NamEndedAllen

https://www.ft.com/content/841a603a-791d-400e-a517-8b4c7626129a Navalny seriously ill in prison. Most likely poisoned.

Thanks Bill. And he is reported serving in the 102nd Intelligence Wing, at Otis AFB on Cape Cod. If this went on within a NORAD station, it feels even worse. Materials from DIA, NRO, CIA, NSA, etc. I’d think the TS/SCI high level required areas would have had extremely high security protocols in place. And yet…

I’m puzzling over the vetting process and clearances this Teixeira jerk would have been through. Some of you guys have various clearances. Please correct me where I’m wrong. He was recruited for the ANG out of high school in 2019. In the military, would he have immediately been vetted for TS, Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance, at its higher Levels? Basically, when he is an entry level kid? If not, wouldn’t he have gone through at least one more heavy duty investigation more recently? And if he did, and passed it after all the Snowden and other thefts and leaks, does this mean the clearance process for access to even these highly sensitive (Level 4?) materials and SCIFs is really really badly flawed? Also, how many other IT types with his same/similar duties would normally be working at the 102nd Wing? They would know each other well enough, right? I imagine investigators would have a lot of questions for him.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/ukraine-leak-teixeira-massachusetts-air-national-guard/673720/ I Oversaw the Massachusetts Air National Guard. I Cannot Fathom How This Happened. “From 2006 to 2009, as part of my duties as the homeland-security adviser to then–Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, I oversaw the state’s Air National Guard. I have no idea why one of its members would even have access to the kind of high-level secrets that recently showed up on a Discord server. Based on my experience, I am at a loss to explain why a 21-year-old member of the state intelligence wing, who does not appear to have been working in any federal capacity, would need access to the kind of materials whose release has so unnerved the Pentagon and supporters of the Ukrainian war effort. Despite Teixeira’s junior position, The Washington Post reported, he had access to the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, a computer network for top-secret Defense Department information. Investigations after the 9/11 attacks revealed a siloing of information within separate agencies and led to efforts to promote more sharing, but the Pentagon might have overcorrected. State Air National Guard units have their own intelligence capabilities; an enemy could come by air, and sometimes errant flying balloons appear over U.S. soil. But it stretches any notion of homeland defense to think a low-level state Air Guard member should have access to materials about a war that the United States is not actively fighting and that poses no domestic risk. I speak with profound admiration for the National Guard’s work. But if news reports are correct, the breadth of materials that Teixeira could view is unreasonable and unnecessary. If he took advantage of that access, that is his fault. But we are a nation that grants almost indiscriminate access to high-level intelligence, and that is our fault.”

OK, thanks! That explains one aspect of this goat rope. But it does double down on the oversight question. He was bright enough to be well hidden, in plain sight? That’s why no one noticed he had no business being in the ANG, let alone the 102nd? Or, like Hansen, no one seemed to notice clues about unhidden behaviors, etc? Or as feared, supervision of the highest level materials in such areas is so poor that today, after all the past failures, the lowest guy on the totem pole can just walk out with all the jewels.

Or he wasn’t the leak’s first link in the chain.Useful idiot?

Double post

This MA ANG squadron really needed *all* of THIS Intel? And that is happening with ALL of this trove of highest level stuff, and all available at every ANG in the USA, and therefore all the other bases everywhere? Every installation of every branch accesses essentially all facets and levels of military and related diplomatic classifications? With this same unsupervised point of failure - a guy like this? If so, as I said before, forget the illusion that *any* military secrets are…secret. They already flew the coop. Just weren’t all openly published by a nutjob.

Maybe another question to ask is, “What materials did he NOT have access to?”

“For years, U.S. counterintelligence officials have eyed gaming platforms as a magnet for spies.” -Wash Post I’ve wondered about this with regard to the wisdom of putting up really detailed well thought out proposals for the Ukrainian offensive, well-conceived by people who know what they are talking about. Probably nothing the Russians haven’t already thought of? But then, we don’t have a high degree of respect for their own abilities to wage war…

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that he is an Airman in a Air National Guard squadron, with the breadth and seemingly depth of high level documents accessed and leaked. Yes, he is in the Intelligence wing. 1.But does that mean that every similar very young person, not senior status in every Air National Guard squadron Intel have access to the amazingly wide scope of intelligence from so many sources (and methods?), and of seemingly all or a great many levels of classification? (if so, abandon all hope of keeping any important military secrets - they are already leaked, just not all posted in gaming chat rooms) 2. Or did he hack into or otherwise obtain illegal access to much of the material? Did he and all the others like him, at his level, need to know the details of the Ukrainian we plans? Of who is allegedly secretly supplying weapons to Russia? Of every nation we are spying on?

