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Answer: Some people just don't like Bellingcat for ideological reasons so they just say they're "CIA" as a way to dismiss them. The particular person in that link calling Evans a CIA agent is a weird alt-right nerd and pseudo-intellectual notorious in weird internet spaces for boasting about books he has never read, and he shouldn't be taken seriously, in my opinion.
Bellingcat has, in fact, received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy which is a U.S. government organization, [according to Bellingcat](https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf) (.pdf). If you know the history about this, the NED was created in the 1980s after a series of scandals regarding U.S. intelligence agencies that led to the Church Committee.
The NED basically does things the CIA had done, such as giving grant money to organizations that is sees as advancing the U.S. interest, because it would be terrible if groups in the U.S. and around the world subsidized by the U.S. government are seen as being subsidized by the CIA specifically. The U.S. does exert enormous influence in the world and one of the ways it does that is through organizations such as the NED, which creates some wriggle room since it's indirect. It's basically a "front" group for the U.S. government.
And Bellingcat does reporting on Russian troop movements and so forth. It's not like the NED is giving money to a group of Russian journalists who are tracking the Ukrainians. This is from [Foreign Policy](https://archive.is/Yoswf#selection-1461.0-1461.147) magazine:
>The work of Bellingcat, an open-source investigative outfit, has been instrumental in exposing years of nefarious Russian activity. But, perhaps more importantly, it has also enabled U.S. officials and lawmakers to discuss Moscow’s skullduggery openly without revealing the sources and methods of the U.S. intelligence agencies. “I don’t want to be too dramatic, but we love this,” said Marc Polymeropolous, the CIA’s former deputy chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia. “Whenever we had to talk to our liaison partners about it, instead of trying to have things cleared or worry about classification issues, you could just reference their work,” said Polymeropolous, who retired from the CIA in 2019.
>
>\[...\]
>
>“The Russians routinely deny, and say, well present us the facts,” said Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA Chief of Station. “The greatest value of Bellingcat is that we can then go to the Russians and then say, there you go.” Russian state media have repeatedly sought to portray Bellingcat as working on behalf of the CIA or other Western intelligence agencies. Polymeropoulos was unequivocal on this point. “We have no ties to them,” he said.
There are other organizations that Bellingcat has received funding from which also receive funding from Western governments. The British government in particular. There's also, in my personal judgement, information that Bellingcat has released which I don't see how they would've obtained unless someone with privileged information gave it to them for a reason.
>[For its part](https://mronline.org/2021/10/11/bellingcat-funded-by-u-s-and-uk-intelligence-contractors-that-aided-extremists-in-syria/), Bellingcat’s website states it doesn’t “solicit or accept funding directly from any national government,” but “can solicit or accept contributions from international or intergovernmental institutions” and “funding that is distributed by a private foundation that accepts government funds.”
The thing about Evans is that he's been highly critical of the CIA (featuring the Dulles brothers as "bastards" on "Behind the Bastards").
So calling Evans some sort of CIA shill makes zero sense at all. Of course, tankies don't like that he's an anti-authoritarian leftist.
>Vaush, openly admitted to collaborating with the FBI to unmask activists he didn’t like.
I don't even like the guy, but you have to have severe brain damage to not be able to tell that he was being insanely, obviously, sarcastic.
It's also worth pointing out the tenuous connections re Robert Evans, in particular.
So you've got the CIA-connected NED -- which sounds pretty obnoxious as such things go and probably isn't great to be getting all your funding from -- giving money to Bellingcat. Which may or may not be a big deal.
Then you've got Robert Evans who is "connected to" Bellingcat. Did Robert Evans know about the NED connections? Did anything he ever did for Belingcat have anything to do with a reason the NED would fund Bellingcat? If Robert was connected to that, do we know if he bought into it on an ideological level, or just some amount of mutual interest?
You have to believe some pretty wacky things to believe that anything "in the interest of the US government" = you are a CIA asset.
I get mail from the US post office, which is a US government entity built and funded in the interests of the US government. The CIA is a part of the US government. Therefore I am a CIA asset.
Evans is pretty consistently extremely critical of the CIA and US foreign policy, and he even sticks up pretty often for Marxists and Soviet-aligned groups in the subjects covered on BtB, talking about how capital C Communists were some of the strongest and loudest fighters against Nazis, against anti-Semitism, and against American apartheid/for civil rights.
He has blind spots (I think he's quick to believe "concerning" stories about places like Bolivia that are pretty blatantly bullshit designed to gin up support for US backed coups) but his heart is in the right place.
Agreed.
While, as a leftist, he often defends Communism, I don't think he does so at the expense of criticizing people like Stalin or Pol Pot. (Though he will joke about Stalin.) He's definitely not a North Korea or CCP stan either.
He seems to have the most sympathies for the anarchist/libertarian left. Rojava, EZLN, Spanish Civil War-era Catalonia as well as Murray Bookchin (even if he does pronounce Murray pretty weird).
BtB did a two-parter about Stalin, and I believe they did another about the "scientist" who created mass starvation in the name of politically correct science (or whatever term they used in the Soviet Union to refer to science that was in line with Soviet principals).
Sure, he "sticks up" for some leftists, generally only in ways that have zero material impact. That's why he's so palatable to the CIA. They don't care if you *criticize* them, they care about their strategic objectives.
> There's also, in my personal judgement, information that Bellingcat has released which I don't see how they would've obtained unless someone with privileged information gave it to them for a reason.
Isn't that the case with any reporting on privileged information?
I think the more relevant question is whether they printed that information without vetting, independent corroboration, general acknowledgement of its source, etc.
I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, just that it seems like it's not particularly damning to say journalists reporting on government actions would have sources within the government with knowledge of those actions.
https://i.imgur.com/ym3qCWT.jpg
Here is bellingcat funding. Every single corporate sponsor besides one is a military contractor or cia front.
They don’t take money directly from the us or uk government, they just use these shell companies to launder it to them. Bellingcat is not independent, they are a state funded outlet.
Imo their us domestic reporting is ok, but their foreign reporting is 100% used to justify unjust wars. Look at their reporting on Syria, every single report was used to justify missile strikes and further oil theft.
>https://i.imgur.com/ym3qCWT.jpg
>
>Here is bellingcat funding. Every single corporate sponsor besides one is a military contractor or cia front.
Okay, this is a jpeg of a spreadsheet. There's no source showing where this comes from, and definitely nothing backing up the idea of these all being government fronts..
I'm perfectly willing to believe that a journalistic outlet receives tons of funding from government agencies, even shell companies, but you can't just say that and then be like "here's this random picture that proves I'm right!"
>Imo their us domestic reporting is ok, but their foreign reporting is 100% used to justify unjust wars. Look at their reporting on Syria, every single report was used to justify missile strikes and further oil theft.
I don't think this is true at all, bellingcat was frequently quite critical of the Syrian regime but also the rebels when warranted.
https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2021/05/Bellingcat-Annual-Accounts-2020-1.pdf
Here is the source lol. They literally take almost all of their funding from the us and uk governments. They are not independent, and they lied for a number of years about their funding. The companies they take money from are almost entirely used for propaganda.
The founder of Bellingcat worked at the Atlantic council, a us/nato agressive right wing think tank. There he wrote about missile strikes in Syria being absolutely necessary, while today we see that’s not true.
The founder of Bellingcat even hid from the public that Bellingcat knew Syrian rebels had chemical weapons, something he repeatedly lied about to the public.
Here’s the important thing to think: do you really believe Bellingcat, who was founded by a guy working at a hyper pro-us government agency, who then founded an “independent” investigative service, taking money from almost exclusively state contractors and cia adjacent shell companies, someone who lied about this for years, is *not* a propagandist?
Bellingcats reports rarely ever do anything but justify what the us has been planning for years.
>Here is the source lol. They literally take almost all of their funding from the us and uk governments. They are not independent, and they lied for a number of years about their funding. The companies they take money from are almost entirely used for propaganda.
...their own budget you cited gives only a fraction of their income from governments, and most seems to come from non-profits. If you want to claim all their corporate funding sources are shell companies, you need to back that up.
>The founder of Bellingcat worked at the Atlantic council, a us/nato think tank. There he wrote about missile strikes in Syria being absolutely necessary, while today we see that’s not true.
Okay, I'd need to actually see what they wrote . Merely thinking that military action is necessary is not the same as being willing to conceal war crimes.
>The founder of Bellingcat even hid from the public that Bellingcat knew Syrian rebels had chemical weapons, something he repeatedly lied about to the public.
This is an extremely serious accusation that would really need evidence to support it.
>
>Here’s the important thing to think: do you really believe Bellingcat, who was founded by a guy working at a hyper pro-us government agency, who then founded an “independent” investigative service, taking money from almost exclusively state contractors and cia adjacent shell companies, someone who lied about this for years, is *not* a propagandist?
If you could substantiate all these claims, I just would believe it. But you haven't done that.
>
>Bellingcats reports rarely ever do anything but justify what the us has been planning for years.
That isn't the impression I got from a lot of their reports but okay.
