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Comment by aero-glide | Hacker News Reader

One could argue these institutions aren't "trustworthy". Myself, I really don't know where the truth lies. For example, WMDs in Iraq were also by institutions. They may have their own agenda (weather justified or not).

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Bush was unwilling to trust the U.N. inspectors. The CIA had also thought that there were no weapons. Bush took this as evidence that Saddam was hiding weapons. Literally, on 9/12, Paul Wolfowitz asked for intelligence that Saddam had WMD and there wasn't any. With so much pressure from the top to find evidence for WMD, the CIA started to cave.

(Saddam had incentive to pretend he had WMD. He certainly didn't want Iran to know he didn't. He obviously didn't want inspectors inside his government buildings. But Bush and his team used Saddam's behavior as evidence he was hiding WMD, rather than the fact that he was hiding the lack of WMD.)

Once the CIA realized that war was inevitable, it went into cover-your-ass-mode and said Saddam might have chemical weapons so that US soldiers wouldn't go into Iraq with insufficient protection in-case there were chemical weapons after all.

Bush was unwilling to listen to counter-naratives. If Condi Rice or, more likely, Colin Powell had been willing to say "I don't think war is such a good idea" maybe it wouldn't have happened. But Bush surrounded himself with yes men. If Powell hadn't supported the war, likely he and his entire staff would have had to resign. If that had happened, Bush would have lost Tony Blair's support and with that, any international support. Bush probably would have at least thought twice about going to Iraq alone.

So in this case, it wasn't so much that the institutions weren't trustworthy, it's that they fell in line with pressure that started from Bush. It doesn't do any good to have experts at your disposal if you're not going to listen to any of them.

Source: Robert Draper's exhaustively researched book on how Iraq happened:

https://www.amazon.com/Start-War-Bush-Administration-America...

Interview with the author:

https://www.vox.com/2020/9/2/21417224/why-did-america-invade...

(Also, the U.S. media didn't do its job. The cynical side of me says there's money to be made in covering war. But probably, it was just incompetence. I still haven't forgiven the NYT though.)

> So in this case, it wasn't so much that the institutions weren't trustworthy, it's that they fell in line with pressure that started from Bush.

How does falling into line with pressure that started from Bush make them trustworthy? That is exactly the kind of failure which makes them untrustworthy.

It depends on which institutions and what you trust them to do. Talking about the intelligence institutions, the CIA and the UN weapons inspectors, those institutions provided correct information that Bush chose to ignore.

So were the intelligence institutions trustworthy to provide good information? Yes.

Bush did an end-run around them.

Were they able to stop the U.S. from going to war? No. But that was Congress’s (and maybe the US media’s) job and certainly _those_ institutions failed.

It's real hard to argue that the bulk of US Intelligence services got this wrong especially as more time passes. For example, compare it to the Iraq WMD claims that were critical in swaying opinion (or validating a vote) but were shown to be misleading at best as reports surfaced. We have had a ton of whistleblowers and reports within the current administration that suggest that the intelligence services are solid, especially at the start of the current presidential term, wile it is the leadership itself with a long list of lies and false claims meant to sow discord and division. The FBI has been calling out white nationalism for decades but only recently are we seeing militias march into state capitols or take over government buildings by force, or police unions defend cops with words like "Get F*," on their rifle.

I'm sticking with the 007 analysis that UK intel is golden and the US contact is about as cowboy as a spy can get but won't stand injustice.

Assange's denials about Russia's involvement aren't credible on its face. The question is whether Russia hacked the DNC emails that Assange published. Assange fundamentally has no knowledge of the origin of the emails as the final stop in potentially multi-person hand off. The only way he could know Russia didn't hack the emails was if he was standing over the shoulder of the person who did. It is like a Tor exit node claiming to know the origin of a communication. It fundamentally is unable to determine that information without a side channel, which in this case would indicate collusion with the hackers.

You're missing the other obvious answer: he got the emails from someone directly at the DNC who wouldn't need a hacker. Assange has mentioned and discuss Seth Rich multiple times with the implication that he's somehow tied to work at Wikileaks. Even if it wasn't Seth, there are a lot of people who could have given him those emails other than hackers.

The thing is, we know the DNC was hacked. We know that Podesta was a victim of spear phishing. The timing of the attack also lines up with the release of emails. While the possibility is non-zero that an insider gave Assange the emails, it requires far too many unexplained coincidences to be believable.

Can we really imagine that only Russian spies could have sent this email? [0] There is nothing personal in it other than his name, "John". I'm not sure this even deserves the adjective "spear"... Podesta's emails are evidence of DNC rigging the primary against Bernie, but they are not evidence of Russian hacking.

[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-phishing-email-that-hacked-...

You seem to be confused about what this thread was discussing. The question was whether Assange received the emails from an insider or a third party. Who actually did the phising is a separate concern.

That said, considering the context of the election, Trumps close ties with Russia and Russian agents, and the broad and multifaceted attempts at hacking the election attributed to Russia (disinformation farms, hacking state election networks), it is very likely that Russia was also behind the DNC hack. These weak attempts at casting doubt on Russia's involvement are transparent.

You, directly above: We know that Podesta was a victim of spear phishing.

You, directly above that: Assange's denials about Russia's involvement aren't credible on its face.

Yeah, I'm confused. This is all beside the point. It is lawful to publish true information about candidates that is of interest to the public.

It turns out you need context to understand the meaning of words. If you keep reading, you will see the rest of that context. I wasn't saying "it is obviously false that Russia didn't hack the DNC", I was saying that "Assange cannot claim to know Russia didn't hack the DNC [unless he was involved directly]". See the difference?

As of 19:23 UTC, the poster's profile's 'About' section only lists: " "obvious troll" ".

19:23?!? Oh shit, dude, you caught me! I had so meant to change that sometime in the last three years! After all, HN people can't be expected to understand a joke in any context!

> it is very likely that Russia was also behind the DNC hack.

Actually it's an established fact. They were being watched live on their computers and security cameras as they were doing the hacking.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/dutch...

I remembered that from years ago, but couldn't remember where I saw it. Thanks.

Imaging burning a source so valuable for the sake of the U.S., only to have us elect Trump anyways and four years later pretend like its still an open question whether Russia was involved.

The data collected by AIVD began to pay off in November of 2014, when the agency alerted US intelligence officials that the Cozy Bear group had obtained login credentials and email from US State Department employees. enabling the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and the State Department to shut down the attack within 24 hours.

Is there some connection between State Dept in 2014 and DNC in 2016?

Please re-read the historical record, key-words: "Stove pipe." The institutional read (NEI) was no WMD. International inspectors said no WMD. Cheney wanted another answer and got what he wanted by subverting the institutions.

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