The Tiexiera "leak": For real, or a clumsy Deep State ruse?
Selected comments on some of the ludicrous claims of official propaganda re the still-evolving state secrets scandal.
[Revised 06-07-23]
Although I rarely dabble in political stuff here, my stock in trade is simply to remain skeptical of official narratives. While mainstream media has never been known for reporting the unvarnished truth, when seeking pure 100% unadulterated bullshit, few things historically can compare with wartime propaganda. As such, I envision this article, or ones like it, as a series of snapshots of some of the more amusing propaganda efforts of either side (but most likely “ours,” if the Deep State can really be said to even remotely represent the interests of the average citizen). I will of course offer criticism of some of the claims. So enjoy.
My commentary on this article:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/04/19/the-cluelessness-of-the-american-state/
Allow me to openly state that my personal belief is that the Tiexiera leak is actually a ruse, that it’s a disinformation operation by some faction of the U.S. Government. Like most articles I've read in the press, including this one linked, I suspect they are to some degree also "official propaganda," often seeming to take official claims at face value and not speculating about inconsistencies. Even so, this article does raise a couple curious points, which I'll amplify below.
(1) Just who initially discovered the leak? Earlier reports said that reporters from NYT did. Spiked repeats the assertion that the press unmasked the leaker before the FBI knew. Now, just ponder for a moment how likely that'd be. It's plausible, if the leaks happened as described. But a reporter couldn't possibly have known about them until he found out, probably on social media. To investigate it, he'd have to have been able to trace the provenance of a particular post back to other users, and eventually, to other services, eventually to Discord and to Tiexiera. Now, just how likely is it that a mere reporter would have the power and connections to be able to obtain privileged corporate information (e.g. the internal flow of the communications?) Now that surely is possible, but I suspect, only with government powers, overt or covert. Nearly anything on the net leaves a trail. If Tiexiera is really the culprit, and he must have some IT background, he was a world-class fool to do what he did, thinking he'd keep anonymity.
(2) Spiked notes "if the Pentagon Leaks shed light on anything... it’s on the dysfunction and incompetence of the American state.” Then they ask, “After all, why was the immature Tiexiera, a junior reservist airman in Cape Cod, given access to a range of highly classified intelligence in the first place?" Several types of classified intelligence are described. Please note that here, just as with the claim that media discovered Tiexiera before the FBI, both are offered insouciantly; they are matters of record, no need to discuss or question them. Seems a bit presumptuous, at least to me. Again, maybe I jumping at shadows, but doesn't this sound the least bit like party propaganda asserting what IS true, and there is no need to delve any deeper?
(3) Spiked also notes that the leaks didn't really reveal anything that wasn't widely known. This may be true. Or might it be an effort at damage control? In that case, of course, one might assume the leaks authentic. But, I suspect, in the case of a deliberate deception, we would WANT to make it look like we were issuing statements to dissemble about the "damage" done. Yes I am playing both sides of the issue: Are the leaks real or fake? And in either case, is our government telling the truth or lying when they speak of them?
(4) Although Spiked hints at it, in my opinion, one of the most likely reasons to believe this is all a deception is simply the eclectic nature of the "leaked" documents. The tone of the article is that the entire government is sloppy with its secrets. For anyone who's ever worked in the Federal government in any sensitive position, that judgment rings hollow on several fronts. In the first place, the long-standing policy is, indeed, "need to know." Do 1.5 million people hold a Top Secret clearance? So what? Just because you have one doesn't mean you're entitled to access the classified material of a different agency. In fact you wouldn’t even be permitted to know what the office across the hall is doing. Even the head honcho at one three-letter agency (TLA) isn’t entitled to intel that a competing TLA may have. Although in theory NSA has the duty to secure the nation’s data, even the highest cleared staff don’t magically have access to everything. Not the least reason for this is that independent agencies would likely take additional steps to safeguard certain data over and above the standard protection that NSA would provide.
