It's not just a case of believing what the CIA say, they and other independent cyber security teams who have also investigated this, have also presented evidence to back up their investigations to show why they think this. There are also other cases of known proven Russian hacking. Assange has provided nothing. So let's not pretend this is a symmetric case of word versus word.
I would not consider him CIA material, let's say. :)
Yeah, I remember that: even with the bold and explicit lies put forward by the White House and political leadership at DoD, particularly, and some other agencies, the actual releases from the intelligence agencies were quite guarded and reserved.
The intelligence community is in the business of lying to it's targets, sure, but also of protecting it's credibility to decision makers, both within the executive branch and outside of it, including even the American public. The political leadership, OTOH, is often more shortsighted.
The CIA spied on the Senate, the director lied to them about it, and nothing happened.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/31/cia-di...
The CIA would be no good to anyone if they were in the business of lying.
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/press20051201.ht...
This is exactly what I said.
> Hanyok further argues that Agency officials had "mishandled" SIGINT concerning the events of August 4 and provided top level officials with "skewed" intelligence supporting claims of an August 4 attack. "The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack occurred." Key pieces of evidence are missing from the Agency's archives, such as the original decrypted Vietnamese text of a document that played an important role in the White House's case. Hanyok has not found a "smoking gun" to demonstrate a cover-up but believes that the evidence suggests "an active effort to make SIGINT fit the claim of what happened during the evening of 4 August in the Gulf of Tonkin." Senior officials at the Agency, the Pentagon, and the White House were none the wiser about the gaps in the intelligence. Hanyok's conclusions have sparked controversy among old Agency hands but his research confirms the insight of journalist I.F. Stone, who questioned the second attack only weeks after the events. Hanyok's article is part of a larger study on the National Security Agency and the Vietnam War, "Spartans in Darkness," which is the subject of a pending FOIA request by the National Security Archive.
To figure out who the liars are we need to know who engaged in a cover-up. Who manipulated, withheld information, or lied. You already know my opinion: I don't think it was the NSA.
For example "The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack occurred" suggests that the NSA's information was, in fact, good. It just was ignored, manipulated, omitted, etc.
I don't find that you mention NSA ITT before my comment. Parent comment did mention them, and your response was the off-topic (for Tonkin, anyway) "CIA doesn't lie!"
Neither supposed "attack" occurred! NSA reports were used to claim that they did occur! You don't think NSA has and is currently withholding information? Why don't you read what you pasted above? "Key pieces of evidence are missing"? If only the TLAs had the technology to preserve the information they gather... this is not credible.
Even if NSA reports had said "there was definitely no Vietnamese attack", those reports were used by the executive branch to ramp up the war. The authors of those reports, and every superior of those authors up the chain to the president, would have had a duty to contradict the false claims. Of course this is fantasy. NSA doesn't oppose war, and its reports reflect this.
I think the lying occurs higher up in the command structure where some intelligence is omitted from consideration because it doesn't fit the narrative the higher-ups are pursuing. I suppose there's a question here about who, exactly, is involved in this process of filtering out inconvenient information. Are those people part of the intelligence agency or not? This is a tricky question but, even if they are part of the intelligence agency, the pressure to omit comes from the executive branch. The NSA/CIA/etc aren't pursuing a pro-War policy...the executive branch is.
For example, imagine someone in the CIA is asked to provide a report about the likelihood of Iraq having radioactive material that could be weaponized. This person performs diligent research and produces, to the best of their abilities, a factual report. The executive branch presents this report as a "slam dunk" which shows that Iraq has radioactive material. Who lied?
Toward the end of your post, you blur the distinction between "lying" and "having a duty to contradict false claims". I'm only talking about lying although I agree that people do have an imperfect duty to contradict false claims.
In every press conference announcing some fresh horrific stupid war, there are spooks present and they do receive direct questions. It would be better for humanity if they didn't lie when answering.
Claims that CIA aren't pro-war and must be corrupted by evil presidents are pure fantasy. CIA have fought wars, by themselves, without telling the president. [0]
[EDIT:] If you've reached the point that you're imagining that honest secret reports are overruled by the public statements and actions of dishonest elected officials, could you accept that the whole idea of government secrecy is mistaken? Why not have these conversations in the open? Surely we'd make better decisions?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Personally I'm pro-regime change, especially in Cold War Latin America, but that doesn't change anything.
Why does the military industrial complex together with intelligence agencies fabricate lies to keep us embroiled forever in these evil endless wars? Every time we try and pull out there's a new BS story from these groups that everyone laps up: "Bounties on US soldiers! War is good! War is peace! War forever!"
The CIA is entrusted with protecting US interests, much like every other intelligence service in the world. They do a range of things, much of them boring. It's government.
They have outlets to disseminate disinformation just like Russia does. We're just arguing about where and how it's happening.
I think this is increasingly protecting the interest of the super rich (those with vested interests in large corps). Not "the people".
I'm not claiming other govts are better. Just saying they've shown they cannot be trusted.
I agree with you but I think using terms like this can hurt credibility.
As I understand it the DoD is just the department these agencies fall under (unless it's the DHS). The actual agencies you've just about covered, surely? CIA, NSA, ICE being the most problematic, then FBI and, what else?
I mean yea they suck but I don't think it's necessarily a hydra.
> "The committee found no reason to dispute the intelligence community’s conclusions," Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the panel, said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-report-affirms-u-s-intel...
Trump lies like he breathes, but that doesn't mean we have to believe obvious fantasy that obviously supports the continued stupid wars of the military-industrial complex. In general, the most likely possibility is that both the president and the TLAs are lying.
Also recent reports indicate that their is no evidence to support that story:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/u-s-comma...
Saddam's non-existent WMDs? Reported by the CIA under an presidential administration that was clutching for any reason to go to war with Iraq.
Gulf of Tonkin? Again, the CIA reporting on something that buttressed the case for war. Again, aligned with the then-presdential administration's desire to escalate things in Vietnam.
The DNC hack is reported by the CIA to be Russia. The current presidential administration has full-throated in their bias toward Russia and against any supposed pro-Trump Russian interference in the 2016 election. And the CIA still says a highly-damaging (to the Democrats' electoral chances) email dump was orchestrated by Russia.
One of these things isn't like the other.
President Obama signed off the operation, however it was a CIA creation & execution, with the help of Arab intelligence.
CIA does way more than lying and propaganda. They create wars too.
No one is saying they don't create wars. Look into the School of Americas for all the death and destruction the CIA caused in Latin and South America. The CIA was also first on the ground in both Afghanistan and Iraq post-9/11. But that's not what we're talking about here.
We're talking about a CIA report on a subject of importance to the president. The CIA isn't going to release that report without sign-off from the top brass, all of whom serve at the pleasure of the president.
The CIA trying to overthrow Assad is good though, the humanitarian disaster is his fault, and Putin's.
None of it is "propaganda".
> They can and they have. Let's not pretend we live in fantasy land.
He didn't say they're incapable of lying to Congress, just that it's illegal for them to lie Congress. By the GP's statement, if they lied then they also broke the law.
Not this claim, but a recent example of the CIA lying to Congress with impunity.