{"id":22381,"date":"2016-12-31T12:42:03","date_gmt":"2016-12-31T17:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=22381"},"modified":"2016-12-31T12:42:03","modified_gmt":"2016-12-31T17:42:03","slug":"like-iraq-wmd-fiasco-russia-story-doesnt-add-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=22381","title":{"rendered":"Like Iraq WMD Fiasco, Russia Story Doesn\u2019t Add Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Like Iraq WMD Fiasco, Russia Story Doesn\u2019t Add\u00a0Up<\/a><\/h3>\n

Yesterday, President\u00a0Obama expelled 35 Russian \u201cOperatives\u201d from the Russian Embassy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

\n
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Is there any evidence those expelled are \u201cintelligence operatives\u201d? Any hard evidence Russia was behind the Hillary hacks? Any credible evidence that Putin himself is to blame?<\/p>\n

The answers are No, No, and No. Yet, once again the American press is again asked to co-sign a dubious intelligence assessment.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Rush to Judgment<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"rush-to-judgment\"<\/a>
\n
\nSomething Stinks<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Rolling Stone comments\u00a0Something About This Russia Story Stinks<\/a><\/p>\n

In an extraordinary development Thursday, the Obama administration announced a series of sanctions against Russia. Thirty-five Russian nationals will be expelled from the country. President Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up.<\/p>\n

If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices in both parties are saying this now.<\/p>\n

Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0the \u201csmall price\u201d Russia paid for its \u201cbrazen attack.\u201d The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, said Thursday that taken alone, the Obama response is \u201cinsufficient<\/a>\u201d as a response to \u201cattacks on the United States by a foreign power.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like Iraq WMD Fiasco, Russia Story Doesn\u2019t Add\u00a0Up Yesterday, President\u00a0Obama expelled 35 Russian \u201cOperatives\u201d from the Russian Embassy. Is there any evidence those expelled are \u201cintelligence operatives\u201d? Any hard evidence Russia was behind the Hillary hacks? Any credible evidence that Putin himself is to blame? The answers are No, No, and No. Yet, once again […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4884,2148,442,14640,2847,694,827,3236],"class_list":["post-22381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-cyberwarfare","tag-hacking","tag-iraq","tag-mish-shedlock","tag-obama-administration","tag-russia","tag-united-states","tag-wmds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22382,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22381\/revisions\/22382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}