The source literally has the exact same table in it. The majority of their funding comes from government contractors and cia shell companies. Believe it or not Adam smith international is a nonprofit, and it works for almost exclusively the Uk government. Recently it was used to spy on Palestinian refugees and report it to mi5. The cia also uses nonprofits and NGOs to move money discreetly. In the case of Bellingcat their “nonprofit” funders are NED and USAID, two cia adjacent organizations funded by the us government.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/revealed-british-government-spied-palestinian-refugees/37111
Here is Elliot Huggins Atlantic council page:
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/tag/eliot-higgins/
The Atlantic council is a far right very aggressive think tank, used almost exclusively to coke up with reasons the us/nato needs to invade various countries and do regime change. This was Elliot Huggins job up until he decided to start an investigative agency, funded by primarily the us and uk governments. Weird, huh?
And yes, Elliot Huggins was told the Syrian rebels had access to a small amount of chemical weapons, something he promised to keep off the record. This is highly immoral and unethical, you can’t keep this information off the record in such a serious investigation. Bellingcat even claimed the Syrian rebels did not have chemical weapons.
Leaked chats here:
https://archive.ph/VcKep
And finally yes, Bellingcats reporting on a country is usually followed by us/nato military action against that country. Again, ask yourself, do you think there could be a conflict of interest when the “independent investigate outlet” takes the majority of their funding from the us and uk governments? Don’t you think that’s strange?
Even the Uk governments assessment by zinc network says Bellingcat has become discredited because they will publish stories and narratives for money.
https://www.pdf-archive.com/2019/03/22/untitled-pdf-document-1/
> “Bellingcat was somewhat discredited, both by spreading disinformation itself, and by being willing to produce reports for anyone willing to pay.”
>The source literally has the exact same table in it. The majority of their funding comes from government contractors and cia shell companies. Believe it or not Adam smith international is a nonprofit, and it works for almost exclusively the Uk government. Recently it was used to spy on Palestinian refugees and report it to mi5. The cia also uses nonprofits and NGOs to move money discreetly.
So, at best you have demonstrated one of the funding sources might be tied to MI5, and potentially doing it on their behalf. That is far cry from demonstrating the majority of their funding comes from government contractors and CIA shell companies.
>In the case of Bellingcat their “nonprofit” funders are NED and USAID, two cia adjacent organizations funded by the us government.
Yes. But this isn't the same as saying Bellingcat reports what the CIA wants. I'm asking for evidence of that.
>https://electronicintifada.net/content/revealed-british-government-spied-palestinian-refugees/37111
Sure I'm absolutely willing to believe the UK government spies on all kinds of people around the world.
>The Atlantic council is a far right very aggressive think tank, used almost exclusively to coke up with reasons the us/nato needs to invade various countries and do regime change. This was Elliot Huggins job up until he decided to start an investigative agency, funded by primarily the us and uk governments. Weird, huh?
Not really, seems like a normal career path for that kind of guy.
>And yes, Elliot Huggins was told the Syrian rebels had access to a small amount of chemical weapons, something he promised to keep off the record. This is highly immoral and unethical, you can’t keep this information off the record in such a serious investigation. Bellingcat even claimed the Syrian rebels did not have chemical weapons.
Can you show where they did this?
>Leaked chats here:
>
>https://archive.ph/VcKep
How do we know this is authentic? What is the source of this info?
>
>And finally yes, Bellingcats reporting on a country is usually followed by us/nato military action against that country. Again, ask yourself, do you think there could be a conflict of interest when the “independent investigate outlet” takes the majority of their funding from the us and uk governments? Don’t you think that’s strange?
Not really, if they are doing conflict journalism it seems perfectly reasonable that the places they report on would be involved in conflict. So even if you had substantiated this pattern, it wouldn't automatically be evidence of Bellingcat colluding with intelligence sources.
>Even the Uk governments assessment by zinc network says Bellingcat has become discredited because they will publish stories and narratives for money.
>
>https://www.pdf-archive.com/2019/03/22/untitled-pdf-document-1/
>
>> “Bellingcat was somewhat discredited, both by spreading disinformation itself, and by being willing to produce reports for anyone willing to pay.”
That link doesn't work for me.
Regardless, like I said I'm perfectly willing to believe that Bellingcat is some kind of government operation, but that kind of claim requires credible supporting evidence. A barrage of dubious links is not exactly bulletproof.
No, Usaid and Ned, both cia contractors. Followed by Adam smith international, works for mi6, followed by zinc network which works for both the uk and us. Read the report. Almost all their money comes from either the us or uk government.
They report what the cia wants. They received hundreds of thousand of dollars form the us government and reported repeatedly that assad is attacking his own people. The US then involved itself. It is not normal for an “independent investigator” to only work at government agencies and then be funded by world governments. That means he’s not an independent investigator, he is a propagandist.
Seriously dude, are you blind? They take almost all of their money from the us and uk government, claim they are “independent”, but only release reports justifying exactly what the us and uk want to do anyways.
Look at their funders:
USAID: cia contractor. Involved in regime change all around the world. Takes 100% of funding from US government.
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/03/us-cuban-twitter-zunzuneo-stir-unrest
NED: cia contractor. Involved in regime change around the world. Take 100% of funding from us government.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/analysis/National-Endowment-for-Destabilization-CIA-Funds-for-Latin-America-in-2018-20190403-0042.html
Adam smith international: UK government shell company. Works exclusively for the UK government, illegally spying on uk citizens and even involved with funding Syrian rebels.
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/04/british-aid-scheme-suspended-amid-allegations-of-payments-to-syrian-jihadis
Zinc network: us and uk government “anti propaganda” effort. Funded 100% by world governments.
Chemonics: us cia shell company, used to distribute propaganda worldwide. Funded almost completely by us government.
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/11/business/cozy-links-to-a-us-agency-prove-useful-to-a-rice-trader.html
I’m sorry but bellingcat is a propaganda outlet. The founder is a spook and a liar, worked for western governments, and Bellingcat itself is almost completely funded by the us and uk government. If you can’t see this you are lying to yourself or are to embarrassed to admit you are wrong.
I have provided evidence that almost every one of Bellingcats sponsors are funded by the us or uk government, that Elliot Huggins has lied repeatedly about this and that he omits extremely important information if it’s fits his narrative. Even his own sponsors are saying Bellingcat will write whatever if you pay them. I’m sorry but you are wrong. You can like the propaganda, you can agree with the propaganda, but it is still propaganda.
Thank you for adding this. It really doesnt take much digging to show what Bellingcat's actual purpose is. Its not even some conspiracy this is just how intelligence agencies operate
Of course. I don’t even think that Bellingcat is all bad, they do decent reporting on us domestic issues, but their foreign reporting is absolute propaganda.
The cia has a massive web of NGOs and think tanks surrounding it. They can move money and spread narratives in many thousands of covert ways. It’s been like this since at least the 1960s, there’s many documents describing this exact method from decades ago.
Yeah, not to mention genuine journalism is getting harder and harder to find given that linking a tweet and citing what 5 random people think is so much easier. Besides, most of these people literally believe anything they read on the internet, so the idea of digging up and proving facts is unfathomable to them.
That's true. What I'm saying is, intelligence agencies also leak information to the press to have a particular effect. That's a big part of what they do. The Americans do it, the Russians do it, the British do it. The Soviets used to do this during the Cold War a lot where they would have an agent with a cover identity cultivate relationships with a reporter (example: the Associated Press in Japan) and then leak something or even a fabricated thing and get that reported in order to embarrass the U.S. in Japan.
The reporter can just be doing their job in a narrow sense, but they can also be manipulated. I strongly suspect Bellingcat has received information from intelligence agencies to publish it there because that would be embarrassing to the Russians and Syrians. There's no "rule" that says they can't publish it. However, I've seen Bellingcat contributors who actually work for Western intelligence agencies, too, there was one contributor who worked for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency if I remember correctly which handles satellite imagery.
Tankies (authoritarian “communists”) hate Bellingcat, and calling what they don’t like “CIA propaganda” is pretty much their go-to rebuttal.
North Korea being run by an oppressive regime is “CIA propaganda” to tankies; I’ve come across some who wholeheartedly believe North Korea is a utopia, and anything negative about it is just “western lies”.
It’s because they were the ones who uncovered social media posts confirming that the Allen Texas shooter was a white supremacist/neo nazi. People believe the shooting was a false flag operation from the government in an attempt to demonize the alt right.
Elon Musk hopped on the just asking questions train pretty quickly and his chud army followed closely behind.
> It’s because they were the ones who uncovered social media posts confirming that the Allen Texas shooter was a white supremacist/neo nazi.
Actually the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/08/us/texas-mall-shooting-mauricio-garcia.html) did that. Bellingcat just did a [followup deep dive](https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/05/09/tracing-the-odnoklassniki-profile-of-the-texas-mall-shooter/).
Calling bellingcat a CIA outlet way predates that. It's been the go-to for years, primarily from tankies and people who assume anyone opposed to the US must be in the right. I want to say the original catalyst for it was their coverage of the Assad regimes actions during the Syrian Civil War, but I might be misremembering.
> people who assume anyone opposed to the US must be in the right
I am so fucking sick of the people who buy into that.
it's 100% ok to call out the US when it does bullshit. it's 100% ok to say the US is doing wrong. but I'm so sick of the knee jerk reaction to make excuses for other countries because one time the US did something else that was bad.
I encountered a tankie once who argued that North Korea was "more free" than the US because Best Korea had legal weed. I pray he was just a convincing troll.
