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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36422 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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I don't understand what the motivation behind attempts to have it scrubbed would be. Any enemy agents worth worrying about already have copies of it. So the only benefit of scrubbing it now would be making it harder for the public to find. Is there stuff in there that's just uncomfortable for the Pentagon to have widely known, or is it just an attempt to downplay the story by making the evidence harder to find?

The special forces in Ukraine bit is problematic for the Pentagon. Most people following closely thought that was probably the case. However, there is now confirmation that NATO forces are in a limited shooting war with Russia.

The Dem base is currently solidly in support of the White House strategy in Ukraine. A big chunk would probably push for a diplomatic settlement if they knew how close Victoria Nuland is to starting WW3.

However, there is now confirmation that NATO forces are in a limited shooting war with Russia.

Wait, was there? I thought the docs just said the special forces were in Ukraine. They might just be trainers/"military advisors" or like. Unless I missed something?

While officially denied by both sides, there've been a lot of rumors of Russian fighters engaging and firing upon British and Polish aircraft over the Baltic. One of the juicier tid-bits in the cache appears to confirm or at least support this rumor. IE there's a NATO memo stating that after an unspecified incident involving the RAF all manned aircraft operating in the area are to be escorted by armed fighters and authorization to fire has been delegated to local commanders.

Looks like you're right, there's a lot of ambiguity.

I think it’s probably theater.

It’s not supposed to be out there. The Pentagon acts accordingly. Whether or not such actions are particularly effective is secondary to the sense of Doing Something.

I don't understand what the motivation behind attempts to have it scrubbed would be. ... So the only benefit of scrubbing it now would be making it harder for the public to find

So you answer your own question!

Is it clear that "TPTB" are actually directing the scrubbing? It seems possible to me that many of the intermediaries like Discord and even Telegram have reasons to avoid hosting actually-classified content of their own volition, from "remain in the good graces of the DOJ" to "we're patriotic and Support Our Troops". Those posting originally also have reason to clean up what they can, although I doubt they can actually hide their actions from the DOJ.

AFAIK, the legal penalties for classified documents are almost exclusively due to violating the SP-312 NDA the government requires for access. I don't know what teeth, if any, are actually relevant to non-signatories (The New York Times writers, for example) in peacetime.

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