Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options

[MelissaB]

Source: Washington Post

The first email arrived in the inbox of CounterPunch, a left-leaning American news and opinion website, at 3:26 a.m. — the middle of the day in Moscow.

“Hello, my name is Alice Donovan and I’m a beginner freelance journalist,” read the Feb. 26, 2016 message.

The FBI was tracking Donovan as part of a months-long counterintelligence operation code-named “NorthernNight.” Internal bureau reports described her as a pseudonymous foot soldier in an army of Kremlin-led trolls seeking to undermine America’s democratic institutions.

Her first articles as a freelancer for CounterPunch and at least 10 other online publications weren’t especially political. As the 2016 presidential election heated up, Donovan’s message shifted. Increasingly, she seemed to be doing the Kremlin’s bidding by stoking discontent toward Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and touting WikiLeaks, which U.S. officials say was a tool of Russia’s broad influence operation to affect the presidential race.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kremlin-trolls-burned-across-the-internet-as-washington-debated-options/2017/12/23/e7b9dc92-e403-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.1366840b1889

[MelissaB]

1. More from Eric Garland

Link to tweet

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[Maven]

7. Not surprised. I think that we're going to find a lot of alt-left sites like Counterpunch, Alternet,

TYT, etc. were infiltrated if not wholly coopted by this influence operation.

And I don't just mean Kremlin imposters like "Alice Donovan". I also mean insiders like Greenwald, Scahill, Cenk, etc. whose fixation on the so-called "corruption" of Democratic politicians and extreme skepticism toward evidence of the Russian interference campaign dovetail oh-so-nicely with the Kremlin's propaganda objectives. Count on it.

[Igel]

15. These are likely different things.

Disinformation builds on bad news.

Standard tropes in the Soviet press in the '70s started by citing accurate statistics, then moving off into half-truths and invalid deductions. The lazy thinking person's response would be to check the article, and would find that a lot of the facts were spot-on accurate. Then, when it became harder to verify other facts, there was confidence that since some or even most of the facts were accurate, the rest must be.

In the case of US politics, a lot of progressives didn't like HRC. This was during the primaries, when being anti-HRC was not the same thing as being anti-Democratic. Remember that alternative candidate Sanders?

However, the FSB was anti-HRC, trolled HRC, and both fed and encouraged domestic complaints. Which is also very Soviet. They don't so much create discontent as find it, feed it, channel it and shape it to serve their needs. But like many activists in the US, like those protesting Trump after his election, like many others who disliked HRC, liked Trump, or later hated Trump, their discontent could be fanned and shaped.

Remember this: Just because 30, 40, 50, even 80 or 90% of the facts provided by Russian sources turn out to be completely accurate says *nothing* as to the accuracy of the remaining facts. And the more those remaining facts seem to fit and gibe perfectly with what is wanted to be believed, the more suspicious you should regard them. Because that's how disinformation works, and one can't trumpet, "The FSB is engaging in classic disinformation tactics" and disregard what those tactics are.

[MelissaB]

2. Make sure you catch the anecdote about a U.S. intelligence briefing for NATO officials.

The Obama administration had gone through an agonizing learning curve. The Russians, beginning in 2014, had hacked the State Department and the White House before targeting the Democratic National Committee and other political institutions. By the time U.S. officials came to grips with the threat, it was too late to act. Now they wanted to make sure NATO allies didn’t repeat their mistakes.

Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general, gaveled the closed-door session to order, and the Americans ran through their 30-minute presentation. The Europeans had for years been journeying to Washington to warn senior U.S. officials about Russian meddling in their elections. The Americans had listened politely but didn’t seem particularly alarmed by the threat, reflecting a widely held belief inside the U.S. government that its democratic institutions and society weren’t nearly as vulnerable as those in Europe.

For the first time since the days after 9/11, the American officials in Brussels sounded overwhelmed and humbled, said a European ambassador in the room.

When the briefers finished, the allies made clear to the Americans that little in the presentation surprised them. “This is what we’ve been telling you for some time,” the Europeans said, according to Lute, the NATO ambassador. “This is what we live with. Welcome to our lives.”

[elleng]

4. 'The Americans had listened politely but didnt seem particularly alarmed by the threat,

reflecting a widely held belief inside the U.S. government that its democratic institutions and society weren’t nearly as vulnerable as those in Europe.

For the first time since the days after 9/11, the American officials in Brussels sounded overwhelmed and humbled, said a European ambassador in the room.

When the briefers finished, the allies made clear to the Americans that little in the presentation surprised them. “This is what we’ve been telling you for some time,” the Europeans said.'

[MelissaB]

5. Well, I guess we were warned, but people thought it couldn't happen to us.

Last edited Mon Dec 25, 2017, 06:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Guess what! We now have a Russian asset in the oval office.

[elleng]

6. Yes, we WERE warned,

and 'people' should NOT have thought it couldn't happen to us; it was happening, in front of 'our' eyes.

[dalton99a]

12. There is a reason Europeans still use paper ballots

that are counted by hand

[oberliner]

3. Counterpunch is not left-leaning

By any stretch of the imagination.

[alp227]

18. How did they allow "Alice" to write in the first place?

Are their standards really as low as American Thinker or Thought Catalog? IMO it's partially on Counterpunch for failing to vet this "Alice Donovan" person before publishing. This is some Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass type of shit.

Why do you not see Counterpunch as "left"?

[oberliner]

19. Good question

Probably because she was writing the kind of crap they like to publish.

The site is not left - it relentlessly attacked both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and is generally hostile to Democrats.

It is fringe-kook-extremist type stuff - publishing the hate-mongers and the dubious.

[Leith]

8. There Are a Few Suspicious People Here at DU

I'm not the only one who has noticed.

[jl_theprofessor]

9. If you go down the road

of accusing everyone you disagree with of being a Russian shill, it makes it impossible to have honest dialogue with anyone.

[PSPS]

13. Thanks for your "concern."

[Leith]

14. It Doesn't Matter If I Agree or Disagree with Someone

I rather like reading different points of view and different ways of looking at things, issues, events, and people.

There are other signs more noticeable than strobe lights if you know what to look for. THAT is what I'm talking about.

[Skittles]

17. LOL

ALRIGHTY THEN

[dalton99a]

11. +1

[Skittles]

16. a few? I believe it is a substantial number

and I have noticed similarities in grammar

[Hekate]

10. KnR

[malthaussen]

20. "Gentlemen don't read each other's mail."

So, complacency led to a breakdown of intel?

-- Mal

[SpankMe]

21. Part of the problem is...

...the Editor from Veterans Today, Gordon Duff. He's quoted as saying: "“I don’t edit what people do. If it’s original, I’ll publish it. I don’t decide what’s real and not real.”

THIS is the real problem. "I don't care if it's real or not."

This is why the US is doomed.