilians, from doctors and nurses, to mechanics and shopkeepers, that some will have agendas, some will seek to profit, some will seek to portray an angle...but it's less likely that they are all, somehow a highly organised and disciplined western implanted set of PR operators and media manipulators.

But with such entrenched starting positions, I am left unable to get a clear picture of where the truth lies.

Your bloggers don't help,  at all. They feed off a reasonably wide dislike and distaste for the West engaging in all these wars and conflicts, but just don't look sceptically at the big picture, which has to include Syria, Russia etc. involvement in those same conflicts. I nthat sense, I don't think they add anything other than fog (as opposed to what you call "objective assessment ") and food for conspiracy theorists and twitter bells.

[snowychap]

Week in Review: Putin comes clean

Quote

It's like the bit at the end of the superhero movie where the villain explains the plot. The protagonist is chained up. The bad guy twirls his moustache and outlines how his genius plan led to this point. That's basically what Vladimir Putin did last night.

"The liberal idea", the Russian leader said, had "outlived its purpose".

...

It is useful that Putin puts a name to it, because we so rarely do. This is a war against liberalism. And that means it is a war against what liberalism stands for: Reason, individual freedom and the protection of minorities.

...rest of piece on link