A real piece of work. “In a video seen by The Post, the man who the member said is OG stands at a shooting range, wearing safety glasses and ear coverings and holding a large rifle. He yells a series of racial and antisemitic slurs into the camera, then fires several rounds at a target. OG had a dark view of the government. The young member said he spoke of the United States, and particularly law enforcement and the intelligence community, as a sinister force that sought suppress its citizens and keep them in the dark. He ranted about “government overreach.”…“I would definitely not call him a whistleblower. I would not call OG a whistleblower in the slightest,” he said, resisting comparisons to Edward Snowden, who shared classified documents about government surveillance with journalists”.— By Shane Harris and Samuel Oakford, April 12, 2023 at 9:36 p.m. EDT, Washington Post ALSO “The man behind a massive leak of U.S. secrets was an employee on an unidentified military base who regularly ranted about “government overreach,” members of an online Discord server he controlled told The Washington Post. The man, identified only as “OG” by his fellow Discord users, was the unchallenged leader of the server…one member said. OG reportedly also seemed to harbor dark beliefs about deep-rooted government corruption, once sharing on the server a baseless conspiracy theory that the government had had advance notice of a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, but chose not to act. He also began dumping hand-typed transcripts of classified intelligence documents on the server—several a week beginning late last year, according to the Post—and “got upset” when other users didn’t interact with them to his liking. https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-leaker-og-ranted-about-government-overreach-on-discord-report-says”

Warzone reports movement on the F-16 front. Maybe. Some time. If USA ever gives approval: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-denmark-to-decide-by-summer-on-f-16s-for-kyiv “Denmark has said that, together with its allies, it will decide “before the summer” as to whether they will provide Ukraine with the fighter jets the country has long been campaigning for. During a visit today to Ukraine, Troels Lund Poulsen, Denmark’s acting defense minister, confirmed that the matter was under discussion but that the process was taking a long time due to the requirement for different countries to cooperate on any such transfer of aircraft.” “it would appear beyond doubt that an increasing number of European NATO nations are now seriously considering how they could work together to expedite the delivery of (most likely F-16) fighter jets to Ukraine. Other fighter jets have been suggested as possible candidates too, including French Mirage 2000s and Finnish F/A-18 Hornets.” “At the same time, any such collaborative program involving American-made jets would still require final approval from the U.S. government, which has so far proven resistant to such a scheme, including due to the potentially escalatory nature of such a move. “Denmark will not do it alone,” Poulsen said”

In some quarters, in some cases, each copy of some classified documents is uniquely identifiable. If two or three such unique copies are among those released, access will be immediately narrowed even further. The overlap/ Venn Diagram could be quite revealing.

However many entities these documents passed through from the original to those that crudely altered some of the entries, the materials are much broader than it originally seemed. The materials also reference highly classified sources and methods that the United States uses to collect such information, alarming U.S. national security officials who have seen them. — include highly sensitive U.S. analyses about China and other nations. — It was unclear who may have posted the materials online, this person said, adding that hundreds — if not thousands — of people had access to them. The source of the leak, the official said, “could be anyone.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/07/pentagon-leak-ukraine-documents/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert. (my bolded)

Respectfully, this misses the point. The three way “toggle” notion, pigeonholing all of us into one of three positions is not reality. The left/right categorization is simply not the actual lived experience of most people. Insisting that one or the other MUST be the only truth is poisoning societies. We all have a mixed bag of opinions and beliefs. We resent being categorized as a far right winger, or far lefty, or this or that or the other thing. Real people are not constrained to a single dot in the center or one end or the other. It’s a big spectrum! But there ARE those who align themselves with a single, narrow set of extreme ideas, assertions, & policies. They deny all other viewpoints. THAT has become more dangerous these days. Witness Russia and its statements about the nature of Ukrainians and the satanic baby-eating West etc etc. The point about the center is this. The center, the middle is the acknowledgment and acceptance that *I* can’t always be right about everything, I can’t have everything MY way. The entire idea of politics is based upon the art of compromise. Not scorched earth. With that attitude, not even the marriage of two people can survive, without into a descent into darkness. Marriages depend on both of us being willing to compromise in some matters because we are two different people. Even just two people are not going to see everything the same way. How much more must that apply to society? In nations of millions, there can be no striving for fairness, mutual respect, domestic tranquility when some insist that everyone else must be wrong. And will not be tolerated. It should be as obvious as the fact that ice cream comes in more than one flavor! In no way does this mean that there are not real problems to solve. But they will not ALL be solved by the assertions and opinions of either extreme. Good ideas come from all across the spectrum. And across the world.

