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Do you have any reliable proof of the claim that US is responsible for colored revolutions in Ukraine (as opposed to citizens themselves taking matters into the

by trwired 12y ago

Do you have any reliable proof of the claim that US is responsible for colored revolutions in Ukraine (as opposed to citizens themselves taking matters into their own hands)? By reliable I mean reputable sources, not a random website no one has ever heard before. I'm asking because what you just did here - that is make a backhanded comment suggesting countries opposing Russian agenda don't operate on their own accord, while suggesting they are steered by the US - is a prime example of how Russian trolls operate.

xnull6guest 12y ago
Yes. Thanks for asking. There's plenty of evidence - CSOs/NGOs/USAID/UNITER aside - let's start with CANVAS. Here's wikileaks documents: https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-06-18-08-canvas-how-a-us-funded-group-trains-opposition.html https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-06-18-08-canv... These are conversations at Stratfor with and about an 'export-a-revolution' group for hire. If you look through the (ppt) slides in the Introduction to CANVAS you will see them boasting about their role in the colored revolutions. Get back to me on that and if you want more there's more.
- cromwellian 12y ago
  Strafor boasts about a lot of stuff, they are after all, a commercial enterprise. It remains to be seen how much of it is bullshit bluster from a bunch of desk jockeys with delusions of grandeur, and how much of it is real. I get a heavy soldier-of-fortune wanna-bee vibe from them. US spy agencies are relatively incompetent by historical measure, which is why it the attempts to remove all agency from foreign actors and put it into the hands of manipulations by secret groups is just nutty conspiracy theories. Even this Russian trolling stuff is probably ineffectiveness compared to what is already forums filled with noisy trash comments. Are they really influencing anything, or just making comments worthless and untrustworthy to the average person?
  - xnull6guest 12y ago
    Is the argument now that the US does this, but that it isn't effective? I made no claims of particular effectiveness (god knows such efforts have failed - check the Arab Spring), but I'd paint your comment with the bullshit bluster hue before I would Stratfor... To be more substantive: those with appropriately high levels of interest and low levels of cognitive dissonance can research the history of US spy agencies and their role in winning the First Cold War, of its partnerships with the UK and other nations known for having incredible espionage, to Snowden leaks to see a small fraction of its capabilities, as well as browse Wikileaks files to get more information on the effectiveness of spying operations. Of course they can and should also look at the source documents in question and determine for themselves whether they think the claims are bluster. I don't think they need to - the larger point that the US is involved in covert regime change in the parent stands - no matter how ineffective you would like to paint it. But if they wanted to understand the relationship between Stratfor and the US intelligence community and the size, budget, role and effectiveness they can - they can also find very good overviews of covert US foreign regime change actions in the last decade and history online. :) Here's a podcast from a State Department official who discusses some of the more overt (but still on the sly) operations done to start movements opposed to anti-American narratives in the middle east, and them pass them off to the private sector (so called Civil Society). "In a way its flooding the marketplace with narratives that are 'cool' enough to attract young people... you use voices that are credible but you use images, the music, the sounds, the feel that are modern..." "The US State Department now has this program to kind of flood social media with counter messages... this center is nothing new... variations have been done since the Bush administration... we also know that the experts in this are not in Washington - they are in Silicon Valley, they are in New York and in Banglor - all of these areas of high tech..." And others... http://csis.org/multimedia/combating-violent-extremism http://csis.org/multimedia/combating-violent-extremism And a DoD program to manufacture Twitter messages based on brain scans of test subjects before they are flooded into the Middle East: http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-Lieberman.pdf http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-Lieberman.pdf A twitter messaging platform used to try to kindle revolution in Cuba: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/usaid-effort-to-undermine-cuban-government-with-fake-twitter-another-anti-castro-failure/2014/04/03/c0142cc0-bb75-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/usaid-effort-t... So out of curiousity do you have inside information on why all of this activity isn't effective - more information than Stratfor and a company that has been active and claims success in dozens of countries - or is it more of an opinion?
coldtea 12y ago
>is a prime example of how Russian trolls operate. The US has had media operations for nearly a century, from Operation Mockibird to Radio Free Europe, down to the trend of hollywood movies done in co-operation with the army (e.g lending infrastructure etc) to spread official versions of issues etc. There are literally TONS of sponsored NGOs, organisations and news sites operating all around the globe, especially in areas of special interest (regarding oil, resources, etc). If Russia has some "internet trolls" of their own, so be it. It's as if what the master does, in 1000 times the scale is looked down upon on the lesser countries, and judged as if it was on par, or even worse.

