232 Comments
User's avatar
Feral Finster's avatar

Bellingcat is not intended and does not provide "intelligence", watchdog services or anything of the sort.

Bellingcat is a cutout that is intended to serve as sockpuppet for the spooks while pretending to be independent.

PamelaDrew's avatar

Abso-frigging-lutely Bellingcat is a disinfo-smear op exposed in many Grayzone pieces.

https://thegrayzone.com/tag/bellingcat/

feldspar's avatar

Somebody told me the Grayzone is straight-up Kremlin propaganda, broadcast straight from old Soviet teletype machines.

PamelaDrew's avatar

Your source used CIA edited Wikipedia or Atlantic Council TNI jokers to vet Greyzone and swallowed the deepest bullsh*t propaganda swill on the web. Teach them critical thinking.

feldspar's avatar

I don’t talk to them anymore.

feldspar's avatar

Really? I've not heard that. How'd you find this out? You should write up a big killer expose on these guys if you have the goods on'em. I imagine it would make a big splash as I've not seen this reported in the dreaded mainstream media nor in its many tributaries and feeder ponds and lakes. Probably The NY Times knows all this and is sitting on it, if I know the Sulzberger's.

DC Reade's avatar

The exposes you've requested, for what they're worth- they're fresh news to me, and therefore too early for me to evaluate the allegations. Which is one reason I'm posting these article: to get some parallel processing, if I can find some.

(Reasoned analysis is not to be confused with ad hominem cheap shots or glib sarcasm. Just some advance notice on that.)

https://www.mintpressnews.com/bellingcat-intelligence-agencies-launders-talking-points-media/276603/

https://www.mintpressnews.com/school-for-spooks-kings-college-war-studies-churning-out-nato-spies/276736/

feldspar's avatar

Mint Press News Dot Com Dot Com Dot Com... The all-purpose go-to rag for all the top-shelf substack conspiracy theorists and assorted dyspeptic and disgruntled right-wing (masquerading as "far-left" hotshots), retrograde poltroons?

Now, there's a reliable source I always turn to when the newsstand is out of, say, Grit---or a personal favorite of mine, OK! Magazine. Outstanding archival work!

(As always, reasoned, fact-based, verifiable, reliable sources is not to be confused with clumsy propaganda, conspiracies, pseudoscience, poor sources, failed fact checks...just some advanced notice on that...)

DC Reade's avatar

"Mint Press News Dot Com Dot Com Dot Com... The all-purpose go-to rag for all the top-shelf substack conspiracy theorists and assorted dyspeptic and disgruntled right-wing (masquerading as "far-left" hotshots), retrograde poltroons?"

I said, no ad hominems. You didn't address a single fact claim in the articles. (And "dot com" is not an especially effective insult in an era when every news media outlet has one, and the historic "newspapers of record" of the US hide behind paywalls.)

Sadly, I've read enough of your output to know that content-based argument isn't your thing. So I can't say that I didn't anticipate your non-responsive reply.

It's easy to access your Notes and read enough to know that it's all you've got: worthless, valueless snark and the sort of jejune sarcasm that has a way of confusing casual readers about your sincerity. After a while, regular readers simply assume your insincerity- your cowardice and inability to even state a position, much less defend one. A level of ineptitude that's an embarrassment to everyone else on your side. Whatever that is.

If you're going to refute claims, you need to do a lot better than that. It's so...8th grade (i.e., a 4th grade level of perspicacity, with more vocabulary.)

EyesAndMindOpen's avatar

It's so entrenched through cut-outs that I can almost guarantee nobody in Congress has any real idea of the breadth of this issue. They have decentralized it so that dismantling it will take many years if even a decent attempt is made.

Feral Finster's avatar

Keep in mind that Congress (the branch of government that ostensibly legislates federal law) is not even permitted to know the alphabet agencies actual budgets.

Steve's avatar

Short answer Yes. Question: Do You Really want (say) Rashida Tlaib to have Full access to what the Government is doing? There is a Reason Why there are differing levels of classification. What if (A Very Progressive) Congressman Jared Huffman or Judy Chu spilled the beans about the raid on OBL's compound?

You may not like it, I may not like it, BUT Its necessary.

I had a Secret (downgraded to Classified. I got out is 71. There's stuff I won't talk about. Now Most of it is someone doing CYA, and its probably been declassified, but no one has told Me.

Feral Finster's avatar

So you're basically against the idea of a democratic republic.

Steve's avatar

Both U-2 andSR-71 were Black projects.

Spiderbaby's avatar

So Gibson was right, we're living in Spook Country.

Yay!!!

