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h2odragon

> MR PRICE: It is intelligence information that we have declassified.

> QUESTION: Well, where is it? Where is the declassified information?

> MR PRICE: I just delivered it.

Epic exchange.

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The reporters are asking tough (but correct) questions. The government is also doing its diligence to protect sources and methods. The thing to remember, though, the point of releasing this information is probably to prevent Russia from using this method. It would be pretty ironic if the US government releases this information.. and then a few days later such a video is released. Time will tell.

No. The government is saying “believe us” with no supporting or corroborating evidence. None.

On the other hand Ukraine itself is saying it’s not a crisis…

>On the other hand Ukraine itself is saying it’s not a crisis

This is such a dishonest take.

The Ukrainian government is downplaying the Russian threat because it doesn't want its tax paying population to flee to Western Europe.

Our devs in Ukraine are expecting war soon and are looking into relocating with their families.

Your Devs in Ukraine may be expecting the US to pull another Iraq situation where there is no American interest that rises to the level of sending in the US military.

The government doesn't really care that the press believe them, at this point. If Russia proceeds with the plan they will provide all the corroborating evidence that is needed. If it doesn't, they got what they wanted.

Exactly. It's not like this is the state department saying "We have proof, and are therefore going to invade a sovereign nation." (As previously)

It's, we have proof of this thing, so we're announcing it because that's possibly a good in and of itself.

And the concrete actions we're taking are deploying some troops to NATO countries that want to host them and sending weapons to Ukraine. Neither of these seem like unreasonable actions, considering the numerical disparity between local Russian units and NATO ones.

Otoh, if people don't trust the government, why would they trust any evidence they can present? Chances are it would be the sort of evidence that's very hard to fact-check unless you happen to be running an intelligence service of your own.

So in the end they'd still be saying "believe us." And those who don't can call it unverifiable fake evidence.

What did you expect him to say?

"Sure, here is a high resolution video allowing everyone to figure out the locations of your spy cameras, and btw we got the hint from Ivan Snitchovsky, a double agent aged 35, he lives here and this is a picture of him. Oops, he's probably dead by now and a valuable source of intelligence is gone!"

Maybe they shouldn’t have pulled all the stops on the “yellovske” from Niger for Saddam nonsense and they’d have credibility.

I mean goddam it the gov of Ukraine is saying hold up, we don’t see the same alarm you do.

> Maybe they shouldn’t have pulled all the stops on the “yellovske” from Niger for Saddam nonsense and they’d have credibility.

That was two decades ago and totally different people and political party. Be skeptical, but don't just be blindly anti.

> I mean goddam it the gov of Ukraine is saying hold up, we don’t see the same alarm you do.

Odds are pretty good that they see it the same way, they just don't want their economy to crater while waiting.

> “believe us” with no supporting or corroborating evidence

There's reason to be skeptic but it's also extremely naive to think evidence of that nature can just be handed as proofs without blowing multiple sources

"No supporting evidence" oh I'm sure there's plenty of circumstantial evidence (like the satellite photos). Putin knows how to play the game of plausible deniability together with plausible aggressiveness.

"Oh but Iraq", we should definitely remember about it. It doesn't help that Saddam played himself. No kidding, he's like a person acting like he's shoplifting something but in the end isn't. Except you just don't get told off at the store door, you get invaded and overthrown.

Ukraine has been invaded by Russia and lost land for years now. This isn't a conspiracy theory, but is instead conspiracy fact.

The strategy of appeasement is known to fail because it emboldens dictators like Hitler or Putin to always want and take more.

Putin already has taken a large chunk of Ukraine and Georgia with invasions that launched during a prior olympic event.

He needs to be stopped so that Ukraine doesn't end up getting another Russian imposed genocide and the world doesnt't end up in WW3.

> Georgia with invasions that launched during a prior olympic event

At least in case of Georgia, this is incorrect. The "invasion" was initiated by Georgian advance on Tskhinvali, and as a final result of this "invasion", no territorial changes have occurred, and the Russian troops haven't moved anywhere they haven't been for centuries already (including all the way up to 2008). If the goal was to invade Georgia, how come when it was all done nobody moved even a mile closer to Tbilisi, and even that clown fool Saakashvili was allowed to continue to embarrass himself in the same role?

