Radio War Nerd EP #62 — Tim Shorrock on COINdinistas, South Korea Crisis
Guest: Tim Shorrock, journalist & author
War Nerd interviews veteran NatSec investigative reporter Tim Shorrock on his new feature article in Baffler on the rise & fall of Obama-era COIN hucksters . . . Tim also has decades experience reporting in Korea, so he explains the current crisis, and impeachment of [President] Park Geun-hye . . . Shorrock is the author of "Spies For Hire" the definitive investigation on the privatization of US intelligence agencies . . .
Afterwards, the War Nerd & Ames discuss the latest Putin Derangement Syndrome panic and Ames' new article "The Anonymous Blacklist Promoted by the Washington Post Has Apparent Ties to Ukrainian Fascism and CIA Spying" ; and the end of the Battle of East Aleppo . . .
Total Time: 2:56:15
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
Song: "Про дурачка" Egor Letov
Comments (20)
Where can I find the article "The Anonymous Blacklist Promoted by the Washington Post Has Apparent Ties to Ukrainian Fascism and CIA Spying"?
https://web.archive.org/web/20161209165427/https://www.alternet.org/media/anonymous-blacklist-promoted-washington-post-has-shocking-roots-ukrainian-fascism-eugenics-and
The Korean horror movie Mark Ames was referring to is called the Wailing. It's as Mark confirmed on the show; that is balls out nuts- there is an another threat veiled as an old Japanese shaman/spirit who is there in the forest of this small Korean village, hovering as a myth and a political metaphorical threat; who ends up being the good guy, but too little too late; visually fascinating but emotionally draining)
The more we get into this Russia madness, the more I appreciate your talk about The Spike a few shows back. This is crazy to watch unfold.
Thanks. Yeah, it's weird the way so much of Mark and I remember from Berkeley keeps puking up in contemporary culture. As Mark keeps saying, 'cultural stagnation'.
You guys doubt that the russians hacked the DNC at all, which is interesing, because in the cyber security field it seems to be considered a fact that that it happened, and the arguments are more about which agencies are involved. The Gruqq (who I believe John met in Thailand) has a number of articles on this. They are a little tech heavy sometimes, but the general sentiment can be understood by anyone. <a href="https://medium.com/@thegrugq/security-cyber-and-elections-part-1-cd04de8ed125" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://medium.com/@thegrugq/security-cyber-and-elections-part-1-cd04de8ed125</a>
The issue is attribution, though, which is not trivial. Even when you have information in the malware that is unique to the attacker - things like encryption keys - and can match them to previous observations of the same signature features, you still rely on the previous observations being correctly attributed. It's like having a set of fingerprints repeat across multiple crime scenes - you still need to actually prove that those prints belong to your suspect. And "state actor" is the security business' version of the archeologist's "votive offering:" An explanation that can be used to describe any set of observations. So the question is, do you trust that previous Gucchifer sightings attributed to the Russian government were correctly attributed? If so, why? If the only answer is "that's what I'm being told by anonymous spies and contractors who have an incentive to exaggerate the threat level" then... well... Maybe they're right, but it's not really evidence.
The full story of the downfall of the South Korean president is fascinating, sad, and just plain crazy. Rasputin was an amateur in comparison. For those interested, the Ask A Korean blog put up a summary and very detailed "explainers" in two parts. Well worth the read: <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.hk/2016/10/the-irrational-downfall-of-park-geun-hye.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://askakorean.blogspot.hk/2016/10/the-irrational-downfall-of-park-geun-hye.html</a>
Anyone know the name of the Korean movie that Mark was talking about?
The Wailing (2016)
Why is the Saudi & other Gulf State bribery of Clinton through her foundation not considered a foreign nation trying to influence the US election similar to the alleged Russian hack? I guess bribery feels more understandable and familiar to Americans, while hacking is seen more as an exotic (foreign) method.
It's okay if you're Saudi.
Heads up guys: this upload is apparently incomplete, it cuts off at 2:49 for the podcast xml mp3.
I just downloaded the mp3 from the post, it has the extra five minutes.
Aleppo has been Liberated There is footage everywhere of the civilians celebrating. The Propaganda isn't strange so much as Outrageous stop treating these liars like legitimate journalists. and how long are you planning to repeat the canard that the SAA is an all Alawite army when it is majority Sunni. Wahabi death squad is more accurate then "sunni militia" Sorry for my Little rant. Otherwise a great episode especially Mark's expose on the Fake news Hysteria to understand the survival and re-emergence of Ukrainian (And Croatian) Fascism look into WACL there was a great book called inside the League in the 1980's about it they were also linked to Iran Contra along with drugs fascism and other wildly scandalous activities stephan posoni was a member. Look into the Dobrianski family 3 generations of fascists from Lev to his daughter Paula a Reagan admin adviser and now Andrij a pro-Ukrainian propgandist I wrote an article on it <a href="https://www.sott.net/article/323037-Beyond-the-Iran-Contra-Affair-Part-3-The-World-Anti-Communist-League" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.sott.net/article/323037-Beyond-the-Iran-Contra-Affair-Part-3-The-World-Anti-Communist-League</a>
For the record they've noted that the SAA has Sunnis in it HOWEVER the SAA is now complicated, there are multiple divisions within it (Tigers etc.) as well as support from Hezbollah, and some of those divisions are more exclusively Allawite or Shia Arab than the formal official army.
Tim felt like he was so caught up in his anti-war mission that he's forgotten how truly evil North Korea is.
There's nothing particularly "evil" about North Korea. Go back and listen to his take on the North in episode 20.
This one seems to cut off abruptly at 02:49:56. Is it just me?
"People sniffers" were the literal term for the chemical detectors that you guys described here--they were somewhat useful for finding if tunnels were active, but ultimately were limited because they were in fact too sensitive and picked up *everything* and led to false positives. You guys describe the RAND corporation R&D that went on in this era as well--when I was doing IR in a deluded period when I thought I'd become an academic, I came across the COIN doctrine that RAND was formalizing in the late 50 and early 60s. Some of it can be found here: <a href="http://www.rand.org/pubs/corporate_pubs/CP564.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.rand.org/pubs/corporate_pubs/CP564.html</a> It's surprisingly interesting reading, if a bit starry-eyed.