I am seeing a couple of different, contrasting stories about the document leak. In what I consider the more likely of the stories a young man with a security clearance, trying to impress his online buddies, release a significant cache of secret documents online. The release was not discovered by what we like to call our “intelligence community” for months.
In the other story our intelligence community is conducting a psychological operation on the American people to prepare them for what will be a series of foreign policy setbacks. The young airman is a presumably unwitting dupe in the psyop, given unrestricted access to exactly the documents the intelligence community wanted him to leak.
It seems to me that the unstated assumption in that second story is that our intelligence apparatus could not possibly be so feckless as the leak makes it appear to be. Quite to the contrary I think that power, arrogance, and freedom from consequences has a way of encouraging fecklessness.
A connecting thread between these stories is irresponsibility. At twenty-one Jack Teixeira is a man not a kid. Were he a 14 year old trying to impress 12 year olds, leaking secret documents would be completely understandable. As a 21 year old trying to impress 16 year old, it’s irresponsible. Similarly, granting him access to documents for which he had no need to know is irresponsible.
Matt Taibbi concludes his remarks on the leak which are mostly about the media’s indecision over whether Mr. Teixeira was a racist or a gun nut, with something on which I agree with him:
Watch how this thing will be spun. It’s going to get ugly fast.
Nope. It was mentioned early and not much follow up. May get a bit more attention and I suppose there is a tiny group that will obsess over it but it wont be a big deal. Taibbi wrote more about it in that article than i have seen anywhere.
“In the other story our intelligence community is conducting a psychological operation on the American people to prepare them for what will be a series of foreign policy setbacks.”
If he was the only 21 y/o private in the military with high level access then this should be reported.
Steve
the first theory (WAG?) matches my view of the efficiency of the intelligence/security agencies. Young men doe stupid things, that they survive to be greybeards is a wonder. Which makes the second guess highly unlikely, it would require creative thinking, and a firm grip on reality.
BTW, a 21 missile tech could be the final link in the chain that starts the Mushroom Cloud Peace and Urban Renewal festival.
I’m literally guffawing at steves comment.
You couldn’t make this shit up. Talk about living in an echo chamber.
The media and powers that be have to smear Teixeria’s character as being an extremist and undesirable, in order to distract from all the real facts released by his “leaks.†“Give us more†might be the response of those wanting the truth. However, “shut up you traitor,†is what is being echoed by the Dems and their media acolytes.
Nonetheless, questions should be asked in light of this new information:
What is really going on in Ukraine?
Why is Zelensky buying fossil fuels from Russia?
Maybe through approved audits we’ll know how much money is going into the pockets of Zelensky and Ukrainian oligarchs.
Why are we buying ammunition from S. Korea?
In the other story our intelligence community is conducting a psychological operation on the American people to prepare them for what will be a series of foreign policy setbacks.
Over the course of the last few years I have lost the last vestiges of respect I had for our intelligence agencies. They are no longer a bipartisan, unbiased department, but seem to work exclusively for the benefit of the democrat party.
Recently the disclosures by Mike Morell only validated how deceptively gleaned were the 51 signatures, associated with the intelligence community, in declaring Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop was the creation of a Russian disinformation ploy. This kind of detour from the truth played a part in influencing the presidential election. Now we have more details on the Mar-a-Largo raid as resulting from WH directives – another move to take down a certain candidate from running against Biden. Somehow when such disingenuous, manipulative acts are committed by the democrat party, the intelligence community yawns. When the opposing party’s President makes one nuanced phone call about the possible corruption of his opponent, it is cause for a quick, one-sided impeachment.
Why is it then so difficult to believe that our intelligence agencies would not resort to conducting a psych-ops maneuver on covering up what the leaks revealed – making Teixeira the scapegoat for any Biden foreign policy mistakes?
So many of the partisan “takes” on this are exceedingly dumb.
The right wants to make this into something it’s not and the left, after speculating beforehand that the leak was by a MAGA person hoping to help Russia, have now predictably turned to irrelevant factors like how he acted on discord (he’s racist, white and Christian, so you know what that means).
This guy wasn’t a whistleblower, he wasn’t any kind of ideologue, he didn’t – intentionally or unintentionally – reveal anything politically scandalous, but what he did reveal certainly damaged US sources and methods, at the very least.
He’s going to go away for a long time – the only thing that really bothers me is that senior-level people who mishandle classified info tend to only get slaps on the wrist.
That’s my take as well. Talk about irresponsibility! They’re the real culprits.
Andy- I went over to OTB. I counted and found only one reference about being white and racist on discord. There is a lot more emphasis on his being a gamer and tbh much more talk about MTG praising the kid. The only thing close I have seen is people commenting about how the family makes major claims to being patriots and how you resolve his leaking with being patriotic. (Of course OTB is not the only source of commentary but in my readings elsewhere seems pretty consistent.)
Steve
steve,
It’s not just OTB, but OTB commenters have been better than usual about this. However, before the person was known there was a some speculation by commenters there that it could be a MAGA person trying to hurt Biden and one guy had this weird hangup about Flynn’s brother still serving in the military.
From a media criticism angle, it’s interesting what gets highlighted and what doesn’t and the implication that these highlighted things are relevant to what he did – ie. “race”, religion, etc. For example, if he was an atheist, would the press be highlighting that fact in every news story?