What, exactly, was the goal, and the result of this "invasion"?

Here's the video. Definitely worth watching:

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1489336004637044746

The whole thing is an incredible read. The evidence is that we said it, so you don’t need evidence.

The government person doesn't characterize it as evidence, only information.

So they are sharing the information vs sharing the evidence. Which isn't very satisfying, but it is at least coherent.

The speaker probably could have articulated it a little better and not played so coy about the line of questioning.

It’s a fair point. They were sort of talking past each other about information and evidence.

What definitions of evidence and information are you using?

I am referring to the specific words in the transcript that they were using as they talked past each other, not trying to (re)define anything. The member of the press seemed to be under the impression that information should be associated with evidence, while the speaker did not.

Surely any evidence enough to satisfy the reporter would be enough to locate the source of the leak?

What would you do if you were the US government? They're trying to stop a war.

they are trying to start a war: even their ukranian marionettes had to ask them to stop doing that.

There is no war to be stopped, only falling ratings of Biden and Johnson.

There does not have to be any specific evidence of the plot itself. It would be enough to show the necessary military buildup, but apparently the current Russian deployments near Ukraine are not enough and not in the configuration for attack. US government has a track record of lying about international affairs. It’s time to stop listening them.

In fairness, if the actual data (classified) or information (classified) can be merged with context known only by the adversary, the disclosure of such data jeopardizes sources and methods (https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column_article/why-protecting...), giving the adversary an opportunity to either detect sources or alter their own methods to avoid further disclosure. That's why what you're seeing disclosed is essentially only the knowledge.

tl;dr: disclosing data could tell the adversary how we found out, leading to changes by the adversary or deaths of spies crucial to how we learned what we learned.

Doesn’t that sort of make it a noop though? I.e., its just a claim for which they can provide no evidence, and anyone can (and do) make those all the time and it’s just how politics works.

I can only imagine how hard it must be to protect sources, but the end state must eventually be to provide evidence or there is no way to tell the difference between an intelligence service and a method for manufacturing unsubstantiated claims at the convenience of whoever operates the agency. Maybe I’m being naive.

>> Doesn’t that sort of make it a noop though?

No. By revealing a likely course of action, it can prevent them from taking that course of action.

For example, if I plan to cheat at a card game by keeping extra cards in my shirt sleeve and another player at the table says: "He cheats. I hear he keeps cards in his sleeves." Then it will much harder, perhaps impossible for me to cheat that way because everyone will be watching my sleeves and my movements carefully.

Yup, and it's also the kind of thing they can really only do preemptively. If you tried to talk about the "crisis actors" scenario after the supposed attack has happened and video is released, you'd literally end up sounding like Alex Jones.

Alex Jones actually said they would likely use crisis actors before the shooting happened where he said it actually happened. That doesn’t make him correct or more credible. It just means he didn’t have any evidence either before or after.

At some point presumably you have to provide evidence. If you never can, that’s when you sound like Alex Jones.

If I don’t need evidence, though, I can just say you are a cheat (and worse, since I don’t need any evidence) anyway and then if you beat me whip up a mob to run you out of town. Politicians do this sort of thing to each other all the time.

I don’t mean noop in the sense that nothing can happen as a result, so it was probably a bad choice of a word, but that it just doesn’t provide any info. Maybe you’re telling the truth, maybe you’re lying for your own reasons, I have no way to know and so what can I do with the info?

I see the point you’re making too, though, and it makes sense.

In your analogy, you are forgetting that the US Intelligence community is the boy who cried wolf, so nobody will believe you even if he does have a card up his sleeve.

How do you imagine this going down otherwise? Do you want them to declassify the name of the source, or just the department where he works?

If you're going to declassify something, I would expect at least a document on official letter head, with any level of restricted clearance being crossed out and a declassified stamp over top. Then to give substance, they would need to add the title of this hn post "Russia to use crisis actors to stage a flag annd start was in days" as the content of that document.

