Taken from JRE #1977 w/Dave Smith:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5wmXmGINlwaHompifKfxyD?si=76f225e4337542e8

Because the whole thing was crazy that this guy had access to it.

I guess he was showing it to his friends or something?

A lot of people were criticizing the guy and they were kind of saying like, well look, this guy's no Ed Snowden.

I mean, he didn't like take this to Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian to have him vet through it and properly disclose it.

He's like bragging to friends on a discord server or whatever and essentially that seems right to me like that does kind of seem like what happened but again like that's not the interesting story here the interesting story isn't like what this guy's deal was or what his motives were the story is like oh the government's lying to you again And also that it's they have this information that they claim is so vital that it's so horrible he leaked it.

And yet you're so reckless with it that you know, it's like it's funny.

I remember Glenn Greenwald making this point when people would talk about, like people were at the national security apparatus or whatever would be talking about how reckless it is that Snowden just like gave all of this information out and you're like, well then weren't you pretty reckless too?

Because like if this information's so vital, You didn't even know it was gone right they didn't even know it was gone until the Guardian published it And then they were like oh, I guess this guy took all of our documents What another 1 of the documents say well?

It was just right before that 1 of the other real interesting thing is that they came out so a couple days after the leak first like was getting reported the Reuters had a piece an article where they had 3 high-level US officials under anonymity said that, you'll never believe this, Joe, it had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.

And so isn't it just amazing that they'll go, And then like 2 days later, they completely gave up on that and went, let's just smear the kid who did it.

There were some interesting revelations from the documents.

Things like, evidently there are NATO and US military embedded in Ukraine, like help assisting them, basically, which is which is pretty dangerous.

Western special forces operating inside Ukraine.

1 document dated 23 March refers to the presence of a small number of Western special forces operating inside Ukraine without specifying their activities or location.

The UK has the largest contingent, 50, followed by Latvia, 17, France, 15, and the US, 14, the Netherlands, 1.

Western governments typically refrain from commenting on such sensitive matters, but this detail is likely to be seized upon by Moscow, which has in recent months argued that it is not just confronting Ukraine, but NATO as well.

And essentially, look, this was the, I think when Putin ultimately decided to invade Ukraine last year, I think basically what he concluded was that they did it.

Even though Ukraine is not an official NATO country, at this point they Backed the coup that overthrew the Democratic the democratically elected government under Yanukovych They poured weapons into the country and they were doing Joint training exercises with NATO and the Ukrainian military and I think Vladimir Putin was basically Like we told them this was our brightest of red lines and they crossed it and I got to do something now I'm not saying he should have done this.

There's other things he could have done There's lots of things.

I mean, I don't know exactly you get creative, but he could have cut off all natural Gas to Europe he could have dropped a nuke in the ocean I mean he could have done something before he did this you know but he basically concluded that Ukraine is de facto a member of NATO and If you look at the way, we're responding to this whole thing.

He's he's kind of right I Mean like we're backing them all the way because they were invaded.

That's what we're supposed to do to a NATO country, you know?

And so this is bad that this comes out, although I got to say I'm surprised to some degree how much, you know, they've, I mean, if the Nord Stream bombing didn't, you know, like do it, I don't know if just some special forces being embedded there is going to create some big escalation.


Speaker 0: The Jorogun Experience. The leaked document. What was your thoughts on that? Because the whole thing was crazy that this guy had access to it. I guess he was showing it to his friends or something?

Is that what

Speaker 1: it was? Yeah. Well, it seems that way. A lot of people were criticizing the guy and they were kind of saying like, well look, this guy's no Ed Snowden. I mean, he didn't like take this to Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian to have him vet through it and properly disclose it.

He's like bragging to friends on a discord server or whatever and essentially that seems right to me like that does kind of seem like what happened but again like that's not the interesting story here the interesting story isn't like what this guy's deal was or what his motives were the story is like oh the government's lying to you again And also that it's they have this information that they claim is so vital that it's so horrible he leaked it. And yet you're so reckless with it that you know, it's like it's funny. I remember Glenn Greenwald making this point when people would talk about, like people were at the national security apparatus or whatever would be talking about how reckless it is that Snowden just like gave all of this information out and you're like, well then weren't you pretty reckless too? Because like if this information's so vital, You didn't even know it was gone right they didn't even know it was gone until the Guardian published it And then they were like oh, I guess this guy took all of our documents What another 1 of the documents say well? It was just right before that 1 of the other real interesting thing is that they came out so a couple days after the leak first like was getting reported the Reuters had a piece an article where they had 3 high-level US officials under anonymity said that, you'll never believe this, Joe, it had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.

And so isn't it just amazing that they'll go, And then like 2 days later, they completely gave up on that and went, let's just smear the kid who did it. You know, like forget all that stuff. There were some interesting revelations from the documents. Things like, evidently there are NATO and US military embedded in Ukraine, like help assisting them, basically, which is which is pretty dangerous.

Speaker 0: Western special forces operating inside Ukraine. Yeah. 1 document dated 23 March refers to the presence of a small number of Western special forces operating inside Ukraine without specifying their activities or location. The UK has the largest contingent, 50, followed by Latvia, 17, France, 15, and the US, 14, the Netherlands, 1. Western governments typically refrain from commenting on such sensitive matters, but this detail is likely to be seized upon by Moscow, which has in recent months argued that it is not just confronting Ukraine, but NATO as well.

Speaker 1: And essentially, look, this was the, I think when Putin ultimately decided to invade Ukraine last year, I think basically what he concluded was that they did it. They brought Ukraine into NATO. Even though Ukraine is not an official NATO country, at this point they Backed the coup that overthrew the Democratic the democratically elected government under Yanukovych They poured weapons into the country and they were doing Joint training exercises with NATO and the Ukrainian military and I think Vladimir Putin was basically Like we told them this was our brightest of red lines and they crossed it and I got to do something now I'm not saying he should have done this. There's other things he could have done There's lots of things. I mean, I don't know exactly you get creative, but he could have cut off all natural Gas to Europe he could have dropped a nuke in the ocean I mean he could have done something before he did this you know but he basically concluded that Ukraine is de facto a member of NATO and If you look at the way, we're responding to this whole thing.

He's he's kind of right I Mean like we're backing them all the way because they were invaded. That's what we're supposed to do to a NATO country, you know? And so this is bad that this comes out, although I got to say I'm surprised to some degree how much, you know, they've, I mean, if the Nord Stream bombing didn't, you know, like do it, I don't know if just some special forces being embedded there is going to create some big escalation.

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Dave Smith on the Pentagon Document Leaks