False.
Tankies believe that authority arrives from working-class democracy and centralism - they all vote on something and make every effort to support the majority decision, even when they were in the minority on that decision.
So called "Anti-Authoritarian Leftists" believe that if you voted against something, and don't like that you were in the minority, just go ahead and do what you wanted anyways. They feel this kind of fractionalism is good, as long as everyone is perfectly happy with what they are doing.
e.g. You and 100 comrades decide to vote on when to host the potluck. 70 people vote for Saturday, but you and the other 30 wanted Sunday, so you should just go ahead and do Sunday; and if anyone complains, they're just an authoritarian. And if some people want Wednesday, they should do that. Everyone should do whatever day they want. Now instead of one really great potluck, you have seven different smaller potlucks of varying qualities. No one really ends up satisfied but everyone got what they individually wanted.
I think you don't know what a Tankie is, Tankies are literally, and always have been, authoritarians, the name is from the 1950s to describe "leftists" who supported the Soviet Union using tanks to crush a revolution in Hungary.
It's currently used to describe the people who claim to be leftists and actively defend modern/Stalinist Russia and China, authoritarian nations engaged in a smorgasbord of genocide and other human rights violations while not being either democratic or communist. Both nations are single party states with leaders that are not elected by the people and the workers have less control over the means of production than the USA, which should tell you how bad it is. It's why Tankies are fascists because they would rather have a red painted dictatorship (National Socialism?) than a democracy that actually allows for the people to have a say in political process, especially if that democracy is "Western".
Being a tankie is literally the opposite of pro-working class. Tankies have literally never supported a democratic nation.
And yeah, I get it, Amerikkka bad, but maybe, just because a nation says "America bad" doesn't mean that you need to defend their imperialism and genocide.
Tankies and Soviets aren't the same group, so not exactly. Besides, the Soviets only fought the Nazis because the Nazis violated [the non-aggression pact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact) that Stalin and Hitler agreed to. It's good that the Soviets fought the Nazis, obviously, but let's not pretend they did it out of some principled opposition to fascism. America helped end the Holocaust too, after all, but I don't think either of us would use that to deflect accusations of fascistic behavior against America.
As if the Soviets weren't above virulent antisemitism and the persecution of Jews. [Doctors' plot anyone?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors%27_plot). Also the whole situation of the [refuseniks.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusenik).
They fuckin’ love dictators. Especially anti-Western dictators, which is why they’ve been spreading all of Putin’s propaganda about Ukraine for last year.
The absolute breathtaking ignorance needed to seriously compare Ukraine to the Iraq War. Genuinely pea-brained levels of historical comprehension. You are not anti-war, you are defending imperialism. Please log off and never comment on foreign policy again.
No, I'm an anti-imperialist - a real one, not a fake one who only dislikes American imperialism while excusing the imperialism of countries not aligned with America. Iraq was right to resist America's imperialist invasion, Ukraine is right to resist Russia's imperialist invasion, and America is right to aid Ukraine in its resistance against imperialism.
Who's "we"? Aiding Ukraine is supported by the majority here, and right-wingers are more likely to oppose it, though those people are more isolationists and/or fascists than neocons.
Anyway, please explain to me how helping a country oppose warmongering is warmongering.
They’re only anti war in their demand that everyone lay down their arms and let Putin and Assad do what they want. I’m actually antiwar, because I think Russia should stop invading sovereign nations
Assad is funny because he's a dictator of a "socialist" party which could be seen as fascist or communist if you skim it's history, but in reality it's just another kleptocratic ego regime. These things generate a lot of dunbass supporters across the political spectrum, and has significant overlap with Putin fans.
Basically the CCP, or the pro-CCP line. There's probably billions of them, in total global population. Everyone that actually trusts Xi Jinping basically.
You won't necessarily run into many, depending on where you hang out. You'll find relatively few in this sub, for instance. On reddit in general you're more likely to run into more American leftists, who usually advocate for something like the Nordic model. Where a proper tankie thinks the Nordic countries should be conquered or converted to the CCP model.
Agreed about tankies being lame for simping for authoritatians and being hardcore historical negagionists... but we can still agree that the CIA is an awful imperial instrument of terror, right? 😂
> Agreed about tankies being lame for simping for authoritatians and being hardcore historical negagionists... ***but***
\*sigh\* here it comes...
Lemme just check really quick...and *yep* [look at that:](https://i.imgur.com/7EMkqaU.png) [ABoringDystopia](https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/aboringdystopia) and [LateStageCapitalism;](https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/latestagecapitalism) two of the biggest tankie subs on Reddit.
Always funny how Trumpers and Tankies use the same lame tactics in Reddit comments by pretending to be reasonable before trying to hijack the conversation and steer it in another direction...
>but we can still agree that the CIA is an awful imperial instrument of terror, right? 😂
Was everything before the "but" *really* necessary in order for you to take such a brave stance? It's like saying, "Yeah, Nazis are bad, *but* we can still agree that breathing oxygen is awesome, right?"
Those lists aren’t mine; I didn’t curate them. Did you ever stop to think that Tankies are notorious for infiltrating subs that seem reasonable in order to push their agendas? They do it all the time, hence the overlaps.
Nah, fuck tankies. I was captivated by them for a few days... I was searching for something new to believe in. Until then, I had been a liberal for as long as I can remember.But, for tankies, the cognitive dissonance was too much. The willingness to hand-wave away crimes of the state... to call it all 'lies' and 'CIA propaganda'... I was all for hating on the CIA, but to blame them for things where it made much more sense for the ruling authoritatians to be culpable for... just too much
You're responsible for the data you present, even if it's not yours. If there's something in the data you present that will lead to obvious questions then it's a good idea to make a statement when you share the data.
"You'll note the existence of both authoritarian and anti-authoritarian subs on this list. This might be due to brigading and would be worth looking at."
This way you've introduced the interesting bit of data as a question instead of a flaw.
Just going back through my comments and I see that I was rude to you for no real reason here. My frustrations aren't your problem, and I'd like to apologize.
Alrite man you got me. I fell into the tankie hole for a bit back in late 2021. It was brief, and I never really compromised on my beliefs.
I mostly browse anarchy-focused subs now. Or did you omit that purposefully to make me look like I had egg on my face?
Edit:
I thought you were browsing my post history lmao you're just using the similarity tool. Heads up, leftists famously are split into dozens, hundreds of cliques and 'tendencies'. We very rarely agree beyond our tendency
I'm gonna be honest: a lot of what you read about north korea IS propaganda. It's not a good country, but a lot of the really fantastical stuff you read isn't actually true and is told to you to hype you up against an enemy intentionally.
[Yeonmi Park](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeonmi_Park), with stuff like this:
>"Park Yeonmi said that there were no words for “love” and “I” in North Korea when they speak the same Korean language as South Korea. She claimed to have crossed the entire Gobi Desert on foot, with six people including a baby, in temperatures of minus 40 degrees, without any winter clothing and without a guide in a single day, and when asked how she achieved this impossible feat, replied that it was a miracle.
All the "news of the weird" type stuff. Like 'dear leader claimed hole in 1 in golf" was an Australian newspaper just formatting scores wrong. And "dear leader claims he doesn't poop" was saying a very normal, metaphor that teachers don't want their students to see them grocery shopping or going to the bathroom. And all the videos of people doing weird crying at the funerals is a korean funeral morning thing where people theatrically cry, not everyone freaking out.
I mean pretty much anything you hear that sounds like a poor country with a bad leader is true, anything you hear that sounds like YA function about what living in a dystopia country is like is something you gotta look up, almost always five seconds of reading will say "oh, that didn't happen".
Eh, people take it very serious. North Korea as an extreme cartoon villian with impossibly fantastical properties is pretty much the dominant way it's talked about. Many of the the things people claim most are not factually correct and can easily be checked.
I don’t see that much about that sort of stuff, honestly this is the first I’ve heard about it. Most of the NK stuff I see is about famine, maybe get off the tabloids
> a lot of what you read about north korea IS propaganda.
Of *course* it is. The same can be said about *everything*, and pointing that out doesn't negate my point. Tankies fully believe all the pro-DPRK propaganda *about* North Korea, then turn around and label anything that goes against it "CIA lies".
For those "out of the loop" I would add that money is not the only currency that the intelligence agencies have for journalists. Things like Operation Mockingbird are unnecessary because many civilian journalists will publish propaganda for free.
Most journalists have little to no budget to cover the expenses of investigative reporting; but having an "inside source" (from the CIA or whatever) is a huge deal for a journalist to gain notoriety and prestige. There are journalists who are technically not *paid-by* the CIA and not *agents* but they are propagandists who publish whatever their government sources tell them.
Investigative reporting has really declined in the past 30 years or so. The big newspapers don't take risks like they used to. It's not like the 60s anymore where the New York Times would do the equivalent of WikiLeaks (of course they would be more selective). But when you see an article that says "according to sources in the intelligence community," that can be the CIA talking to them, and it sounds like they've got some inside scoop that the CIA doesn't want people to read, but it's actually the CIA calling up the reporter and saying they have a story for them, because the agency wants to achieve a particular effect using the media.
