The Teixeira Leak and the War in Ukraine
This is not about one leaker. It is about the outsourcing of military IT systems to private contractors, specifically to young people who are more preoccupied with building a striking online presence on the dark side than with upholding national security….
So, did this young man break the law?
It seems highly likely yes.
But, is there a shadow question lurking on the dark side of this event?
Yes.
Is there a gap between the actual situation and the official line that prompted the kid to begin complaining about it to his online peers?
The wider the gap between these two, the more it invites the young to use their privileged but not necessarily aligned position to observe such gaps. This makes them question and ridicule the system.
This is exactly what happened when Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers. He saw the gap between the official statements on the war in Vietnam, “We are winning” with the actual assessments, “We are losing.”
Is this happening again today?
The official line is “Ukraine can and must win.”
The growing unofficial position seems to be that the cost of Ukraine “winning” may be a nuclear event or that Ukraine can’t win because they are quite simply outgunned and outnumbered. There is at least a serious debate about the true nature of the situation.
The depth of the leadership challenge here is overwhelming. NATO Ministries of Defense have warned the public not to trust the contents of the leaked documents.
But what the young IT mercenary sees is what I’ve called The Invisible Wars. He (or she) sees the gap between what is said and what is known. He sees the events that are underreported and often unexplained in the press. He knows that aggressive espionage, sabotage, and intrigue are back with a vengeance. Notice that the Norwegians just expelled fifteen Russian diplomats on allegations of spying. Poland just busted a group that’s been impersonating the emails of EU diplomats to launch malware.
Within government, it is time to ask if profound divisions of opinion need to be reconciled into a cohesive stance.
More and more, I hear the view, “Putin may have started this war, but its continuation is now in the hands of the West.” This may be why we’re hearing much more about corruption in Ukraine. That would be an easy way to get a resolution – remove President Zelensky. That’s the oldest trick in town.
Remember that in politics, your worst enemies are usually on your own team. I advise you to set up a Google alert under “corruption Ukraine” and watch how the list of stories grows. That conversation started in January and has been building ever since, most recently pumped up by Seymour Hersh’s reporting.
Now these stories seem to be explicitly centered on Zelensky and embezzlement around funds allocated by the US for fuel purchases. Are some of those funds being spent on Russian fuel suppliers too?
Surely Zelensky and his team would have expected someone to find out! Y
et we ask the same question of Jack.
Now we see the open questions about the dark side of this war.
Could the result be that Jack the Dripper and Zelensky the Ripper end up being in the same place, caught fraternizing with the enemy?
I am no fan of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, as anybody who reads me knows.
I have also long wondered whether the West has stepped into a local gang fight between Ukraine and Russia where there are no angels. The story suited the West’s narrative on Russia.
But, if the real conversation within the U.S. government is that both sides have their issues and the U.S .wants a deal to end all this before the next U.S. election (always a driver), then it’s possible that Zelensky could be sacrificed on the altar of pragmatism.
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