by trwired 12y ago

xnull6guest 12y ago

Yes. Thanks for asking. There's plenty of evidence - CSOs/NGOs/USAID/UNITER aside - let's start with CANVAS. Here's wikileaks documents: https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-06-18-08-canvas-how-a-us-funded-group-trains-opposition.html https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-06-18-08-canv... These are conversations at Stratfor with and about an 'export-a-revolution' group for hire. If you look through the (ppt) slides in the Introduction to CANVAS you will see them boasting about their role in the colored revolutions. Get back to me on that and if you want more there's more.

cromwellian 12y ago
Strafor boasts about a lot of stuff, they are after all, a commercial enterprise. It remains to be seen how much of it is bullshit bluster from a bunch of desk jockeys with delusions of grandeur, and how much of it is real. I get a heavy soldier-of-fortune wanna-bee vibe from them. US spy agencies are relatively incompetent by historical measure, which is why it the attempts to remove all agency from foreign actors and put it into the hands of manipulations by secret groups is just nutty conspiracy theories. Even this Russian trolling stuff is probably ineffectiveness compared to what is already forums filled with noisy trash comments. Are they really influencing anything, or just making comments worthless and untrustworthy to the average person?
- xnull6guest 12y ago
  Is the argument now that the US does this, but that it isn't effective? I made no claims of particular effectiveness (god knows such efforts have failed - check the Arab Spring), but I'd paint your comment with the bullshit bluster hue before I would Stratfor... To be more substantive: those with appropriately high levels of interest and low levels of cognitive dissonance can research the history of US spy agencies and their role in winning the First Cold War, of its partnerships with the UK and other nations known for having incredible espionage, to Snowden leaks to see a small fraction of its capabilities, as well as browse Wikileaks files to get more information on the effectiveness of spying operations. Of course they can and should also look at the source documents in question and determine for themselves whether they think the claims are bluster. I don't think they need to - the larger point that the US is involved in covert regime change in the parent stands - no matter how ineffective you would like to paint it. But if they wanted to understand the relationship between Stratfor and the US intelligence community and the size, budget, role and effectiveness they can - they can also find very good overviews of covert US foreign regime change actions in the last decade and history online. :) Here's a podcast from a State Department official who discusses some of the more overt (but still on the sly) operations done to start movements opposed to anti-American narratives in the middle east, and them pass them off to the private sector (so called Civil Society). "In a way its flooding the marketplace with narratives that are 'cool' enough to attract young people... you use voices that are credible but you use images, the music, the sounds, the feel that are modern..." "The US State Department now has this program to kind of flood social media with counter messages... this center is nothing new... variations have been done since the Bush administration... we also know that the experts in this are not in Washington - they are in Silicon Valley, they are in New York and in Banglor - all of these areas of high tech..." And others... http://csis.org/multimedia/combating-violent-extremism http://csis.org/multimedia/combating-violent-extremism And a DoD program to manufacture Twitter messages based on brain scans of test subjects before they are flooded into the Middle East: http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-Lieberman.pdf http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-Lieberman.pdf A twitter messaging platform used to try to kindle revolution in Cuba: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/usaid-effort-to-undermine-cuban-government-with-fake-twitter-another-anti-castro-failure/2014/04/03/c0142cc0-bb75-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/usaid-effort-t... So out of curiousity do you have inside information on why all of this activity isn't effective - more information than Stratfor and a company that has been active and claims success in dozens of countries - or is it more of an opinion?

coldtea 12y ago

>is a prime example of how Russian trolls operate. The US has had media operations for nearly a century, from Operation Mockibird to Radio Free Europe, down to the trend of hollywood movies done in co-operation with the army (e.g lending infrastructure etc) to spread official versions of issues etc. There are literally TONS of sponsored NGOs, organisations and news sites operating all around the globe, especially in areas of special interest (regarding oil, resources, etc). If Russia has some "internet trolls" of their own, so be it. It's as if what the master does, in 1000 times the scale is looked down upon on the lesser countries, and judged as if it was on par, or even worse.