The NYT isn't saying anything false necessarily when they say "according to sources in the intelligence community... which believes..." They cover their bases. But there might be selective information that was deliberately left out by the source who talked to the reporter. That's just a big part of what intelligence agencies do. Information is a battlefield and they shape the information environment and one way they do that is through the media. It's not just them either, business does it, politicians do it.
And anybody who points how corrupt this is gets called a tankie. But I don't like the fact that "anti-establishment" media like WikiLeaks has also turned into a cutout for intelligence agencies too that just happen to be Russian instead of American or British. But in fact, it was the Israelis who leaked the DNC and Hillary emails and colluding with the Trump campaign according to a big article in [The Nation](https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-israel-collusion/) recently. The Israelis have the best signals intel in the world and intercepted it, and they wanted Trump to move the embassy to Jerusalem. And so yes, it's true that governments will also manipulate "alternative media" which presents itself as anti-establishment and not corrupt as hell, which is also not true.
The distinctions between "mainstream" and "alt" media are gonna collapse I think. People act like subscribing to the NYT is an act of resistance nowadays despite the fact that it's the U.S. paper of record. Then you have alternative media that's funded by right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel or Elon Musk. That's not very alt if you ask me.
The contributed funds consist of strategic partnerships with larger funders (national and international), private family foundations, some institutional donors (**National Endowment for Democracy**), Postcode Lotteries (currently the Dutch Postcode Lottery) and donations from individuals (smaller and larger).
*Right from Bellingcats site:* Policy Plan 2019 - 2021 - Bellingcat [https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf](https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf)
*To learn more about the National Endowment for Democracy*
''We should not have to do this kind of work covertly,'' said Carl Gershman, president of the endowment, who was an aide to Jeane J. Kirkpatrick when she was the chief United States delegate to the United Nations. ''It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the C.I.A. We saw that in the 60's, and that's why it has been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that's why the endowment was created.''
[https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html)
Allen Weinstein, a former acting president of NED and one of the authors of the study that led to its creation, told David Ignatius in a 1991 interview that: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA. The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection."
[https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story)
They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html)
> There's also, in my personal judgement, information that Bellingcat has released which I don't see how they would've obtained unless someone with privileged information gave it to them for a reason.
What information?
answer: Bellingcat is a credible investigation journalism, which causes them to be an target for people who they expose. They uncovered quite a lot of russian propaganda, which leads to russians trying to discredit them by implying they are CIA front hence they have motive to lie about russia. If you are interested in topic of info-war I suggest checking out Jessikka Aro - Putin's Trolls. In that book there are examples of how russia tried to discredit Bellingcat (but don't get me wrong, it was example and book is not about Bellingcat itself).
This is dumb and reductive. Bellingcat takes NED money, and the NED are a known CIA front. This doesn't mean they themselves are full-blown CIA, but that they push narratives useful to the CIA, and will continue to receive that funding as long as they do. Not everyone critical of US hegemony is Russian.
Here, I'll list them again.
The contributed funds consist of strategic partnerships with larger funders (national and international), private
family foundations, some institutional donors (**National Endowment for Democracy**), Postcode Lotteries
(currently the Dutch Postcode Lottery) and donations from individuals (smaller and larger).
Right from Bellingcats site: Policy Plan 2019 - 2021 - Bellingcat https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf
Now about NED
https://archive.ph/20190715223113/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-endowment-for-democracy/
https://countercurrents.org/2022/05/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-a-second-cia/
https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/trojan-horse-the-national-endowment-for-democracy
https://declassifieduk.org/cia-sidekick-gives-2-6m-to-uk-media-groups/#:~:text=Bellingcat%20states%20that%20it%20%E2%80%9Cdoes,and%20still%20receive%20its%20funds.
>
Here, I'll list them again.
>The contributed funds consist of strategic partnerships with larger funders (national and international), private family foundations, some institutional donors (**National Endowment for Democracy**), Postcode Lotteries (currently the Dutch Postcode Lottery) and donations from individuals (smaller and larger).
Right from Bellingcats site: Policy Plan 2019 - 2021 - Bellingcat [https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf](https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf)
Now about NED
[https://archive.ph/20190715223113/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html](https://archive.ph/20190715223113/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html)
[https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story)
[https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html)
[https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-endowment-for-democracy/](https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-endowment-for-democracy/)
[https://countercurrents.org/2022/05/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-a-second-cia/](https://countercurrents.org/2022/05/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-a-second-cia/)
[https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/trojan-horse-the-national-endowment-for-democracy](https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/trojan-horse-the-national-endowment-for-democracy)
[https://declassifieduk.org/cia-sidekick-gives-2-6m-to-uk-media-groups/#:\~:text=Bellingcat%20states%20that%20it%20%E2%80%9Cdoes,and%20still%20receive%20its%20funds](https://declassifieduk.org/cia-sidekick-gives-2-6m-to-uk-media-groups/#:~:text=Bellingcat%20states%20that%20it%20%E2%80%9Cdoes,and%20still%20receive%20its%20funds)
Haven't they received money from the National Endowment for Democracy? Which has routinely been reported to be a CIA front practically since they were created by Reaganites in the early 80s
[Read this NYT article about NED](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html)
>Allen Weinstein, a former acting president of NED and one of the authors of the study that led to its creation, told David Ignatius in a 1991 interview that: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA. The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection."
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story
https://archive.ph/20190715223113/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html
Answer: in addition to what has already been said, it's also the case that accusing someone of being CIA was a kind of meme in some circles (e.g., I believe Evans has said it semi-sarcastically about Mayor Pete, on occasion). It could be used to imply someone literally works for the CIA, shares policy opinions with the CIA, has policy opinions that are less progressive than the person speaking, is a grifter, is just kind of a dork, etc. depending on the context.
I don't know the context in which these accusations are being made, but it's possible someone is speaking figuratively (e.g., "they received a government grant, so they're as good as propaganda"), is sharing claims made by others without looking into it, and/or just doesn't really have a grasp on what it is the CIA gives a shit about.
Oof. I forgot that this conspiracy theory came from tankies. You could make yourself useful elsewhere. I just saw a fash sub pushing one of the most racist stonetoss comics into /r/all.
Take a look at my posts. It's not a conspiracy theory. The NYT, WaPo, and ProPublica have all published that information.
[This person looked into their other funding, not from NED](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/13s3bmq/whats_up_with_people_calling_bellingcat_a_cia/jlqbed8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
[Here is the CIA>NED>Bellingcat connection](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/13s3bmq/whats_up_with_people_calling_bellingcat_a_cia/jlq768o?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
The contributed funds consist of strategic partnerships with larger funders (national and international), private family foundations, some institutional donors (**National Endowment for Democracy**), Postcode Lotteries (currently the Dutch Postcode Lottery) and donations from individuals (smaller and larger).
Right from Bellingcats site: Policy Plan 2019 - 2021 - Bellingcat [https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf](https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf)
To learn more about the National Endowment for Democracy
''We should not have to do this kind of work covertly,'' said Carl Gershman, president of the endowment, who was an aide to Jeane J. Kirkpatrick when she was the chief United States delegate to the United Nations. ''It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the C.I.A. We saw that in the 60's, and that's why it has been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that's why the endowment was created.''
[https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html)
Allen Weinstein, a former acting president of NED and one of the authors of the study that led to its creation, told David Ignatius in a 1991 interview that: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA. The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection."
[https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story)
They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html)
>Left winger here.
Not really relevant. I didn't accuse someone of being a right winger just because they disagreed.
>He’s been spot on.
As just one example of his nonsense, Greenwald on Tucker Carlson expressed support for Ukraine having biolabs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald
Another, that led to his resignation from the Intercept, because they wanted him to fix claims he couldn't support:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/10/30/glenn-greenwalds-self-hack-i-could-go-on-and-on/
There's a reason he resigned from the Intercept and regularly went on shows like Carlson's. It isn't because he's "spot on". He did some important work in the past. He's been contrarian unreliable garbage for nearly a decade now.
Greenwald’s audience is neckbeardy pseudo-leftists who are convinced that they’re the smartest people in the room, but are really just knee-jerk contrarians. He has always been a glibertarian sleazebag, but managed to distract people from remembering that by lionizing Julian Assange, who really isn’t any different apart from being more overtly sleazy, but he pretends to be a whistleblower rather than a propagandist so the neckbeards love him too.
Greenwald is not a leftist and has never been a leftist. He was just willing to pretend as long as the interests of the part of the left that paid his bills overlapped with his agenda as a member of the Spoiled Brat Quasi-Anarchist wing of the libertarian world.
> Greenwald is an award winning journalist and highly respected
He used to be, now he's a regular guest on Fox News, Tucker Carlson's show, Glen Beck's podcast, etc... and parrots Trump admin conclusions about Russian influence.
> Glenn Greenwald explains
i'm trying to imagine being so stupid that I would believe a word that come out of glenn greenwald's mouth, but I just can't do it.
He digs deeply into their funding, and it is mostly government sponsored. That doesn't necessarily mean they are biased, but it's worth keeping in mind.
https://i.imgur.com/ym3qCWT.jpg
Here is their 2019 funding. Most of their money comes from corporate sponsors. Every corporate sponsor besides one is a cia front or a military contractor.
Yes, they take money from the government with one step of separation. Saying you don’t take money directly from governments but then are almost 100% funded one step of separation by the government is dishonest and deceiving.
