President-elect Donald Trump made another great stride for America—maybe even for mankind, given the CIA's global reach. Mr. Trump slapped the Central Intelligence Agency down. And hard.
The flurry over the Russia-related misinformation released by the CIA is reminiscent of the ramp-up to war in Iraq, except that, in Bushspeak: "Fool me once, shame on … shame on you. Fool me … You can't get fooled again!"
The CIA has been asserting, sans proof, that Vladimir Putin had, essentially, elected Donald Trump. This, the Russian ruler is alleged to have done by hacking the emails of the Democratic National Congress and those of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager.
WikiLeaks, the source of October's epic “data dump,” has denied Russian complicity in enlightening and educating the American people. Why enlightening and educating? Wonderful WikiLeaks provided definitive proof that the mass media are lapdogs, not watchdogs. Democratic lapdogs. The colluding quislings of the major networks and newspapers had actively worked to elect Mrs. Clinton. Thanks to WikiLeaks, Americans also learned of the contempt with which these Democrats hold them.
Distilled, the CIA's position, shared by the rest of the foreign-policy priestly caste, is that the American people don't have the right to know what WikiLeaks divulged. Better that Americans elect rotten representatives who hate their guts, than violate the privacy of rogues looking to live-off them.
Were it up to this writer, these mezzanine-level party operatives—Democrat and Republican—would have no privacy on the job. They're auditioning to go on the people's payroll! They're looking to serve the people. As members of the degraded sphere of politics, make party apparatchiks as easy to monitor as parolees.
WikiLeaks' proprietor has martyred himself in the cause of truth. Without fear or favor, Julian Assange has exposed the workings of business and government alike, Republican and Democrat—from Facebook, Google and Yahoo's "built-in interfaces for US intelligence," to the clandestine wheeling-and-dealing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to the neoconservatives' war-crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As another unimpeachable source put it: "Do we believe Snowden and Assange, or John McCain and Lindsey Graham? I would add: Who's likelier to destabilize his country by going to war? Putin or Graham?
So, too, does the Federal Bureau of Investigation disagree with the CIA's intemperate charges against Russia. Not that the FBI is more trustworthy than the CIA. Still, the FBI at least is smarting because "Hillary Clinton was not criminally charged for mishandling classified information."
Above all, the most powerful man in the world, President-elect Donald Trump, has now mainstreamed a truth for which some on the Right were ostracized, 14 years ago. Lest we forget, Mr. Trump ran on disavowing the lie that was Genghis Bush's war on Iraq. And he continues to properly implicate the CIA in foul-play in that country: “President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team questioned the credibility of the CIA late Friday in response to a report the agency found Russia intervened in the election to boost his prospects. ‘These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,’ the Trump transition team said in a statement."
Indeed, in the winter of 2002, this writer had perused publicly available CIA reports about Saddam Hussein. These, I reported, "offered no fresh incriminating evidence against Iraq, but a lot of equivocating, inventive bafflegab." Used by the CIA were vague phrases that amounted to, "Saddam will probably"; "give him time and he will eventually"; "with sufficient weapons-grade fissile material, he'll doubtless"; "he doesn't have the capability to develop enriched uranium or plutonium to fuel a nuclear bomb, but hang in there ..."
This was obviously not the letter of the CIA text, but it was close enough to its spirit. Unclear was how the CIA could claim to have cobbled evidence for weapons of mass destruction from an "interest in acquiring" or "an effort to procure," considering its analysts offered no proof of such actions and purchases.
The same vague nomenclature deployed by CIA analysts to take Americans to war in Iraq is evident in the agency's unsubstantiated claims against Russia. In trying to incriminate absent hard evidence, the CIA, as reported by the Washington Post, alludes to "a secret assessment," nowhere apparent, identifying only "anonymous sources and individuals" in "closed-door briefing."
Underpinning the Left's delayed Russophobia—they're about a century too late—is a logical fallacy: the argument from authority. Believe the CIA because its intelligence is derived “from multiple sources.” Be impressed since "the intelligence community [has] officially [not informally] accused Moscow." Bow down because our CIA overlords' non-specific intelligence makes it “quite clear” that the accusations against Moscow are justified. And if verbiage without evidence leaves you unconvinced, well then, "Democratic leaders in the room unanimously agreed ..."
Onward to war.
As I see it, Trump's daily intelligence briefings are tangentially related to the attempt to incriminate Russia in ridding us of Hillary. Said President-elect Trump to Fox News’ Chris Wallace: “I don’t need to be told the same thing every day, every morning, same words. ‘Sir, nothing has changed. Let’s go over it again.' I don’t need that. … If something should change from this point, immediately call me. I’m available on one minute’s notice.”
The terminally stupid talking heads are outraged. Economizing always rattles the politicians and the presstitutes (with apologies to honest, hardworking prostitutes). They’re used to creating redundancies and duplication, which are lucrative. But in President-elect Trump, the establishment has a different animal—someone who’s looking to eliminate redundancies; who’s aware of the cost of a scarce resource like time.
More crucially, the daily intelligence briefings likely comprise a good deal of "analysis," and NOT original intelligence intercepts. Perhaps Mr. Trump is not wild about the quality of "analysis" America has been receiving from 17 highly politicized intelligence agencies. (Talk about redundancies!) I know I'd want to compare the original intelligence intercepts with the analysis rendered by the "experts," before making life-and-death decisions.