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beware of disinformation, deepfakes and hopeful delusions.....Pentagon Leaked Papers Are Probably Fake. So Who’s Behind Them? We should be cautious about authenticating these documents because no one has either confirmed their authenticity or dismissed them entirely as fake. In World War II, Winston Churchill said that ‘in wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.’ Could this infamous quotation be one we should remember when we watch U.S. news outlets reporting on the bombshell leak lately supposedly from the Pentagon, which dominated western news for a few days in mid-April?
BY Martin JAY
Or, put a different way, are the Americans taking us all for a ride and pretending that the leak is genuine and therefore encouraging media to examine every minutia of the documents in the hope that many of the nuggets are reported as facts? We should be cautious about authenticating these documents. Not simply because Whitehouse spokesman John Kirby went to such lengths to tell journalists they shouldn’t present the essence of the information contained in them, in their articles. But more because no one has come forward and neither confirmed their authenticity or dismissed them entirely as fake. Of course if it entirely plausible that they were prepared and collated into one colossal tome by the cabal of fake news charlatans in Kiev as it is very much to Zelensky’s advantage to scare European leaders into speeding up their weapons deliveries (as there is much details about what Kiev has and what is needed on the battlefield). The genius of planting fake news of course is to follow Churchill’s adage or rather the essence of it recto verso. Surround it with truth. And this may be the case with these documents as their claims about Middle Eastern countries having closer and closer relations with Russia is hardly the polemic which is presented to us by, say, The Washington Post which thundered a headline about Egypt’s Sisi ‘planning’ to send Russia missiles. Sisi may well have been thinking about this but is this really news? Perhaps we should look at who gains from disrupting this relationship. Russia has after all consistently been one of the main, if not the biggest, suppliers of arms to Egypt. Egypt, which has the largest military in Africa, also buys a lot of weaponry from the U.S. and the EU. However, often Americans and Europeans have put conditions on weapons sales, something that Russia does not do. This relationship must be one of many gripes of Zelensky who believes that if Russia’s key allies in the world were to break off relations with Moscow, then the scales of balance would tip in his favour. This is after all the one Arab country which as had since the late 40s the best relations with Moscow, enhanced considerably since 2014 when Sisi was installed through a coup, organised by another Russian friend, the UAE – which is also part of the leak. Apparently, the UAE is boosting its intelligence sharing with Russia supposedly to have an advantage against the U.S. and UK. Hardly a great scoop by any journalistic standards, but one which was important to someone who wanted it in the public domain. Neither the Americans nor the Russians or their allies would benefit from a diplomatic falling out between the UAE and the U.S. although it must be vexing the Biden administration that Dubai is becoming the new destination for wealthy Russians who are pushing up real estate rental and are showing the world just how close the relationship is between its ruler MbZ and Putin. But the Ukrainians would be overjoyed by such an occurrence and so we should be wary of such ideas being floated. Remember, suggesting two countries have increased or decreased their intelligence sharing is practically impossible to prove or disprove. This is perhaps one reason why journalists like such stories as they are easy to cultivate, given everyone issues denials which the public knows is standard practice as a response to such smears. Hardly hot off the press though. Although it is hot news to western journalists who can’t control themselves as they feast on these salacious documents which seem to suggest that NATO summer exercises planned for the end of April could be a cover for supplying Ukrainian forces. Yet the documents go further. The published plans contain not only a schedule for supplying Ukrainian units with NATO weapons and ammunition, but also information about the structure of the brigades and battalions allegedly preparing for the offensive. And this is where it starts to get a tad ridiculous. The document, dated March 1, says Kiev’s brigades need 253 tanks, more than 380 infantry fighting vehicles and APCs, 480 vehicles, 147 artillery pieces, and 571 HMMWV armoured vehicles to carry out the offensive. Are the authors trying to underline Ukraine’s lack of hardware? And if so, for what purpose? Some may argue that the leak could come from a disgruntled senior Pentagon official who, perhaps wants the war to end or is angry at the politics behind Trump’s court appearances and their timing as, in theory spilling the beans on how depleted Ukraine’s military hardware is could give Russia the upper hand on the battlefield. But there are a lot of assumptions there, such as how can we know this data is even accurate? More likely it is cunning begging letter to western elites which someone in Kiev thought would have more of an edge if it was presented via The Washington Post rather than the conventional channels. Perhaps those who crafted this document hadn’t banked on Biden getting any more military aid after the last huge allocation made in the last days of the democrats controlling the house of representatives? In fact just a few days before this document was released, Biden did, in fact, sign off 2bn dollars of military aid with a remarkably similar list of equipment promised by the Department of Defence to the pentagon leaked paper and its shopping list. Is it possible that this leaked document has been known about and seen by journalists in the U.S. even before March 1 and that they had been told to refrain from reporting on it until this deal was agreed? If we are to assume that Kiev is the brains behind this ruse, then two factors can be banked on. One, the relationship between Biden and Zelensky is fraying and close to breaking point. And secondly, we can assume more of these media stunts in the future.
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For the past two days, Ukrainian military forces have been forced to withdraw from some of their positions in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut following new Russian advances.
