Facts are great. Facts, we like to think, are things we can use to guide our decisions and actions. Facts even add—erroneously, most of the time—an air of “certainty” to what we do. But actual, measurable, verifiable facts that would stand up to some kind of scientific scrutiny are very difficult to come by nowadays. The news outlets of the Resistance—DK included—report on incidents: pronouncements, leaks, things done or left undone, and even facial features, psychological profiles, and gestures. Largely they are reported on as though they are disconnected bits coming from those in a regime consumed by malice, anger, prejudice, and religious—and cultural—hatred. Those brave enough to analyze these “seemingly disconnected” items are warned that they’re crossing an imaginary line into what is termed CT, or conspiracy theory, and their ideas are therefore easily dismissed by their fellow “Progressive Resistance” members. I’d like to offer a different view; one based on my personal experience of how things actually work and the dangers inherent in ignoring what we see but choose to overlook.
Let me start with the notion that the “fellow Americans” who occupy Congress and the White House on behalf of the Alt-Right Nazis or the GOP (as though one can distinguish between those groups nowadays) is merely a misguided idea. For example, take the notion that they themselves are simply misguided, and we must seek compromise and “reach out” to them, to guide them back to sanity and reality. No. This impulse is deeply misguided. They have been working toward this quagmire for years and they have no interest in compromise. They merely lacked the kind of help that a small but powerful minority always needs to prevail. First, start with a realization: They are NOT our “fellow Americans” anymore, in any normal sense. Their actions and words do not support any remote possibility that they have anyone’s—except their own—best interests at heart, let alone America’s. Although they live on our soil and carry US passports, they have given up on any ties to anyone outside their own small echo-chambers. The democratic process simply does not (and really never did) work for their tyrannical and despotic aims. In short, in order to succeed they have had to jettison their ties with real democracy and the core values that would indeed otherwise make them our “fellow Americans.” They have become our enemies, enemies among us, and they seem to be quite proud of that fact right now, since in their own minds they are winning. Their unwillingness to compromise and their “We won, get over it!” attitude should be our biggest clue that they feel that they can no longer lose an election, that the game’s now been permanently rigged in their favor. The signs are easy to read elsewhere as well. Trump and Bannon, for example, want to punish media for speaking against them, directly denying the core precept of the First Amendment. Arizona lawmakers are attempting to criminalize protests, and thus free speech, for the same reasons. If you need more evidence that they are our enemies—and the enemies of the United States—ask yourself what this nation would look like if no one spoke out against them, if they achieved all they hope to. The nation that existed—no matter what your opinions may be—prior to this last election cycle would cease to exist. A minority of echo-chamber Nazis would control our lives, our thoughts, our words, all we see, hear, and read…and our hopes. No. They are our sworn enemies and now must be treated as such. They do not seek compromise. Our responses must also be uncompromising.
Next, if we are now observing our enemies at work, it is vital to begin to analyze their actions in terms of their motivations and plans, not just how they look to us. I used to work at the NSA (yes, as an analyst, and working against the Soviet target), and this type of forensic, deductive reasoning has always been at the heart of all intelligence work. In the intelligence world one seldom receives the kind of “facts” that one wants—no signed confessions, no long and in-depth transcripts outlining everything that your enemies are doing and plan to do next. About 95% of what a good analyst has to work with are what most people would call clues. Bits and pieces that seem to be disconnected or even irrelevant to most people, but that, when pieced together, point the analysts to more definite things that “our side” needs to do. And since, in normal circumstances, all sides are watching for each other’s clues (through their respective intelligence organizations), a kind of stalemate normally arises that stops a lot of super-awful things from happening. But our current situation is far from normal. We are not watching a foe from a safe distance, but observing enemies living and working among us. The trick is to understand that, where most people make plans, enemies design conspiracies against one another. In other words, a lot of what goes on behind the walls of places like the NSA, CIA, FBI, or even the FSB is the analysis of clues that can be framed within the confines of one or another conspiracy model. Without that understanding, an analyst will never “have a clue” what’s going on, why it’s going on, or what it portends for the future. Action becomes impossible guesswork without this analysis. It’s all “conspiracy theory,” since, for your foes, there’s always a conspiracy.