Amen. That’s where the balance point is. Because no one is always right, all the time. But the extremes think they and only they are. All the time, about everything. And that turns into thinking what a great idea it would be to just get rid of everyone else. After all, they are always wrong. At best, put them in re-education camps. At worst… ‘But I don’t believe the majority of people are at the far extremes. However sometimes, just as in lots of other species, people get mesmerized by a charismatic silver-tongued dude with all the answers, and go headlong for the cliff.

This is all the proof any rational person needs showing how the USA was behind it all from the start. And further, that the USA was completely controlled by Great Britain, who masterminded everything. As they do. BTW, the article didn't include one of the secret codicils laying out the means and methods the USA used to setup the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand so it could intervene in a foreign war.

Speaking of Finland: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/finland-buys-israels-davids-sling-for-huge-air-defense-upgrade NATO’s newest member, Finland, announced Wednesday it will procure the David’s Sling medium-range air defense system from Israel. This is the first export customer for the system. The system, which fires the unique “dolphin”-nosed Stunner interceptor, is a joint venture between Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Raytheon. The Stunner interceptor, which became operational in 2017, can be used to shoot down short-range ballistic missiles, aircraft, drones, cruise missiles and large artillery rockets. It is the mid-to-long-range part of Israel’s layered air defense system, slotting in between the Iron Dome anti-rocket and artillery system and the Arrow ballistic missile defense system, with the Patriot system sitting somewhere in between. Each launcher can carry up to 12 interceptors, which are launched in a vertical orientation.

Bravo! Nominate the last sentence as the revised name of this thread.

My brother in law just died a needlessly horrible drawn out death, today. He fought for decades in a variety of ways to defend the USA. One person was directly responsible for how it went down. My sister is heartbroken, and enraged at what happened. I am in more than a foul mood. So my thoughts right now are colored in a certain way by this tragedy. Not particularly with distance, nuance and diplomacy. What happens when you are inside the box, not outside. My apologies if you don’t like them. I don’t either. Lot of talk lately about Ukraine has GOT to produce big battlefield wins, now. Trying to put myself within Ukraine’s box: 1. Your country was suddenly invaded by one of the largest monsters in the world, ravaging your cities, raping and killing civilians. That is awful. We condemn it. You will collapse in three days. 2. We are NATO. We are a hugely powerful military alliance designed to defend ourselves against that very same horrible monster. Because we all fear trying to do so alone. Like you. Too bad you aren’t in NATO. 3. There won’t be any cavalry coming to your rescue, on land, sea, or air. But good luck, we support you brave people. Here are a lot of supplies and defensive short range weapons. You go fight the monster. We’ll cheer you on. 4. OK, you have been doing a great job! Well done. Even with most of your cities and power grid regularly under missile and drone attack in the winter, thousands of casualties, and smashed into rubble cities, you are still standing! Great job! Here are some more weapons, and one with a little longer range. It works really well so you can continue to not only survive but make some progress. Not too much progress though. Might be dangerous. So, no to your other requests for planes and long range weapons. We can’t risk getting attacked by the monster.. But we will open war crimes investigations into the massacres, rapes and civilian killings and targetings. 5. Hey, you haven’t won yet! We don’t think you can win although the monster has obviously already lost. You have really fracked up his army good. By the way, our patience is growing thin and you haven’t defeated one of the world’s largest military powers yet. After a whole year. We are the richest group of countries ever on Earth. We have awesome military capabilities beyond belief. And lots of nuclear weapons. If we lose interest and get tired, you probably will have to negotiate away big chunks of your country you fought and died for. If you only achieve a stalemate against the monster. Unless you defeat that monster, real soon now. Here’s a few older tanks we made a long time ago. And a handful of rusty old Soviet/Russian jets, some don’t work though. Please don’t complain. It’s ungrateful. 6. Oh, hey. Go out there as soon as the ground is firmed up and really tear apart the monster, the monster we are definitely not wanting to get any madder at us. No pressure, but if you don’t defeat the monster right now, you are pretty much up a creek because we’re tired and have real problems here in our nice undamaged, heated homes. By the way, we are worried about you defeating the monster. What will happen to the him? He might hurt us. But don’t forget, the monster has already lost. 7. I mean, yeah, the monster just threw a few hundred thousand troops at you and you survived and all. Well, most of you. But hey, they weren’t well-trained. And we all know the monster has already lost (as far as threatening us over here in NATO - yay). So you better defeat this monster by yourself, Right now. We gave you a LOT of equipment so you should be able to do this on your own. We can’t get involved. But here are a few more old jets. Don’t work so good right now, but… 8. We just got Finland into NATO! Mostly thanks to you!). Now we are even stronger, and NATO makes sure none of us have to try to defeat the monster on our own. Like you. Because we don’t think we could. We can’t give you more powerful offensive weapons because it would have taken you all last year to learn how to use them. And then you might have defeated the monster. And we are really really worried because that might be bad. For us. You understand. So go out there NOW and defeat the monster. Or we will probably have to reduce our support for you. Like, if things get really bad for you. Not winning. We might not be there. As much. Or something. Hard to tell. But go win. Now. OK? PS. I really am pleased at how the West has helped out. I just don’t think it’s been soon enough with enough of the right stuff to end it before the political rot sets in. So I’m ventilating how it might feel. While I am grieving.

