Hacked Off with Fake News

More than 20 veterans of US Intelligence services
have written to President Obama to ask him to release substantive information on the alleged Russian hacking or to confirm such intelligence simply does not exist. The fact they have released this open letter is news in itself. If this has not been covered by the BBC, or CNN, or MSNBC or in your newspaper of record, is in itself significant.

We urge you to authorize public release of any tangible evidence that takes us beyond the unsubstantiated, “we-assess” judgements by the intelligence agencies. Otherwise, we – as well as other skeptical Americans – will be left with the corrosive suspicion that the intense campaign of accusations is part of a wider attempt to discredit the Russians and those – like Mr. Trump – who wish to deal constructively with them.

As significant players have dubbed the alleged hack "an act of war" and called Trump a "Traitor" the stakes are very high. And yet, in the opinion of this significant and very experienced group, as of yet nothing approaching tangible evidence and proof has been offered.

They include:William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret) and former Office Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Thomas Drake, former Senior Executive, NSA
Bogdan Dzakovic, Former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator

The full letter can be read here.
Anyone following this link can see that in an issue of this importance, there is precedent for revealing information that might possibly compromise other activities. It was done:

• In the Cuban missile crisis
• The bombing of La Belle Disco in Berlin in 1986 (President Reagan)

The writers of the letter criticise the New York Times and Washington Post for leading the charge with these allegations, even when they admit, buried deep in the commentary, that no substantive proof has yet been released, and it all has to be taken on trust.

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It is the view of this writer, that a propaganda war is being fought at the moment. Russia is being made the whipping boy so that other issues, closer to home in America, are not looked at. The actual details of the Wikileaks emails have dropped from the headlines a long time ago, even though in the alternative media (so called fake news media) important questions are being raised.

There is no discussion for example, of the cyber-espionage activities of the West - and the USA in particular, nor the spying by diplomats in Russia, nor the long and inglorious history of direct American actions over 60 years in the democracies of other nations – Iran (1953), Chile (on 9/11 1973), In fact political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University, estimates 81 such interventions between 1946 and 2000. 

We are entitled to ask what exactly is going on, and why our 'trusted' media outlets are so evidently not doing their job. Is their a silent coup occurring in the USA?