Now, it also helps to realize that there are different kinds of clues. Typically, a clue is just something “left behind” out of carelessness, arrogance, or incompetence. But there are “rogue clues” that are also left behind, just to confuse those who find them. However, unless your enemy is very clever, the rogue clues are easy to spot, since they sound important…but don’t fit any of the conspiracy formats that all the other clues point to. Let’s try it on a recent set of clues:
1. A Russian spy ship is just off the US coast.
2. Mike Pence tells the EU that Trump is solidly behind NATO.
3. Mike Flynn gets “fired” for his “ties to Russia.”
4. Russian jets buzz a US destroyer, and Russia deploys cruise missiles.
5. All of this happens after Trump switches off the recorder during a phone call with Putin.
6. Steve Bannon goes “radio silent” after Flynn’s departure. (Here the clue is a lack of new information.)
7. Trump continues to extol Putin’s virtues in spite of all that took place.
Ordinarily, items 1 and 4 are pure aggression, and a hot-head like Trump would overreact. Hmmm. Nothing substantive happened. See item 7. Item 2 comes from Pence, Trump’s cocker spaniel, in what would be called a throw-away speech that Trump didn’t back up with actions or any significant words. Item 3 happens to help distance the Trump regime from Russia…sort of. So does item 6, though Bannon would also undoubtedly have other channels of communication with the Kremlin if needed. (With all the private servers running traffic for our enemies, this is a snap.) But if you were analyzing all of this the actions of an enemy, what do you suspect? Well, there are probably several scenarios that might fit, but they all boil down to some anxiety on the part of whoever’s actually in charge (no it isn’t Trump), and that their influence is likely being targeted by another intelligence resource. In this case, Trump’s taking orders from Putin (possibly via an insider like Bannon or Miller) and some of these are largely “rogue clues.” If you try to form a picture of conspiracy within the framework of something like “Trump’s in charge and just a sociopathic drug-head,” that might work, poorly, but this set of clues has too much of an organized feel to it. According to a source within the Russian media, after Flynn’s departure the media there were told to tone down their effusiveness toward Trump, et al. “They’re on to us” sounds like a possible basis for these clues. “Nothing to see here,” is what the Kremlin wants us to hear.
Another thing that most folks forget about the results of such analysis is that, while you may lack “certainty” or the “fact-like feel” in your analysis, you haven’t developed this picture just to win at Double Jeopardy with the correct answer. You’ve done this to guide your actions, to help you plan what to do next. In this case, you can state your own conclusions and add them to the list of the lies and manipulations that you catalog on our enemies. This now becomes your database. Then you file it away and use it again and again, testing it each time you use it. Good intelligence does not merely “exist,” it “evolves.”
Or then there’s the “third rail” theory that the Russians actually did hack the last election, just enough to get their chosen people elected. Few want to admit it, since to do so might cause an uprising and loss of faith in some of our elected leaders, but the clues are everywhere. The part that most seem unwilling to consider is “why would the Russians do this at all?” Let’s go over a few clues:
1. A recent interview with a Russian journalist has openly shown that, in order for Russia to get what it wants in terms of world geopolitical power and domination, it needs to demonstrate to the nations that democracy is no longer effective, and that it cannot stand in the face of Russian force of will. In short, Russia will always win. (Note reactions in some European countries facing elections that are open to Russian hacking. Those countries know what we are downplaying. Another part of this vital clue.)
2. The polls right up to the evening of the voting showed a vastly different election outcome, not in Trump’s favor, even with the fake news propagated by the Russians on Social Media. And, in fact, HRC won the popular vote by a margin (nearly 3 million) suggesting the polls were accurate.
3. The margins by which Trump won key states were very thin. (About 70,000 votes total in 3 key states.)
4. Voting irregularities were reported, but countable paper ballots were either not used or not retained (conveniently for the GOP).
5. Electronic voting has been shown to be hackable. (E.g., Rove’s meltdown after the 2012 election after the “Anonymous” group’s work to thwart GOP hackers, and the ease of penetration into US voter databases by Russian hackers in 2016.)
6. Trump, using one of his favorite ploys—projection—tells his supporters, right before the election, that his opponents would “hack the election.”
7. Russian hackers turn up after the votes were “counted” and said goodbye online. No, they didn’t say exactly what happened, but this is just another clue. Putin’s people left a lot of evidence behind them. It may have been assumed that, with Trump and Bannon in power, nothing would—or could—be done about this. But a recent New Yorker article also notes that, from various Russian sources, Putin wanted everyone to know that he was responsible for Trump’s victory. It was to point out that we have no protection against them.
8. The IC has known for a long time that Putin has been mining the Eastern Bloc for hackers, even reaching into prisons for suitable material.
9. Putin’s “Research Squadrons for the Russian Federation,” including hacking groups like The Dukes, Cozy Bear, and Fancy Bear, have been able to penetrate US military and State Department networks to their benefit for years. Voting and tallying software should, by comparison, be a piece of cake, especially with help from GOP operatives.
