dagblog - Comments for "Bellingcat funded by US and UK intelligence contractors that aided extremists in Syria"

"Connecting the dots

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 02:45:00 +0000

In reply to You have again made clear in

"Connecting the dots presented by the Greyzone reporting in this instance paints a clear picture and makes a strong case, as others also have done, that Bellingcat is a willing and enthusiastic tool of U.S. and British propaganda. - cough, bullshit. I noted, someone taking a State Department diplomatic course doesn't make them an eternal tool of the US government. Someone serving in the British government doesn't make them a tool of the British government. And you can have lifelong bias having gone to school on a liberal campus cheering Sandinstas over US imperialism without ever being paid. Much of your sources' arguments are "shoot the messenger". Did the Russians sabotage munitions facilities in Bulgaria and Czech? Your source doesn't care because they don't like the source of some of the money for Bellingcat's reporters. So they can write that the Skripals were "allegedly" poisoned rather than "the Russians poisoned the Skripals" and feel somehow justified passing on Russian propaganda, so we can debate alternate theories on who shot down a Malaysian airline for years until people forget that a Russian-supplied group of Ukrainian separatists fucked up and killed a couple hundred innocent civilians in a plane. It's a grand game of "who moved my cheese?" that feeds your eternal outrage at the US government and your eternal excusing of any atrocious Russian behavior. Does Putin assassinate journalists and sabotage governments? Outside his bubble of alternate reality and unlikely excuses the answer is "yes". But inside the bubble, naive people can't figure out that Assange obviously started working for Russian interests using Russian money/resources *years* ago, and a presidential candidate trying for years to build a tower in Moscow is a much bigger tell than taking a cert course at the State Department or doing a USAID project.

Note: i re-sourced your Donziger report with all reporting that largely agrees with your source's points, but doesnt come across sounding all unhinged and yes, biased. Of course you can't really report on oil company involvement in 3rd world countries without being biased one way or the other, or being in double-biased confliction. So we have to accept there will be bias wherever, and look for key data and facts and compelling arguments to get us past these biases. Still, you probably don't like that i agreed with you nor that i disliked your source.

You have again made clear in

A Guy Called LULU — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 02:02:23 +0000

In reply to USAID is an int lligence

You have again made clear in your response that I probably do indeed “hang around” online with at least one idiot who probably does drool when he quits frothing. Your unsupported insult to the article, which makes it obvious that you want everything about it to be disregarded without any consideration, begs a lot of questions. The report I posted from an independent site which actually does not get attitude influencing financial support from government sources uses the very same method to make its case that Bellingcat does to make its various cases. It is a legitimate but not infallible method of gathering data which can be used legitimately or otherwise as evidence to create a picture of what is going on or has gone on in the past. Bellingcat is good at what it does but there is good reason to believe that what it does in fact do, does not include even intending to give a complete, and certainly not an unbiased, account of events that it reports on. Evidence supporting that assertion is based on the same kind of connect-the-dots-from-publicly-available-data method that Bellincat itself uses. Connecting the dots presented by the Greyzone reporting in this instance paints a clear picture and makes a strong case, as others also have done, that Bellingcat is a willing and enthusiastic tool of U.S. and British propaganda. That does not mean that everything Bellingcat reports is wrong, that is not the nature of effective propaganda. Being always ‘honest’ to its own subjects is not the nature of any government. Is there anyone reading this that does not understand that entities of the U.S. government and various other powerful interests do in fact engage in a great deal of propagandizing and that a great deal of their propaganda is aimed at the people of the U.S. While I do believe that there are people in every field working honestly and with integrity, does anyone doubt that when money and/or an exalted position are offered for any purpose regardless of that purpose's merit or effect, it will find some taker happy to hire on to carry out that purpose?

I don’t want to be too dramatic, but we love this,” said Marc Polymeropolous, the CIA’s former deputy chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia referring to Bellingcat’s reporting/propaganda.

To the extent that propaganda is used in ways that justify the negative connotation of the word, I like to see it exposed for what it is, or at least to have the evidence given a fair hearing.

Russia's Nobel media revenge

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 11:08:00 +0000

In reply to USAID is an int lligence

Russia's Nobel media revenge

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/10/08/russia-brands-bellingcat-journ...

Obvious why Russia mad at Bellingcat

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2021/04/26/how-gru-sabotag...

USAID is an int lligence

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 05:28:00 +0000

In reply to Bellingcat funded by US and UK intelligence contractors that aided extremists in Syria

USAID is an "intelligence front"? "Alleged" poisoning of Skripal? $65k is big money? Or here's a breakthrough passage:

Citizen journalism staffed with spies and soldiers

An alarming number of Bellingcat’s staff and contributors come from highly suspect backgrounds. Senior Investigator Nick Waters, for example, spent three years as an officer in the British Army, including a tour in Afghanistan, where he furthered the British state’s objectives in the region. Shortly after leaving the service, he was hired by Bellingcat to provide supposedly bias-free investigations into the Middle East.

That's right, having served in the British army makes you eternally biased and suspicious. Just like that amazing claim that a satellite reconnaissance expert opening shop near Reston (CIA, get it? get it?) is horridly sneaky rather than simply obvious. A Scot receiving State Dept training isn't improving his diplomatic skills - he's engaging in skullduggery and overthrowing civilizations.

Lulu, you're hanging around with morons and drooling idiots who've decided that any foreign service effort is criminal. Are you so bored with life, or you're actually persuaded by these chimps?

Frankly you were more pesuasive leaving out the link.

Sounds like a case for

NCD — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 01:03:30 +0000

In reply to No, you just forgot to insert

Sounds like a case for investigation at thegrayzone.com. .. maybe Bellingcat was involved?

I checked it after posting.

A Guy Called LULU — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 00:11:28 +0000

In reply to No, you just forgot to insert

I checked it after posting. The link was there and it worked before it disappeared. Pardon me if I related that disappearance and your comment and your previous altering of the headline of one of my postings and guessed wrong as to an explanation.

No, you just forgot to insert

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 23:30:26 +0000

In reply to You are mistaken. I have

No, you just forgot to insert it, but thanks for blaming others.

You are mistaken. I have

A Guy Called LULU — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 22:18:30 +0000

In reply to Think you already wrote this.

You are mistaken. I have linked other articles on the same and related subjects but this contains additional reporting which in my opinion should be in the news so I reinserted the link to the article shortly after you [apparently] deleted it.

Think you already wrote this.

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 10 Oct 2021 21:27:00 +0000

In reply to Bellingcat funded by US and UK intelligence contractors that aided extremists in Syria

Think you already wrote this:

"US govt-sponsored website Bellingcat disrupts MH17 trial in ..." with other mentions of funding