True! But that wasn’t the point or structure of the Constitution, which was built to be amended. The point was and is that citizens get to not only vote but to *be* those who are voted on - to do the governing. Not a king or queen. Not a dictator. And whoever is governing gets kicked out periodically. Then they must again earn the privilege, if they wish to govern for another term. A self-governing society of equals, where the membership -voters- has been repeatedly enlarged. Imperfect, sure. But afaik, people stream to these sorts of Democratic societies and away from those like Russia, North Korea. One of the strong points of this system has been the hard won recognition that neither the color of one’s pigmentation, nor one’s gender, nor ethnicity, nor one’s wealth is the determinant of one’s worthiness to be a citizen, to be included in “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” However painful and long that recognition has been taking,

I realize we are a bit off topic but it is related to the near ubiquitous spread of news and videos of all sorts of drones repeatedly obliterating all sorts of targets. A few days after 9/11 I was sitting at a bar in DC after a grueling day of board meetings with my CEO, of a large national broadcast network. Soaking up dry martinis as was our wont after these things. Except this time it was all about “When and where is the next one?” He had overseen operations in Munich and Prague, and earlier, in Moscow. He said, “Backpack. Medium-sized city, maybe in the Midwest. No one suspecting it. Then another one…” Well, he was wrong. Not even sure the Boston Marathon counts. But his point was that things were coming that we could not predict or defend against. We owe a lot to the men and women who work their tails off every day every week every month every year to prevent hostile foreign powers doing this. Unfortunately, we excel at doing it to ourselves, and indeed have not been able to defend ourselves. So today, he might say, “Commercial drone. Small or medium-sized city, weekend Farmers’ Market or other outdoor gathering. Then another one nearby, at a Courthouse or FBI building.” I sincerely hope he would be wrong.

This is so well expressed. I’d like to add one more thing implied but often left unsaid. Russia clearly did not have either Britain’s, the EU’s, or the USA’s best interests in mind. In politics *these* days this is a hard fact for sone to swallow, despite how obvious it is. But debates like Brexit, or the vexing cultural debates in the USA are quite complex. They contain numerous separate issues and questions. When we uncover, or refuse to see, or discover later that a hostile foreign power is striving to push the decision in one direction, to cast doubt on the entire process…that too needs to be included when weighing the pros and cons.

Yeah. And earlier, the OP of previous OP, or was it the OP before that was asking how long before every day non-state terrorists or heck: disgruntled domestic extremists pick up on proven techniques for the repurposed small commercial drones in Ukraine, and try them out instead of AR-15s and trucks driven into crowds? It’s off topic, but I have a bad feeling…