“A nation,” he heard himself say, “consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual’s morals are situational, that individual is without morals. If a nation’s laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn’t a nation.” He opened his eyes and confirmed Brown there, his partially disassembled pistol in his hand. The cleaning, lubrication, and examination of the gun’s inner workings was ritual, conducted every few nights, though as far as Milgrim knew, Brown hadn’t fired the gun since they’d been together. “What did you say?” “Are you really so scared of terrorists that you’ll dismantle the structures that made America what it is?” Milgrim heard himself ask this with a sense of deep wonder. He was saying these things without consciously having thought them, or at least not in such succinct terms, and they seemed inarguable. “The fuck—” “If you are, you let the terrorist win. Because that is exactly, specifically, his goal, his only goal: to frighten you into surrendering the rule of law. That’s why they call him ‘terrorist.’ He uses terrifying threats to induce you to degrade your own society.” Brown opened his mouth. Closed it. “It’s based on the same glitch in human psychology that allows people to believe they can win the lottery. Statistically, almost nobody ever wins the lottery. Statistically, terrorist attacks almost never happen.”

― William Gibson

“Cultural Marxism was what other people called political correctness, according to Brown, but it was really cultural Marxism, and had come to the United States from Germany, after World War II, in the cunning skulls of a clutch of youngish professors from Frankfurt. The Frankfurt School, as they’d called themselves, had wasted no time in plunging their intellectual ovipositors repeatedly into the unsuspecting body of old-school American academia.”

― William Gibson

Zac's avatar

Then the professors teamed up with the literal Nazis “who had come to the United States from Germany, after World War II” and, as the pair paid the bills with overt and covert war related business, they realized they had found their calling and lived happily ever after.

Spiderbaby's avatar

Everyone loves a happy ending.

Even a Nazi.

David 1260's avatar

This is fascinating and important work that I would have never heard of, had Matt not written this. I'm amazed that Jack is able to find people willing to financially support it. There are so few people interested in the public interest these days...

Will Hampton's avatar

Amen. God bless Matt and Racket News.

Outis's avatar

I was about to write a comment expressing similar thoughts but you've done better than I would have.

David 1260's avatar

Thanks!

With our society's focus on grabbing money, one can get discouraged that so few care about the public interest. It's delightful to find those few.

No Use For a Band/Name's avatar

Can I get a "Make Orwell Fiction Again" ?

Mr. Bob's avatar

I propose a slight change to the acronym.

Make

Orwell

Fiction

Only

Ts Blue's avatar

No oversight, no accountability and meanwhile trog's like (pick a politician) lap it all up as gravy on an exquisite pile of mashed potatatoes. You think the moronic Biden family is the issue, think again.

Feral Finster's avatar

As noted elsewhere, Congress is not even permitted to know the intelligence agencies true budgets.

This should tell you who is really in charge in Washington.

Or, to put it another way, suppose the 1/6 protesters were to attempt to have sought to enter NSA headquarters. They would have been shot on sight, and nobody would have dithered around waiting for orders.

RioRosie's avatar

And no one can track the money this costs the taxpayers. Sweet gig, if you can get it.

Karen Herrera's avatar

Our legislative and executive branches have enabled this all along the way. Biden was there of course.

Lysander Spoonbread's avatar

"One of the company’s employees blew the whistle to one of Premise’s major aid clients, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,"

I think I understand 'intersectionality' finally. And I am not amused.

Chilblain Edward Olmos's avatar

Because war is just another marketing opportunity! Cha ching!

This “Acquisition Kill Chain” brought to you by Trident Spectre!

( Pay no attention to all those corpses )

Keith's avatar

it's turtles all the way down with this spook system.

Joy in HK fiFP's avatar

Truly terrifying insights hiding in plain sight. Thank you Matt. Thank you Jack. I just gotta ask: Are we cooked yet?

Marilyn F's avatar

We are definitely frogs in hot water

Tardigrade's avatar

Boiled dry, and no one seems to be able to turn off the stove.

Eric's avatar

It is ironic that by subscribing to his (or Matt's) substack I am traced by the same mechanisms he writes about. One can not rule out that is a honeypot for cynics and skeptics. Sites like these should offer a cash and print version option delivered to an undisclosed neutral location. ;-)

Dwhy's avatar

You're fine. Matt is either super paranoid, or fishing for a pretense... first he was being censored by Facebook (except not really), then he was being investigated by the IRS (except not really). Now there's a network of censorship monitoring the whole internet to punish people who read wrongthink. Obvious punchline: not really.

idk if he's trying to milk dumb-as-dirt right-wingers out of their money, or if he actually believes this shit, but either way you'd be wise to think skeptically.

rob's avatar

Matt had a an elected rep call to jail him, is that real enough for you?

Dwhy's avatar

Enough for what? To justify the ridiculous idea that you're being watched by the government because you subscribe to Racket News? Not really.

rob's avatar

just to be clear, you're saying there has not been significant cooperation between tech companies, ngo/thinktanks and government agencies to censor and suppress dissenting views?