So, even if Tiexiera worked in IT and he was a genius, it is extremely unlikely he'd have access to (say) CIA or other agency documents. The alleged "leak" would have been far more credible if the topics of interest had been limited to stuff the Air Force would plausibly deal with. Somehow, I find it difficult to believe that any section of Air Force Military Intelligence would be involved with spying on the Israeli government or South Korea. Particularly in the case of covert intelligence operations, those are done by other government agencies (indeed, often other but allied governments — that’s one of the worst-keep spook secrets: At least in the “old days” it was illegal for US spooks to spy on us domestically, so they asked their allied spooks to do so and then share what they found. On the contrary, instead of junior enlisted, such ops would be staffed by well-paid civilian contractors overseen by senior TLA boys, military or civil service. But assuredly NOT by some 21-year-old punk doing his weekend Reserve duty.
Nice try, guys, but I'm not buying it, and neither are a lot of us skeptics. I'm not sure how such doubts would be confirmed. A sudden dismissal of charges against Tiexiera perhaps, or an unfortunate death?
04-25: Link to another skeptic article (but I’ll not comment, yet anyway). In the meantime, see if you can’t find some of the more obvious flaws in this story.
https://off-guardian.org/2023/04/15/offgs-quick-take-the-pentagon-leaks/
05-04 a 2nd opinion
https://off-guardian.org/2023/04/17/pentagon-leaks-5-ways-to-tell-real-from-fake/
I don't agree with all his opinions, but this is a good read on leaks in general. Especially the credible hidden agenda to increase censorship, which has been a common theme in many governments for the past few years.
05-14: A quote from a doubter. Here’s a curious quote from an unrelated discussion; the commented made what I thought valid criticisms of another dubious story and then blew it with this: “The Teixeira leak was immediately credible because the documents had so many prosaic details that would be hard to simulate, and because its manner of leaking was so ridiculous that no hoaxer would want to impugn his hoax with such circuitous improbabilities.”
https://www.unz.com/runz/did-a-russian-missile-strike-kill-200-nato-officers-in-a-ukrainian-bunker [comment #104, end]
I’m only quoting this as a doubter doubting another doubter. I’ll admit that I haven’t look at any of the involved documents, beyond a few that appeared in news articles. I will dispute both his claims, however. In the first place, if the “leak” was a deliberate disinformation op, of course the spooks would make the documents look as authentic as possible. They might well even be real documents! (Remember that, apparently, the “leak” didn’t really reveal any information not already widely known???) I also fault him for calling the claimed manner of the leak “ridiculous.” The official story is that a misguided junior airman exercised poor judgment and disclosed classified information to a few selected internet buddies. What’s so improbable about that scenario? If anything, I would term that a highly credible source of a leak; in fact, I’d concede it’s the strongest single data point arguing in favor of the official narrative, the other serious (IMO) flaws nothwithstanding.
Not every leaker of military secrets heads straight to the offices of the Washington Post or the New York Times. In fact that’d probably be a bad idea these days. It’s not 1970.
Incredibly Corrupt Nation Had World-Class Special Operatives to Blow Up Gas Pipeline in 2022, Washington Post Claims, Based Upon Source Reporter Convenientsly Obtained On Internet
Copied from June 7 daily summary:
“U.S. had intelligence of detailed Ukrainian plan to attack Nord Stream pipeline. The CIA learned last June, via a European spy agency, that a six-person team of Ukrainian special operations forces intended to sabotage the Russia-to-Germany natural gas project. The European intelligence reporting was shared on the chat platform Discord, allegedly by Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira. The Washington Post obtained a copy from one of Teixeira’s online friends.”
My take: as with many claims, surely possible, but is it probable? Consider my original thesis that the “leaks” are a ruse. Now couple that with the fact that WaPo is “regime media.” In fact, for decades, it and perhaps the New York Times have had the unofficial title of being the “official” newspapers of the United States government. Naked’s last sentence, if accurate, further reinforces my suspicion: The alleged document wasn’t in the original tranch found months ago. It’s magically appeared later. How convenient. If you were a spook department in the Deep State, wishing to divert attention from the most likely scenario (that US forces, such as military navy divers — folks routinely trained for such missions — did this covert op.) is this latest story not precisely the type of disinformation you’d feed to a willing “journalist”?
Granted, I’m just being cynically dismissive here. But where are the independent experts providing analysis of the claimed documents? Perhaps theey exist, but I’ve seen no reports of these. Until then, I just file this latest report under “propaganda,” along with the latest “whistleblower” claim that the USG has captured UFOs and even alien bodies. That’s hardly a new claim; that’s been part of American folklore since at least 1947. Folks, this isn’t “news,” it’s hysteria and income-producing entertainment for the media.