The intelligence community's opinion that the DNC hack was done by Russia was based upon the single source of a private organization CrowdStrike. But given all the heavy hitting nation states regularly frame others, "Russia's fingerprints" can mean either they did it or they didn't, so it's functionally worthless.
Skepticism of the claims of law enforcement and the intelligence community are good, for a multitude of reasons, but the case here is a lot stronger than you're suggesting and is substantiated by much more than mere finger-pointing by the US government or other governments.
It's unfortunate that the political climate in the US is on such a knife's edge right now that basically no one trusts anyone and everyone is running with their own databases of the facts of the world.
I understand the US government is itself very largely to blame for this deep distrust, but posts like yours make me worried for the next few decades. This isn't a criticism of you at all, but just general concern that things are kind of coming apart at the seams societally. I really hope the "two movies on one screen" phenomenon doesn't escalate to the point that the screen shatters into a billion pieces.
There has been direct testimony from intelligence officials and thousands of pages of reports including very technical details.
Do you want server logs, intercepts, confessions? All these provide nothing of value to the general public.
When intelligence agencies share clear evidence a dictator gassed his own civilian population, no one cares or trolls ask for more evidence.
>When intelligence agencies share clear evidence a dictator gassed his own civilian population
Funnily enough, there's no clear evidence of this. According to OPCW leaked documents there's a higher probability the gas was manually placed at the site. [1] Which of course, calls into question the Syrian government's involvement, especially given earlier intelligence showing ISIS had possession of such chemical weapons.
You're asking for clear evidence but then using an op-ed from a known controversial journalist on Syria, sharing a Wikileaks leak after the GRU was caught hacking the OPCW ?
Clear evidence you can't fake: a rush of hundreds of people (including children) to the different hospitals near the Khan Sheikhoun site while all showing the same respiratory and neurological symptoms. How can one fool so many doctors?
This seems to be some form of strawman, given I never even implied there was no attack. Merely that it was misattributed according to leaked documents written by chemical experts.
Also, Assad was by all accounts winning the war and pushing back on all fronts at the time. Do you think he's such a lunatic and so strategically bankrupt that he'd launch a chemical attack on his own people while he's winning? Or is it more likely that ISIS launched a false flag attack using chemical weapons that we know they have in order to get the West to do their bidding against Assad?
The Syrian war is a mess, and there are no good guys. The US-backed rebels commit war crimes and behead children, for example.
The source of leaked documents really doesn't concern me as long as they are authentic. For argument's sake, if Snowden was a Kremlin double agent I wouldn't care because he revealed genuine government wrongdoing.
Attacking the source generally isn't a valid argument, especially given the authenticity of the information.
All of that was based on the opinion of a private organization. No intelligence official ever had possession of the server or was involved at any time.
Do you think it's prudent for the intelligence community to allow private organizations to attribute nation state attacks on their behalf without inspecting the evidence?
It's a pretty simple question, and that's what it boils down to.