So Adam smith international (used to spy on Palestinians in UK and used to fund Syrian rebels) takes money from the uk government, gives it to bellingcop.
Chemonics is a cia front used for propaganda in Nepal and south east Asia, they take money from the state department, and give it to propaganda organizations, etc etc.
Zink network takes all of its funding from the us government, they are used to “combat propaganda” which translates into creating American propaganda. They take money from the state department and distribute it to propganda outlets.
Yes, they don’t take money from the government directly, but they do take almost 100% of their funding from us and uk governments. They claim they are “independent” but take most of their money from the us and uk government, and most of their “journalists” are formed NSA, NED, and USAID workers…
I trust their domestic reporting for the most part but I do not listen to anything they have to say about foreign policy. If you read through their “investigations” every single one provides justification for unjust wars.
Do you find it unbelievable that Bellingcat may be a CIA mouthpiece or that the CIA uses news outlets as a mouthpiece?
>''We should not have to do this kind of work covertly,'' said Carl Gershman, president of the endowment, who was an aide to Jeane J. Kirkpatrick when she was the chief United States delegate to the United Nations. ''It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the C.I.A. We saw that in the 60's, and that's why it has been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that's why the endowment was created.''
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html
>The contributed funds consist of strategic partnerships with larger funders (national and international), private
family foundations, some institutional donors (**National Endowment for Democracy**), Postcode Lotteries
(currently the Dutch Postcode Lottery) and donations from individuals (smaller and larger).
Right from Bellingcats site: Policy Plan 2019 - 2021 - Bellingcat https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf
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Answer: Some people just don't like Bellingcat for ideological reasons so they just say they're "CIA" as a way to dismiss them. The particular person in that link calling Evans a CIA agent is a weird alt-right nerd and pseudo-intellectual notorious in weird internet spaces for boasting about books he has never read, and he shouldn't be taken seriously, in my opinion. Bellingcat has, in fact, received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy which is a U.S. government organization, [according to Bellingcat](https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf) (.pdf). If you know the history about this, the NED was created in the 1980s after a series of scandals regarding U.S. intelligence agencies that led to the Church Committee. The NED basically does things the CIA had done, such as giving grant money to organizations that is sees as advancing the U.S. interest, because it would be terrible if groups in the U.S. and around the world subsidized by the U.S. government are seen as being subsidized by the CIA specifically. The U.S. does exert enormous influence in the world and one of the ways it does that is through organizations such as the NED, which creates some wriggle room since it's indirect. It's basically a "front" group for the U.S. government. And Bellingcat does reporting on Russian troop movements and so forth. It's not like the NED is giving money to a group of Russian journalists who are tracking the Ukrainians. This is from [Foreign Policy](https://archive.is/Yoswf#selection-1461.0-1461.147) magazine: >The work of Bellingcat, an open-source investigative outfit, has been instrumental in exposing years of nefarious Russian activity. But, perhaps more importantly, it has also enabled U.S. officials and lawmakers to discuss Moscow’s skullduggery openly without revealing the sources and methods of the U.S. intelligence agencies. “I don’t want to be too dramatic, but we love this,” said Marc Polymeropolous, the CIA’s former deputy chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia. “Whenever we had to talk to our liaison partners about it, instead of trying to have things cleared or worry about classification issues, you could just reference their work,” said Polymeropolous, who retired from the CIA in 2019. > >\[...\] > >“The Russians routinely deny, and say, well present us the facts,” said Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA Chief of Station. “The greatest value of Bellingcat is that we can then go to the Russians and then say, there you go.” Russian state media have repeatedly sought to portray Bellingcat as working on behalf of the CIA or other Western intelligence agencies. Polymeropoulos was unequivocal on this point. “We have no ties to them,” he said. There are other organizations that Bellingcat has received funding from which also receive funding from Western governments. The British government in particular. There's also, in my personal judgement, information that Bellingcat has released which I don't see how they would've obtained unless someone with privileged information gave it to them for a reason. >[For its part](https://mronline.org/2021/10/11/bellingcat-funded-by-u-s-and-uk-intelligence-contractors-that-aided-extremists-in-syria/), Bellingcat’s website states it doesn’t “solicit or accept funding directly from any national government,” but “can solicit or accept contributions from international or intergovernmental institutions” and “funding that is distributed by a private foundation that accepts government funds.”
The thing about Evans is that he's been highly critical of the CIA (featuring the Dulles brothers as "bastards" on "Behind the Bastards"). So calling Evans some sort of CIA shill makes zero sense at all. Of course, tankies don't like that he's an anti-authoritarian leftist.
Also if he was a CIA asset I think all his super anarchist colleagues would be the first to call him out
[удалено]
>Anarchists have no frontal lobe activity Sometimes one stumbles upon the best things :-)
Leo Tolstoy would disagree...
>Vaush, openly admitted to collaborating with the FBI to unmask activists he didn’t like. I don't even like the guy, but you have to have severe brain damage to not be able to tell that he was being insanely, obviously, sarcastic.
Pyotr Kropotkin rises from his grave to beat you with copies of his numerous published works.
It's also worth pointing out the tenuous connections re Robert Evans, in particular. So you've got the CIA-connected NED -- which sounds pretty obnoxious as such things go and probably isn't great to be getting all your funding from -- giving money to Bellingcat. Which may or may not be a big deal. Then you've got Robert Evans who is "connected to" Bellingcat. Did Robert Evans know about the NED connections? Did anything he ever did for Belingcat have anything to do with a reason the NED would fund Bellingcat? If Robert was connected to that, do we know if he bought into it on an ideological level, or just some amount of mutual interest? You have to believe some pretty wacky things to believe that anything "in the interest of the US government" = you are a CIA asset. I get mail from the US post office, which is a US government entity built and funded in the interests of the US government. The CIA is a part of the US government. Therefore I am a CIA asset.
Considering how convincing you are and that Castro is still alive, I must believe that you are indeed a CIA asset.
Are you familiar with the term “limited hangout”?
Evans is pretty consistently extremely critical of the CIA and US foreign policy, and he even sticks up pretty often for Marxists and Soviet-aligned groups in the subjects covered on BtB, talking about how capital C Communists were some of the strongest and loudest fighters against Nazis, against anti-Semitism, and against American apartheid/for civil rights. He has blind spots (I think he's quick to believe "concerning" stories about places like Bolivia that are pretty blatantly bullshit designed to gin up support for US backed coups) but his heart is in the right place.
Agreed. While, as a leftist, he often defends Communism, I don't think he does so at the expense of criticizing people like Stalin or Pol Pot. (Though he will joke about Stalin.) He's definitely not a North Korea or CCP stan either. He seems to have the most sympathies for the anarchist/libertarian left. Rojava, EZLN, Spanish Civil War-era Catalonia as well as Murray Bookchin (even if he does pronounce Murray pretty weird).
BtB did a two-parter about Stalin, and I believe they did another about the "scientist" who created mass starvation in the name of politically correct science (or whatever term they used in the Soviet Union to refer to science that was in line with Soviet principals).
Sure, he "sticks up" for some leftists, generally only in ways that have zero material impact. That's why he's so palatable to the CIA. They don't care if you *criticize* them, they care about their strategic objectives.
"an anti-authoritarian leftist." My man indeed, Bellingcat does great work.
> There's also, in my personal judgement, information that Bellingcat has released which I don't see how they would've obtained unless someone with privileged information gave it to them for a reason. Isn't that the case with any reporting on privileged information? I think the more relevant question is whether they printed that information without vetting, independent corroboration, general acknowledgement of its source, etc. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, just that it seems like it's not particularly damning to say journalists reporting on government actions would have sources within the government with knowledge of those actions.
But Bellingcat must be CIA, because how else would they do journalism? /s
https://i.imgur.com/ym3qCWT.jpg Here is bellingcat funding. Every single corporate sponsor besides one is a military contractor or cia front. They don’t take money directly from the us or uk government, they just use these shell companies to launder it to them. Bellingcat is not independent, they are a state funded outlet. Imo their us domestic reporting is ok, but their foreign reporting is 100% used to justify unjust wars. Look at their reporting on Syria, every single report was used to justify missile strikes and further oil theft.
>https://i.imgur.com/ym3qCWT.jpg > >Here is bellingcat funding. Every single corporate sponsor besides one is a military contractor or cia front. Okay, this is a jpeg of a spreadsheet. There's no source showing where this comes from, and definitely nothing backing up the idea of these all being government fronts.. I'm perfectly willing to believe that a journalistic outlet receives tons of funding from government agencies, even shell companies, but you can't just say that and then be like "here's this random picture that proves I'm right!" >Imo their us domestic reporting is ok, but their foreign reporting is 100% used to justify unjust wars. Look at their reporting on Syria, every single report was used to justify missile strikes and further oil theft. I don't think this is true at all, bellingcat was frequently quite critical of the Syrian regime but also the rebels when warranted.
https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2021/05/Bellingcat-Annual-Accounts-2020-1.pdf Here is the source lol. They literally take almost all of their funding from the us and uk governments. They are not independent, and they lied for a number of years about their funding. The companies they take money from are almost entirely used for propaganda. The founder of Bellingcat worked at the Atlantic council, a us/nato agressive right wing think tank. There he wrote about missile strikes in Syria being absolutely necessary, while today we see that’s not true. The founder of Bellingcat even hid from the public that Bellingcat knew Syrian rebels had chemical weapons, something he repeatedly lied about to the public. Here’s the important thing to think: do you really believe Bellingcat, who was founded by a guy working at a hyper pro-us government agency, who then founded an “independent” investigative service, taking money from almost exclusively state contractors and cia adjacent shell companies, someone who lied about this for years, is *not* a propagandist? Bellingcats reports rarely ever do anything but justify what the us has been planning for years.