In essence it’s the same. You just seem to respect written documents more.

So does the Associated Press it seems, as per the exchange during the press conference.

But yes, I would probably want some form of intelligence briefing being declassified in paper form before pointing the finger at a nuclear adversary. That ol' extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence thing.

Or do you think that some spy in Russia, telephoned a guy in the pentagon, that telephoned a guy in the whitehouse, that setup a press conference and then telephoned a guy to brief him about something he should say, that may or may not help to provoke a war?

Seems a bit far fetched.

No, the reporter explicity said, "It's not the format, it's the content." They were looking for evidence, they didn't care whether it was written or not.

Why did you bring up HN post title? It's not in the briefing, seems to be OP's (quite exaggerated) summary. Price's words: "We don’t know if Russia will necessarily use this or another option in the coming days."

Ok from the first paragraph of the press briefing then, I would expect a document with at least the following:

>Russia is planning to stage fabricated attacks by Ukrainian military or intelligence forces as a pretext for a further invasion of Ukraine.

Sounded like the guy had just heard so much stuff he considered pure bullshit, that he just ran out of suspension of disbelief.

As far as really important stuff (perhaps this isn't a good example?), they could actually just reveal everything, after all having an informed public seems pretty important in a democratic society. Does that ever happen? Get all the secret agents out and just blow the lid? It would have to be going-to-war level stuff though.

I liked this as well.

> MR PRICE: Matt, there’s a second point. This is derived from intelligence, intelligence in which we have confidence —

> QUESTION: Well —

> MR PRICE: — in which we have confidence, otherwise —

> QUESTION: The same confidence you had in WMD in Iraq? I mean, what —

> MR PRICE: Otherwise – otherwise – otherwise we would not be making it public in the way we are. But here’s the other point: Intelligence and evidence, these are two separate things. It is no —

What does he mean, “Intelligence and evidence are two separate things”? Is he saying that claims and evidence are different things?

To me it looks like it is the way to shift responsibility from intelligence community to a political figure. If intelligence community presents some evidence, they bear responsibility if that evidence is wrong. If they have only some intelligence, they are not 100% sure and Administration must take responsibility for any actions based on it. When Administration says they have confidence, they basically say, ok, we think that this data is correct and we take political responsibility for believing in it. Whether I’m right or not, I do not know for sure. But look at WMD „evidence“ presented by Colin Powell, and it starts looking the same.

Russia and Putin have a recent history of using false-flag attacks. The 1999 Russian apartment bombings are universally considered false-flag attacks by Russian journalists and historians who are not on the Kremlin payroll.

Reminds me of this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DZA4J1f_NFw

Reminded me of this as well: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM, with the back and forth talking past each other.

What did you expect him to say?

Something a bit different from what Powell did at the UN in 2003? "Trust us" is the biggest bullshit the national security apparatus has pulled on the US population and frankly it's disgusting there hasn't been a single law to outlaw bullshit "declassified" press conferences without a single piece of evidence. 19 years later there's people defending vague ideas like "we can't show you or they'll know!!!!1". No, you have such evidence, you take your agent out and you publish it in order for the world to know and to drive Russia away from doing it. Spouting things with no evidence is the real false flag campaign.

Isn’t this the packaging that as used as an excuse to invade Iraq?

Unfortunately for them, their previous lies have caught up to them so we will need more believable sources than “because we said so”.

>Unfortunately for them, their previous lies have caught up to them so ...

The sad thing is that they dont need anything. The USA is going to go pick up a fight with Russia, exercise their war muscle to both reactivate that side of the economy and the sense of nationalism that the government needs from its citizens and which has been slowly eroding in the last 20 years or so.

Wag the dog indeed.

Please don't spam like this, you just gotta pick a thread to reply to and stick with it.

Is there really nothing between "just trust us" and betraying sources/methods?

Trust The Government™

Last time at least they showed some white powder.

My hunch is Ukraine is preparing to launch an offensive against the rebels (low intensity fights have been since the separation) and Russia will step in whatsoever. I don't expect Russian to launch a full scale offensive because it just doesn't make sense.

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