In its daily intelligence bulletin, the British Ministry of Defense indicated that the city of Bakhmout, epicenter of the fighting, had experienced “ particularly intense Russian artillery fire in the past 48 hours ».
A cooperation between the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian private security company, Wagner, reactivated the operation and made it possible to take control of two new areas of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmout in the province of Donetsk.
« Wagner's assault units advanced successfully, capturing two blocks on the northern and southern outskirts of the city “Said the Russian Ministry of Defense, reporting” the most violent fights “of the front.
Earlier, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhine announced that his units almost seized the city of Bakhmut, adding that the Russian flag was raised on the main administrative building of this city. However, Ukraine has denied Prigozhine's claims of Bakhmout's full takeover.
« In the legal sense, Bakhmout was captured. The enemy is concentrated in the western areas “, declared the head of Wagner, following the message of denial of the Ukrainian army.
Regarding the importance of defending Ukrainian positions in the strategic city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar stressed that the fall of Bakhmut would allow Russia to enter deep into Ukraine. .
In this regard, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the future of Ukraine will depend on the outcome of the battle in the main war fronts in eastern Ukraine, including Bakhmut.
Analysts say Bakhmut has little strategic value, but taking the city would bring Russia closer to taking control of the Donetsk region.
source: Presstv
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blaming the leaker.....
by Larry Johnson
The media obsession in vilifying Jack Texeira for “leaking” TOP SECRET and SECRET documents and judging him guilty without any benefit of doubt, is just another symptom of the authoritarian fever that grips many inhabitants of the United States. Forget the first amendment. Stay in the dark and trust the Government to tell you what you need to know. Before you join the mob eager to lynch the poor kid, let me share what some of my friends who are veterans of the CIA and the Air Force have said about this affair in the past few days.
Both men say that the story and alleged facts smell to high heaven. One longtime buddy, a veteran of the CIA, still provides consulting services to the U.S. Government and holds the same high clearances that he had prior to his retirement. He is an experienced operations officer. He has recruited foreigners to spy on behalf of the United States, managed highly classified programs and planned and executed many covert actions. In other words, he is no desk jockey.
We started working together 18 years ago in providing training support to a variety of military commands by writing and executing military exercises. All of our work was conducted in a SCIF and we had the clearances that gave us access to TOP SECRET, COMPARTMENTED INTELLIGENCE. I stopped doing that work five years ago but he has continued on.
During our 18 years of working on these highly classified exercises we have never seen a E3 (i.e., an Airman First Class) anywhere in the SCIF. The enlisted personnel who worked on these TOP SECRET exercises were at least a Staff Sergeant (E5). So what is a lowly E3 doing in a SCIF with TOP SECRET material and no supervision? That is the first red flag.
Another red flag, as I noted in my previous piece, is the partial copy of the CIA Operations Center Intelligence Report. Both of us have had access to CIA systems available on the military servers and we have never seen the CIA Ops Center report on any of those systems. Never! How did this 21 year old kid get his hands on that?
I was chatting today with another friend. He’s of more recent vintage. I discovered he is a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and that his last job with the Air Force was the inspection, certification and monitoring of Air Force SCIFs. Wow! Talk about serendipity. I asked him what he thought of the story the media is hard selling about the 21 year old with a trove of TS leaked documents? He told me, “It does not make sense.”.
He made the same points as my CIA buddy — how does a 21 year old E3 have this kind of access? My retired Colonel never saw it during his career. He told me, “At most, kids this age, might have a SECRET clearance.”
He also made the same observation that I raised in my previous piece on this incident — where the hell was this airman’s chain of command? A lowly E3 is not going to have unfettered access to a SCIF and will always have at least one senior commander (NCO or Officer) present to tell him what to do and to monitor his work.
Something is askew with the media story being presented to the World about the boy who posted the leak on the gamer chat board. The documents are not randomly selected. If the intent was to post classified information in order to impress a bunch of teenage gamers then why is the bulk of the material only about the war in Ukraine?
Finally, we are told, according to the Washington Post, that there are 300 documents. Really? Where are they? I have only been able to find roughly 18 documents. Have any of your seen the 100 pages that the media insists were posted to the web? That discrepancy alone raises another big red flag for me. Why was the Washington Post allowed to read/see 300 highly classified documents? The Post reporters do not hold security clearances. But it is okay for them to review those documents.
One of the major revelations from this leaking incident is that most of the press in the United States have rejected the fundamental mission of the media — expose truths the Government wants to hide from the public. What a volte face!! Fifty years ago the New York Times and the Washington Post led the way in defying the Nixon Adminstration’s effort to quash the publication of the highly classified Pentagon Papers. Those documents revealed that the U.S. Government, under both Republican and Democrat Presidents, lied to the American public about the war in Vietnam. And today? Those two media outlets enthusiastically helping the U.S. Government identify the leaker and smear him in the process. So much for the viability of the First Amendment.
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https://sonar21.com/the-21-year-old-leaker-something-is-not-right/
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MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:
NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)
THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.
CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954
A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.
EASY.
THE WEST KNOWS IT.
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