Granted, the question is more inciting than insightful, but it is occasioned by today's AP news brief on how Putin is being ”misled” by Russia's top brass, which contains this rather odd paragraph:
The administration is hopeful that divulging the finding could help prod Putin to reconsider his options in Ukraine, according to a U.S. official. The official was not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The war has ground to a bloody stalemate in much of the country, with heavy casualties and Russian troop morale sinking as Ukrainian forces and volunteers put up an unexpectedly stout defense.
Chew on that first sentence.
The White House is putting this intelligence “finding” (an ironic use of the word if ever there was one) specifically to send Putin a message. That first sentence is all but an outright admission of this.
What message is the White House sending? Is it intended to be a peace opening, a way to let Putin take the “off ramp” from the war? Is it a warning to Putin, that NATO is preparing to engage militarily, and kick a little Russian ass?
If the latter, one has to also ponder the question of to what extent the Biden administration is being misled by Ukraine.
Thus we have a news blurb that on its face is at best problematic, and at worst propaganda. We have within the news blurb an admission by the administration that it put out this propaganda “news” specifically to send Putin a message.
Setting aside the ethical question regarding the propriety of media outlets being used as conduits of communication in this fashion, it would appear this arguably “fake news” item is still “news”--that the administration is using outside channels to perhaps speak directly to Putin, and certainly to someone in the Kremlin.
Which begs another question: “What in the everloving Hell is going on in the White House?”
Good grief! Why would anyone, most especially Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (a former KGB foreign intelligence officer) believe a "finding" from the US "intelligence community"?
You know, the people who were certain that there were WMDs in Iraq 20 years ago. The ones who swore up and down that Russia was colluding with the Trump campaign in 2016. The ones who insisted that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian Disinformation?
The "finding" itself is the typical product that we've seen from the "intelligence community" for years, reminiscent of the laughable "Intelligence Community Assessment" that Putin hacked the 2016 election. There is simply no factual foundation for it.
But the statement that the finding was divulged specifically to influence Putin is truly jawdropping. Unpacking that statement leads to several implied positions of at least the "unnamed source" in the administration: 1) Putin regularly consumes western media; 2) regular diplomatic channels are ineffective (this might actually be true); 3) Putin is "out of touch" with his own country (projection much?); 4) Russia’s top generals are political effetes who are easily swayed by western media criticism (again, projection much?).
Not to mention the credulous inclusion of the statement in the AP story. The Associated Press essentially admitted to allowing the administration to place a news story in order to send a message of some kind to Putin or someone else within the Kremlin hierarchy. It's one thing to understand the corporate media is propaganda, and quite another for the corporate media to brag about being propaganda.
Good grief! Why would anyone, most especially Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (a former KGB foreign intelligence officer) believe a "finding" from the US "intelligence community"?
You know, the people who were certain that there were WMDs in Iraq 20 years ago. The ones who swore up and down that Russia was colluding with the Trump campaign in 2016. The ones who insisted that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian Disinformation?
Yeah, right.
One of many reasons the story caught my eye.
The "finding" itself is the typical product that we've seen from the "intelligence community" for years, reminiscent of the laughable "Intelligence Community Assessment" that Putin hacked the 2016 election. There is simply no factual foundation for it.
But the statement that the finding was divulged specifically to influence Putin is truly jawdropping. Unpacking that statement leads to several implied positions of at least the "unnamed source" in the administration: 1) Putin regularly consumes western media; 2) regular diplomatic channels are ineffective (this might actually be true); 3) Putin is "out of touch" with his own country (projection much?); 4) Russia’s top generals are political effetes who are easily swayed by western media criticism (again, projection much?).
Not to mention the credulous inclusion of the statement in the AP story. The Associated Press essentially admitted to allowing the administration to place a news story in order to send a message of some kind to Putin or someone else within the Kremlin hierarchy. It's one thing to understand the corporate media is propaganda, and quite another for the corporate media to brag about being propaganda.
Yet here we are.