10. The people who would be put into power by all of this—Trump, Bannon, Flynn, Miller, and a host of GOP “lawmakers”—all have personal agendas that will subvert democracy at its core and support Putin’s aims.
11. The Christopher Steele “dossier” suggests or shows (depending on how you wish to read it) the degree to which Trump could be (and apparently was) blackmailed—not bought—by Putin. That is, in spite of everything else, Trump has a lot to lose by not going along with all of this.
12. With this much potential digital weaponry at his disposal, and an unresponsive White House (Obama did nothing to retaliate in most cases known to involve Russian hacking) imagine what the stakes are for Putin if he did not succeed. Wouldn’t he be likely to use everything at the disposal of his Research Squadrons to achieve victory?
Okay, there’s twelve items. You can probably add some more. Each has been the basis for good reporting in the Resistance media. But stack them up together and see if they fit within the framework of the basic conspiracy model that Putin needs to overthrow democracy worldwide, beginning with the US. If the GOP was able to hack the election on their own, they’d owe nothing to Russia. If that’s true, then the bro-mance that Trump has for the poisonous pig Putin would not be needed. And don’t overlook psychology here. Good intelligence work relies on it. Trump loves no one. He exists entirely for his own pleasure and the domination of others. Psychologically, especially for a narcissistic sociopath like Trump, that kind of sucking-up makes no sense, apart from making obvious the probable blackmail and the backing of a tyrant like Putin who could destroy Trump casually. Trump has only ever touted someone else as being “great” strategically. Often, soon thereafter, he forgets their name or changes his tune. Nope, this one stinks stronger the more often you hear it. Read carefully the New Yorker article that lists an impressive array of “clues” to what has gone down. Much of what is contained here was also backed up there.
So back to the use of your conclusions to guide your actions. What shall we do? Well, probably a lot of different things, but to start with this: let’s scare the shit out of all of them and demand paper ballots and lots of auditing, for a start. You might as well make it a central cause for the Resistance, while you’re at it. If Putin is scared by democracy, then we need to take it back with a vengeance. If they (Trump and the GOP) feel they won legitimately, they’ll win on paper ballots, too, and elections must be able to be audited by anyone. Most likely, the resulting shit-storm from Russia, Trump, and the GOP will be enough to tell you that you’ve struck gold. Expect Putin to do to us what he did to Estonia (in 2007) and the US (right before the election): lots of DDOSs. He’ll show us how digitally vulnerable we are. He’ll “shut us down.” No, you can’t arrest Putin or probably any of his hackers, but you can go after anyone holding a US passport who had a hand in this or even benefitted by this. We may have a bunch of raging sociopaths trying to run things amok in Washington, but somewhere around here there are still a few laws that might be useful. You can hack the internet after all, but you can’t hack the conscience of anyone who chooses to remain free.
In short, Russia, under Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, is now waging war on all democracies everywhere. As one Russian writer notes, he acts as a strong leader of a weak country who is seeking to win against weak leaders in strong countries. It is, for all intents and purposes, a war first of all against the United States. Those who will merely find advantages in allowing him to destroy our democracy will collaborate with our enemies, foreign and domestic. We will also have to ultimately deal with them as collaborators. But reviewing the clues above—and those found in many other places—there is also a group that is working actively, hand-in-hand with Putin to destabilize and weaken both democracy and the American nation. The IC knows who they are and how they are in communication with our enemies. In order to protect the sources of their intelligence—their own sets of clues—all cannot be revealed at once. That’s a shame, but it remains our task then to act in ways that are based on the clues available.
But there’s more coming from Washington, and probably soon. According to G M Gilbert’s Nuremberg Diary, on 18 April 1946 Herman Goering explained to the author how a nation can be made to want war in spite of their desires for peace:
“Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice (i.e., voting in a democracy), the people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
The Russian war against democracy was begun years ago. We did not want it then, and do not want it now. Many in the Resistance believe, potentially mistakenly, that all we need is another election to get democracy back. Our “leaders” in Washington would have us believe that we are all under attack, not by a foreign power, but by a free press and the whistle-blowers within the intelligence fraternity, and by countless minorities and religions not in line with their dominionist ideologies. We will probably soon be labelled as “unpatriotic” by those same people who are actively working on behalf of a hostile, foreign, Russian government. Perhaps what is needed now is to also openly defy and resist them; not only for what they have done but for what they are. Traitors. We have laws against such things, and precedence for using them. We must openly label and name them all as traitors. We must not only overthrow Trump and the other minions of Putin, we must
OVERTHROW TREASON!