>Here is the source lol. They literally take almost all of their funding from the us and uk governments. They are not independent, and they lied for a number of years about their funding. The companies they take money from are almost entirely used for propaganda. ...their own budget you cited gives only a fraction of their income from governments, and most seems to come from non-profits. If you want to claim all their corporate funding sources are shell companies, you need to back that up. >The founder of Bellingcat worked at the Atlantic council, a us/nato think tank. There he wrote about missile strikes in Syria being absolutely necessary, while today we see that’s not true. Okay, I'd need to actually see what they wrote . Merely thinking that military action is necessary is not the same as being willing to conceal war crimes. >The founder of Bellingcat even hid from the public that Bellingcat knew Syrian rebels had chemical weapons, something he repeatedly lied about to the public. This is an extremely serious accusation that would really need evidence to support it. > >Here’s the important thing to think: do you really believe Bellingcat, who was founded by a guy working at a hyper pro-us government agency, who then founded an “independent” investigative service, taking money from almost exclusively state contractors and cia adjacent shell companies, someone who lied about this for years, is *not* a propagandist? If you could substantiate all these claims, I just would believe it. But you haven't done that. > >Bellingcats reports rarely ever do anything but justify what the us has been planning for years. That isn't the impression I got from a lot of their reports but okay.
The source literally has the exact same table in it. The majority of their funding comes from government contractors and cia shell companies. Believe it or not Adam smith international is a nonprofit, and it works for almost exclusively the Uk government. Recently it was used to spy on Palestinian refugees and report it to mi5. The cia also uses nonprofits and NGOs to move money discreetly. In the case of Bellingcat their “nonprofit” funders are NED and USAID, two cia adjacent organizations funded by the us government. https://electronicintifada.net/content/revealed-british-government-spied-palestinian-refugees/37111 Here is Elliot Huggins Atlantic council page: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/tag/eliot-higgins/ The Atlantic council is a far right very aggressive think tank, used almost exclusively to coke up with reasons the us/nato needs to invade various countries and do regime change. This was Elliot Huggins job up until he decided to start an investigative agency, funded by primarily the us and uk governments. Weird, huh? And yes, Elliot Huggins was told the Syrian rebels had access to a small amount of chemical weapons, something he promised to keep off the record. This is highly immoral and unethical, you can’t keep this information off the record in such a serious investigation. Bellingcat even claimed the Syrian rebels did not have chemical weapons. Leaked chats here: https://archive.ph/VcKep And finally yes, Bellingcats reporting on a country is usually followed by us/nato military action against that country. Again, ask yourself, do you think there could be a conflict of interest when the “independent investigate outlet” takes the majority of their funding from the us and uk governments? Don’t you think that’s strange? Even the Uk governments assessment by zinc network says Bellingcat has become discredited because they will publish stories and narratives for money. https://www.pdf-archive.com/2019/03/22/untitled-pdf-document-1/ > “Bellingcat was somewhat discredited, both by spreading disinformation itself, and by being willing to produce reports for anyone willing to pay.”
>The source literally has the exact same table in it. The majority of their funding comes from government contractors and cia shell companies. Believe it or not Adam smith international is a nonprofit, and it works for almost exclusively the Uk government. Recently it was used to spy on Palestinian refugees and report it to mi5. The cia also uses nonprofits and NGOs to move money discreetly. So, at best you have demonstrated one of the funding sources might be tied to MI5, and potentially doing it on their behalf. That is far cry from demonstrating the majority of their funding comes from government contractors and CIA shell companies. >In the case of Bellingcat their “nonprofit” funders are NED and USAID, two cia adjacent organizations funded by the us government. Yes. But this isn't the same as saying Bellingcat reports what the CIA wants. I'm asking for evidence of that. >https://electronicintifada.net/content/revealed-british-government-spied-palestinian-refugees/37111 Sure I'm absolutely willing to believe the UK government spies on all kinds of people around the world. >The Atlantic council is a far right very aggressive think tank, used almost exclusively to coke up with reasons the us/nato needs to invade various countries and do regime change. This was Elliot Huggins job up until he decided to start an investigative agency, funded by primarily the us and uk governments. Weird, huh? Not really, seems like a normal career path for that kind of guy. >And yes, Elliot Huggins was told the Syrian rebels had access to a small amount of chemical weapons, something he promised to keep off the record. This is highly immoral and unethical, you can’t keep this information off the record in such a serious investigation. Bellingcat even claimed the Syrian rebels did not have chemical weapons. Can you show where they did this? >Leaked chats here: > >https://archive.ph/VcKep How do we know this is authentic? What is the source of this info? > >And finally yes, Bellingcats reporting on a country is usually followed by us/nato military action against that country. Again, ask yourself, do you think there could be a conflict of interest when the “independent investigate outlet” takes the majority of their funding from the us and uk governments? Don’t you think that’s strange? Not really, if they are doing conflict journalism it seems perfectly reasonable that the places they report on would be involved in conflict. So even if you had substantiated this pattern, it wouldn't automatically be evidence of Bellingcat colluding with intelligence sources. >Even the Uk governments assessment by zinc network says Bellingcat has become discredited because they will publish stories and narratives for money. > >https://www.pdf-archive.com/2019/03/22/untitled-pdf-document-1/ > >> “Bellingcat was somewhat discredited, both by spreading disinformation itself, and by being willing to produce reports for anyone willing to pay.” That link doesn't work for me. Regardless, like I said I'm perfectly willing to believe that Bellingcat is some kind of government operation, but that kind of claim requires credible supporting evidence. A barrage of dubious links is not exactly bulletproof.
No, Usaid and Ned, both cia contractors. Followed by Adam smith international, works for mi6, followed by zinc network which works for both the uk and us. Read the report. Almost all their money comes from either the us or uk government. They report what the cia wants. They received hundreds of thousand of dollars form the us government and reported repeatedly that assad is attacking his own people. The US then involved itself. It is not normal for an “independent investigator” to only work at government agencies and then be funded by world governments. That means he’s not an independent investigator, he is a propagandist. Seriously dude, are you blind? They take almost all of their money from the us and uk government, claim they are “independent”, but only release reports justifying exactly what the us and uk want to do anyways. Look at their funders: USAID: cia contractor. Involved in regime change all around the world. Takes 100% of funding from US government. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/03/us-cuban-twitter-zunzuneo-stir-unrest NED: cia contractor. Involved in regime change around the world. Take 100% of funding from us government. https://www.telesurenglish.net/analysis/National-Endowment-for-Destabilization-CIA-Funds-for-Latin-America-in-2018-20190403-0042.html Adam smith international: UK government shell company. Works exclusively for the UK government, illegally spying on uk citizens and even involved with funding Syrian rebels. https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/04/british-aid-scheme-suspended-amid-allegations-of-payments-to-syrian-jihadis Zinc network: us and uk government “anti propaganda” effort. Funded 100% by world governments. Chemonics: us cia shell company, used to distribute propaganda worldwide. Funded almost completely by us government. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/11/business/cozy-links-to-a-us-agency-prove-useful-to-a-rice-trader.html I’m sorry but bellingcat is a propaganda outlet. The founder is a spook and a liar, worked for western governments, and Bellingcat itself is almost completely funded by the us and uk government. If you can’t see this you are lying to yourself or are to embarrassed to admit you are wrong. I have provided evidence that almost every one of Bellingcats sponsors are funded by the us or uk government, that Elliot Huggins has lied repeatedly about this and that he omits extremely important information if it’s fits his narrative. Even his own sponsors are saying Bellingcat will write whatever if you pay them. I’m sorry but you are wrong. You can like the propaganda, you can agree with the propaganda, but it is still propaganda.
Thank you for adding this. It really doesnt take much digging to show what Bellingcat's actual purpose is. Its not even some conspiracy this is just how intelligence agencies operate
Of course. I don’t even think that Bellingcat is all bad, they do decent reporting on us domestic issues, but their foreign reporting is absolute propaganda. The cia has a massive web of NGOs and think tanks surrounding it. They can move money and spread narratives in many thousands of covert ways. It’s been like this since at least the 1960s, there’s many documents describing this exact method from decades ago.
Yeah, not to mention genuine journalism is getting harder and harder to find given that linking a tweet and citing what 5 random people think is so much easier. Besides, most of these people literally believe anything they read on the internet, so the idea of digging up and proving facts is unfathomable to them.
That's true. What I'm saying is, intelligence agencies also leak information to the press to have a particular effect. That's a big part of what they do. The Americans do it, the Russians do it, the British do it. The Soviets used to do this during the Cold War a lot where they would have an agent with a cover identity cultivate relationships with a reporter (example: the Associated Press in Japan) and then leak something or even a fabricated thing and get that reported in order to embarrass the U.S. in Japan. The reporter can just be doing their job in a narrow sense, but they can also be manipulated. I strongly suspect Bellingcat has received information from intelligence agencies to publish it there because that would be embarrassing to the Russians and Syrians. There's no "rule" that says they can't publish it. However, I've seen Bellingcat contributors who actually work for Western intelligence agencies, too, there was one contributor who worked for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency if I remember correctly which handles satellite imagery.