Marilyn F's avatar

Geez! What is up with you? Just unsubscribe & take Eric with you.

Dwhy's avatar

Don't be such a snowflake, sweetie.

feldspar's avatar

He's already succeeded with the former and it's not too farfetched to believe he's getting a bit more than his feet wet with the latter.

Tardigrade's avatar

'Now there's a network of censorship monitoring the whole internet to punish people who read wrongthink. Obvious punchline: not really.'

Anyone who was awake during the whole Covid debacle knows that you are wrong.

Dwhy's avatar

I'm sure you believe that, but the fact that you don't even feel the need to point to a *single* piece of evidence for this extraordinary claim is, well, telling.

Tardigrade's avatar

I don't feel the need because anyone who reads Racket News is familiar with the evidence. Twitter Files being a case in point. I'm sure you'll find a way of dismissing that as evidence. Or perhaps all the discovery in Missouri v Biden.

Eric Gordon's avatar

SPECTRE? Seriously?? Just sayin yo…Is Blofeld and his cat involved? I think I saw a monocle in there….Asking for a friend 😃🤦‍♂️

Brook Hines's avatar

Auspicious that Trident Spectre held their shindig on 9/11

Richard's avatar

A very interesting article, but I am skeptical of anyone who actually believes that Osama was killed by US forces at Abbottabad

steven t koenig's avatar

Yea, that whole " We dumped the body into the ocean" story never sounded logical to me.

Dwhy's avatar

sock puppet sock puppet

Robert Hunter's avatar

WHY do the really intelligent people wind up doing Anti social stuff for money? The Best Brain's go to Wall Street, social media Teck and the MIC. HELLO, even Russia with less than half the US population is graduating more engineers... not financial engineering. Even the Germans go to Frankfurt. The free lunch is coming to an end in the US and Europe. The others are tired of being exploited and the western compradors and Quisling courtiers will be turfed. We used to be productive and now just exploitive and living off BS and hucksterism. I just read that Russia produces a 155mm shell for ~$600 and the US ~$6000, no doubt that China even cheaper. This cannot stand.

Mark Kennedy's avatar

It's only a subset of the really intelligent people who behave anti-socially, but of course they're more noticeable than the really intelligent people who become conscientious but anonymous doctors, physicists, cosmologists, etc. Remember that intelligence and ethics aren't related: they exist on different continua, and the criteria for ascertaining whether someone is intelligent, or ethical, are different too. I've often wondered: if humankind suddenly gained a species-wide 500 cc. increase in cranial capacity, would we then become kinder and more ethical, because this seems the rational, beneficial, farsighted thing to do? Or would we simply come up with more ingenious ways of exploiting each other? I think the jury is very much out on that question, though my guess is that we'd take both roads at once, just as we do now.

Tardigrade's avatar

I think a lot of it has to do with the proportion of sociopaths/psychopaths in the population. It seems to be endemic in Homo sapiens and screws up everything we try to do.

Mark Kennedy's avatar

Thank you, Marilyn. The conceit that intelligence and ethics form sets with coincident extensions is, of course, very attractive to the intelligent. Bertrand Russell was persuaded of it, and there's John Erskine's famous essay, The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent. A good antidote to this seductive fallacy is Eric Rohmer's wonderful movie, Claire's Knee, which I highly recommend if you've never seen it.

The truth is we can't infer anything about somebody's ethics, one way or the other, from his/her intelligence alone. As in Rohmer's movie we have to wait and see whether in the end the unfriendly, unlettered boor or the pleasant, refined intellectual proves more ethically reliable (the relevant test, as you will have surmised, isn't their respective intelligence). What we can perhaps infer is that ethical scruple and enough intellectual capacity to understand the extent to which one's actions benefit or harm others are likely to make a good blend.

Pam's avatar

If we are thinking of those that are intelligent but not conscientious, as you say, I doubt much consideration is given to ethics at all. I suspect that it is accepted as a given. As in, “I am intelligent, as are my peers. Our actions are based on correct thinking, and therefore the only ethical option”.

It is this type of thinking that makes these people dangerous. They misunderstand what it means to be ethical. In my mind at least, acting from compassion is much more intuitive than based on reasoned/calculated decision making. In addition, ethical thought honors others as the primary objective, and only considers actions that do so.

On the other hand, selfish actions that happen to have a beneficial byproduct for others, are not ethical. As we know, the worst behavior is often defended this way. Like when the powerful politician, whose pockets are lined by defense contractors, asks us to "defend Ukraine", the intelligent can distort the meaning of ethics to clear their conscience and manipulate the gullible.

Boris Petrov's avatar

Thank you.

‘Go to Hell’: Brave EU Politician Delivers Damning Message to the Global Tyrants -- Sep 21

https://rumble.com/v3jg3k7-go-to-hell-brave-eu-politician-delivers-damning-message-to-the-global-tyran.html