Ministry of Truth?

[Dill]

(05-15-2022, 03:31 PM)StrictlyBiz Wrote: I don't agree with his claim that "probably" means that they have no proof. 
But I also don't like that my CIA is using the word "probably" in an assessment of something as important as a Russian investigation. It leaves a gray area where there shouldn't be.
Both can be true. 

You also left out sanctions and the pipeline. Why focus only on 1/3 of the evidence? Kyle is dead right in that assessment. It defies the logic that Trump is a Putin puppet. It always has. If you still actually (or ever) believe(d) that Trump is a Putin puppet, then I have no words. It only ever made sense to those with a deep, unhealthy, and irrational hatred of him. 

LOL, you put a lot on my plate yesterday, Biz, but I thank you for hanging in there. Don't know if I can get to all of it. Again, my general goal is to keep our focus on primary documents and factual records, and then what can be legitimately inferred from that. 

My response to your first Kulinski "report" should have raised a lot of red flags about that guy. E.G. why would a "progressive" rush to trust, of all people, a Barr summary of a report detailing Trump's illegal actions?  
 
Now moving to the second, I'll respond to the above with two posts, this one addressing the bolded.
 
If a reporter from the National Enquirer asserts that Trump "probably" paid Jewish moon lizards to control the weather on his golf days, and the reporter won't show us his evidence, then we have a right to dismiss the whole account, even if he appeals to his "expertise" as a journalist.
 
But intel assessments are rather different: they proceed in stages involving scientific as well as interpretive standards, and collective reviews by professionals comprised of both parties and independents. 
 
By "stages" I mean types of intel (sigint, geoint, humint, etc.) are collected by one group of people trying to get the basic facts right, and their work is then passed on to another group which "fits" it with already existing intel across types to look for connections and patterns (e.g., 17 different officials from a presidential campaign speaking to Russian spies). "Interpretation" is scrupulously avoided until the final stage by people separate from the previous stages, who may working with analysts from other depts. (Coast Guard, CIA, Army, Treasury) who will create a "product" for policy makers (e.g., the PDB), which may include predictions (e.g., likely Russian troop levels in Belarus one month from now) and will include an assessment of the product's reliability in terms of various levels of CONFIDENCE. Everyone in the profession knows even the highest levels of confidence are still "grey" (to use your term); they are discerning the picture on a jigsaw puzzle with 10, 25, or maybe 60 percent of the pieces. Never 100. And yet, there are times when we need to act, and so have to go with the imperfect picture we have. Ike couldn’t hold up DDay because the Allies were still in the dark about German troop movements near St. Lo.
 
The interpretation at this stage is not political, but simply synthesis and summary--NO POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS WHAT SO EVER. That is solely the province of the client. 
 
"Professionals" here means they are at every stage trained to focus on accuracy, producing the best factual product, regardless of which party their product might help or harm A "rogue" agent at the first three levels who text messages a friend about what a douche Biden is can hardly influence the data even if he urgently wants to.  So this intel is a very different sort of product from a report by two journalists, reviewed by one or two editors (one of whom may be heavily weighing the profit motive), occasionally in consultation with experts. "Spin" generally begins with the policy maker, who shapes what goes to the news. Or, as in the Bush WH, leavens it with "unprofessional" intel, and then presents the mixture as a professional product.
 
Once the product, or part of it, is out in the public, and people ask about sources, they may only be partially or not at all satisfied, and for good reason. Analysts don't want sources and methods revealed. That's why it was such an international scandal (among our allies' intel agencies) when Trump invited the Russian foreign minister to the White House, parading him around unsupervised, and dropping bits of classified intel. Since our own “fake news” was not invited, this event was reported in Russian state news, which revealed Trump name dropping Israeli sources to impress his guests, and risked one of their asset's life in Syria while negatively affecting trust between our services and that of ALL our allies. (But it is VERY HARD to withhold evidence from someone legally entitled to ALL of it, no matter how highly classified, and hard to control what he does with it.) 
 
So someone like your source Kyle, who treats intel assessments the same way we treat NE reporters, either knows nothing of this process or does but is knowingly distorting it so people who don't know will buy the conclusions he wants them to. 

Next post I want to examine the alleged claim that Trump was a “Putin puppet,” and consider why it is at least NOT far-fetched  to suppose Putin preferred him over all other presidential candidates, Republican or Democrat, and delighted in his performance.