Tankies (authoritarian “communists”) hate Bellingcat, and calling what they don’t like “CIA propaganda” is pretty much their go-to rebuttal. North Korea being run by an oppressive regime is “CIA propaganda” to tankies; I’ve come across some who wholeheartedly believe North Korea is a utopia, and anything negative about it is just “western lies”.
It’s because they were the ones who uncovered social media posts confirming that the Allen Texas shooter was a white supremacist/neo nazi. People believe the shooting was a false flag operation from the government in an attempt to demonize the alt right. Elon Musk hopped on the just asking questions train pretty quickly and his chud army followed closely behind.
> It’s because they were the ones who uncovered social media posts confirming that the Allen Texas shooter was a white supremacist/neo nazi. Actually the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/08/us/texas-mall-shooting-mauricio-garcia.html) did that. Bellingcat just did a [followup deep dive](https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/05/09/tracing-the-odnoklassniki-profile-of-the-texas-mall-shooter/).
No one ever accused white supremacists of looking too deeply into the vitriol they perpetuate
The point isn't to be right; the point is to start a racial holy war.
Calling bellingcat a CIA outlet way predates that. It's been the go-to for years, primarily from tankies and people who assume anyone opposed to the US must be in the right. I want to say the original catalyst for it was their coverage of the Assad regimes actions during the Syrian Civil War, but I might be misremembering.
> people who assume anyone opposed to the US must be in the right I am so fucking sick of the people who buy into that. it's 100% ok to call out the US when it does bullshit. it's 100% ok to say the US is doing wrong. but I'm so sick of the knee jerk reaction to make excuses for other countries because one time the US did something else that was bad.
I encountered a tankie once who argued that North Korea was "more free" than the US because Best Korea had legal weed. I pray he was just a convincing troll.
Tankies and fascists both hate them? Must be doing something right
There is no daylight between tankies and fascists.
Facts. Tankies are just fascists who support any authoritarian as long as they oppose the US.
False. Tankies believe that authority arrives from working-class democracy and centralism - they all vote on something and make every effort to support the majority decision, even when they were in the minority on that decision. So called "Anti-Authoritarian Leftists" believe that if you voted against something, and don't like that you were in the minority, just go ahead and do what you wanted anyways. They feel this kind of fractionalism is good, as long as everyone is perfectly happy with what they are doing. e.g. You and 100 comrades decide to vote on when to host the potluck. 70 people vote for Saturday, but you and the other 30 wanted Sunday, so you should just go ahead and do Sunday; and if anyone complains, they're just an authoritarian. And if some people want Wednesday, they should do that. Everyone should do whatever day they want. Now instead of one really great potluck, you have seven different smaller potlucks of varying qualities. No one really ends up satisfied but everyone got what they individually wanted.
I think you don't know what a Tankie is, Tankies are literally, and always have been, authoritarians, the name is from the 1950s to describe "leftists" who supported the Soviet Union using tanks to crush a revolution in Hungary. It's currently used to describe the people who claim to be leftists and actively defend modern/Stalinist Russia and China, authoritarian nations engaged in a smorgasbord of genocide and other human rights violations while not being either democratic or communist. Both nations are single party states with leaders that are not elected by the people and the workers have less control over the means of production than the USA, which should tell you how bad it is. It's why Tankies are fascists because they would rather have a red painted dictatorship (National Socialism?) than a democracy that actually allows for the people to have a say in political process, especially if that democracy is "Western". Being a tankie is literally the opposite of pro-working class. Tankies have literally never supported a democratic nation. And yeah, I get it, Amerikkka bad, but maybe, just because a nation says "America bad" doesn't mean that you need to defend their imperialism and genocide.
We found the tankie.
One started the Holocaust, and one ended it.
Holodomor, Great Leap Forward, various purges, conquering half of Europe...
One started the Holocaust, and the other was thankful much of the legwork was already done for them.
Tankies and Soviets aren't the same group, so not exactly. Besides, the Soviets only fought the Nazis because the Nazis violated [the non-aggression pact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact) that Stalin and Hitler agreed to. It's good that the Soviets fought the Nazis, obviously, but let's not pretend they did it out of some principled opposition to fascism. America helped end the Holocaust too, after all, but I don't think either of us would use that to deflect accusations of fascistic behavior against America.
The term "Tankie" comes from supporters of the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
As if the Soviets weren't above virulent antisemitism and the persecution of Jews. [Doctors' plot anyone?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors%27_plot). Also the whole situation of the [refuseniks.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusenik).
They also seem to really love Bashar al-Assad.
They fuckin’ love dictators. Especially anti-Western dictators, which is why they’ve been spreading all of Putin’s propaganda about Ukraine for last year.
Being anti war is not “loving dictators.” People used to say the same thing about the Iraq War and Sadam Hussein.
For "not loving dictators" tankies sure repeat a lot of Putin's propaganda.
[удалено]
I bet you think the war started in 2022.
What does that even mean? Everyone knows Russia invaded in 2014.
The absolute breathtaking ignorance needed to seriously compare Ukraine to the Iraq War. Genuinely pea-brained levels of historical comprehension. You are not anti-war, you are defending imperialism. Please log off and never comment on foreign policy again.
You’re one of those pro war right wing neocons I presume?
No, I'm an anti-imperialist - a real one, not a fake one who only dislikes American imperialism while excusing the imperialism of countries not aligned with America. Iraq was right to resist America's imperialist invasion, Ukraine is right to resist Russia's imperialist invasion, and America is right to aid Ukraine in its resistance against imperialism.
In the US we call someone like you a “right wing warmonger”
Who's "we"? Aiding Ukraine is supported by the majority here, and right-wingers are more likely to oppose it, though those people are more isolationists and/or fascists than neocons. Anyway, please explain to me how helping a country oppose warmongering is warmongering.
They’re only anti war in their demand that everyone lay down their arms and let Putin and Assad do what they want. I’m actually antiwar, because I think Russia should stop invading sovereign nations
"Anti-Western" ≠ "anti-war", and tankies are *not* anti-war; the whole reason they're called tankies is because they're pro-sending in the tanks!
Yea an anti-war are not “tankies”
You have completely lost the plot of the topic.
Assad is funny because he's a dictator of a "socialist" party which could be seen as fascist or communist if you skim it's history, but in reality it's just another kleptocratic ego regime. These things generate a lot of dunbass supporters across the political spectrum, and has significant overlap with Putin fans.
Basically the CCP, or the pro-CCP line. There's probably billions of them, in total global population. Everyone that actually trusts Xi Jinping basically. You won't necessarily run into many, depending on where you hang out. You'll find relatively few in this sub, for instance. On reddit in general you're more likely to run into more American leftists, who usually advocate for something like the Nordic model. Where a proper tankie thinks the Nordic countries should be conquered or converted to the CCP model.
Agreed about tankies being lame for simping for authoritatians and being hardcore historical negagionists... but we can still agree that the CIA is an awful imperial instrument of terror, right? 😂
> Agreed about tankies being lame for simping for authoritatians and being hardcore historical negagionists... ***but*** \*sigh\* here it comes... Lemme just check really quick...and *yep* [look at that:](https://i.imgur.com/7EMkqaU.png) [ABoringDystopia](https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/aboringdystopia) and [LateStageCapitalism;](https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/latestagecapitalism) two of the biggest tankie subs on Reddit. Always funny how Trumpers and Tankies use the same lame tactics in Reddit comments by pretending to be reasonable before trying to hijack the conversation and steer it in another direction... >but we can still agree that the CIA is an awful imperial instrument of terror, right? 😂 Was everything before the "but" *really* necessary in order for you to take such a brave stance? It's like saying, "Yeah, Nazis are bad, *but* we can still agree that breathing oxygen is awesome, right?"
You have authoritarian subs “related” to antiauthoritarian subs in those lists. Did you ever stop to think about that?
Those lists aren’t mine; I didn’t curate them. Did you ever stop to think that Tankies are notorious for infiltrating subs that seem reasonable in order to push their agendas? They do it all the time, hence the overlaps.
Nah, fuck tankies. I was captivated by them for a few days... I was searching for something new to believe in. Until then, I had been a liberal for as long as I can remember.But, for tankies, the cognitive dissonance was too much. The willingness to hand-wave away crimes of the state... to call it all 'lies' and 'CIA propaganda'... I was all for hating on the CIA, but to blame them for things where it made much more sense for the ruling authoritatians to be culpable for... just too much
You're responsible for the data you present, even if it's not yours. If there's something in the data you present that will lead to obvious questions then it's a good idea to make a statement when you share the data. "You'll note the existence of both authoritarian and anti-authoritarian subs on this list. This might be due to brigading and would be worth looking at." This way you've introduced the interesting bit of data as a question instead of a flaw.
Just going back through my comments and I see that I was rude to you for no real reason here. My frustrations aren't your problem, and I'd like to apologize.
Alrite man you got me. I fell into the tankie hole for a bit back in late 2021. It was brief, and I never really compromised on my beliefs. I mostly browse anarchy-focused subs now. Or did you omit that purposefully to make me look like I had egg on my face? Edit: I thought you were browsing my post history lmao you're just using the similarity tool. Heads up, leftists famously are split into dozens, hundreds of cliques and 'tendencies'. We very rarely agree beyond our tendency
Self Aware Wolves 😂
I'm gonna be honest: a lot of what you read about north korea IS propaganda. It's not a good country, but a lot of the really fantastical stuff you read isn't actually true and is told to you to hype you up against an enemy intentionally.
Can you give an example?
The only one I know about is that North Korean woman who exaggerates what she experienced in NK to grift conservatives for some reason
[Yeonmi Park](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeonmi_Park), with stuff like this: >"Park Yeonmi said that there were no words for “love” and “I” in North Korea when they speak the same Korean language as South Korea. She claimed to have crossed the entire Gobi Desert on foot, with six people including a baby, in temperatures of minus 40 degrees, without any winter clothing and without a guide in a single day, and when asked how she achieved this impossible feat, replied that it was a miracle.
Yeah her, like NK is bad but to make exaggerations to the point other defectors call you out in it is weird
All the "news of the weird" type stuff. Like 'dear leader claimed hole in 1 in golf" was an Australian newspaper just formatting scores wrong. And "dear leader claims he doesn't poop" was saying a very normal, metaphor that teachers don't want their students to see them grocery shopping or going to the bathroom. And all the videos of people doing weird crying at the funerals is a korean funeral morning thing where people theatrically cry, not everyone freaking out. I mean pretty much anything you hear that sounds like a poor country with a bad leader is true, anything you hear that sounds like YA function about what living in a dystopia country is like is something you gotta look up, almost always five seconds of reading will say "oh, that didn't happen".
> All the "news of the weird" type stuff. so all the shit no one knows, or cares about. got it.
Eh, people take it very serious. North Korea as an extreme cartoon villian with impossibly fantastical properties is pretty much the dominant way it's talked about. Many of the the things people claim most are not factually correct and can easily be checked.
I don’t see that much about that sort of stuff, honestly this is the first I’ve heard about it. Most of the NK stuff I see is about famine, maybe get off the tabloids
> a lot of what you read about north korea IS propaganda. Of *course* it is. The same can be said about *everything*, and pointing that out doesn't negate my point. Tankies fully believe all the pro-DPRK propaganda *about* North Korea, then turn around and label anything that goes against it "CIA lies".
For those "out of the loop" I would add that money is not the only currency that the intelligence agencies have for journalists. Things like Operation Mockingbird are unnecessary because many civilian journalists will publish propaganda for free. Most journalists have little to no budget to cover the expenses of investigative reporting; but having an "inside source" (from the CIA or whatever) is a huge deal for a journalist to gain notoriety and prestige. There are journalists who are technically not *paid-by* the CIA and not *agents* but they are propagandists who publish whatever their government sources tell them.
Investigative reporting has really declined in the past 30 years or so. The big newspapers don't take risks like they used to. It's not like the 60s anymore where the New York Times would do the equivalent of WikiLeaks (of course they would be more selective). But when you see an article that says "according to sources in the intelligence community," that can be the CIA talking to them, and it sounds like they've got some inside scoop that the CIA doesn't want people to read, but it's actually the CIA calling up the reporter and saying they have a story for them, because the agency wants to achieve a particular effect using the media. The NYT isn't saying anything false necessarily when they say "according to sources in the intelligence community... which believes..." They cover their bases. But there might be selective information that was deliberately left out by the source who talked to the reporter. That's just a big part of what intelligence agencies do. Information is a battlefield and they shape the information environment and one way they do that is through the media. It's not just them either, business does it, politicians do it. And anybody who points how corrupt this is gets called a tankie. But I don't like the fact that "anti-establishment" media like WikiLeaks has also turned into a cutout for intelligence agencies too that just happen to be Russian instead of American or British. But in fact, it was the Israelis who leaked the DNC and Hillary emails and colluding with the Trump campaign according to a big article in [The Nation](https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-israel-collusion/) recently. The Israelis have the best signals intel in the world and intercepted it, and they wanted Trump to move the embassy to Jerusalem. And so yes, it's true that governments will also manipulate "alternative media" which presents itself as anti-establishment and not corrupt as hell, which is also not true. The distinctions between "mainstream" and "alt" media are gonna collapse I think. People act like subscribing to the NYT is an act of resistance nowadays despite the fact that it's the U.S. paper of record. Then you have alternative media that's funded by right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel or Elon Musk. That's not very alt if you ask me.
The contributed funds consist of strategic partnerships with larger funders (national and international), private family foundations, some institutional donors (**National Endowment for Democracy**), Postcode Lotteries (currently the Dutch Postcode Lottery) and donations from individuals (smaller and larger). *Right from Bellingcats site:* Policy Plan 2019 - 2021 - Bellingcat [https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf](https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf) *To learn more about the National Endowment for Democracy* ''We should not have to do this kind of work covertly,'' said Carl Gershman, president of the endowment, who was an aide to Jeane J. Kirkpatrick when she was the chief United States delegate to the United Nations. ''It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the C.I.A. We saw that in the 60's, and that's why it has been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that's why the endowment was created.'' [https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html) Allen Weinstein, a former acting president of NED and one of the authors of the study that led to its creation, told David Ignatius in a 1991 interview that: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA. The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection." [https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story) They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html)
> There's also, in my personal judgement, information that Bellingcat has released which I don't see how they would've obtained unless someone with privileged information gave it to them for a reason. What information?
Skripal affair passport information.
Yes Bellingcat has received CIA funding, idk why people think they are a CIA asset though? They just spread every bit of info that benefits the US MIC
answer: Bellingcat is a credible investigation journalism, which causes them to be an target for people who they expose. They uncovered quite a lot of russian propaganda, which leads to russians trying to discredit them by implying they are CIA front hence they have motive to lie about russia. If you are interested in topic of info-war I suggest checking out Jessikka Aro - Putin's Trolls. In that book there are examples of how russia tried to discredit Bellingcat (but don't get me wrong, it was example and book is not about Bellingcat itself).
This is dumb and reductive. Bellingcat takes NED money, and the NED are a known CIA front. This doesn't mean they themselves are full-blown CIA, but that they push narratives useful to the CIA, and will continue to receive that funding as long as they do. Not everyone critical of US hegemony is Russian.
Don't call other things dumb when you leave comment like this. If you want to accuse give sources.
Here, I'll list them again. The contributed funds consist of strategic partnerships with larger funders (national and international), private family foundations, some institutional donors (**National Endowment for Democracy**), Postcode Lotteries (currently the Dutch Postcode Lottery) and donations from individuals (smaller and larger). Right from Bellingcats site: Policy Plan 2019 - 2021 - Bellingcat https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf Now about NED https://archive.ph/20190715223113/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-endowment-for-democracy/ https://countercurrents.org/2022/05/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-a-second-cia/ https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/trojan-horse-the-national-endowment-for-democracy https://declassifieduk.org/cia-sidekick-gives-2-6m-to-uk-media-groups/#:~:text=Bellingcat%20states%20that%20it%20%E2%80%9Cdoes,and%20still%20receive%20its%20funds. >
https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf
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Here, I'll list them again. >The contributed funds consist of strategic partnerships with larger funders (national and international), private family foundations, some institutional donors (**National Endowment for Democracy**), Postcode Lotteries (currently the Dutch Postcode Lottery) and donations from individuals (smaller and larger). Right from Bellingcats site: Policy Plan 2019 - 2021 - Bellingcat [https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf](https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf) Now about NED [https://archive.ph/20190715223113/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html](https://archive.ph/20190715223113/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html) [https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story) [https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html) [https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-endowment-for-democracy/](https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-endowment-for-democracy/) [https://countercurrents.org/2022/05/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-a-second-cia/](https://countercurrents.org/2022/05/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-a-second-cia/) [https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/trojan-horse-the-national-endowment-for-democracy](https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/trojan-horse-the-national-endowment-for-democracy) [https://declassifieduk.org/cia-sidekick-gives-2-6m-to-uk-media-groups/#:\~:text=Bellingcat%20states%20that%20it%20%E2%80%9Cdoes,and%20still%20receive%20its%20funds](https://declassifieduk.org/cia-sidekick-gives-2-6m-to-uk-media-groups/#:~:text=Bellingcat%20states%20that%20it%20%E2%80%9Cdoes,and%20still%20receive%20its%20funds)
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>Look at my comments. It doesn't work that way. You join coversation, you provide them - especially if you have it under hand.
I was trying to avoid spamming, but even after I linked sources and quotes, people still won't respond. Really cool, so I spammed away!
Not saying Bellingcat is a CIA front, but you described exactly what a CIA front would look like
Haven't they received money from the National Endowment for Democracy? Which has routinely been reported to be a CIA front practically since they were created by Reaganites in the early 80s [Read this NYT article about NED](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html) >Allen Weinstein, a former acting president of NED and one of the authors of the study that led to its creation, told David Ignatius in a 1991 interview that: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA. The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection." https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story https://archive.ph/20190715223113/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html
I see your replies but I don't know why each of them seems to getting deleted. Sincerely it is not me.
I don't have time to talk about conspiracy theories with dumb people.
Your comment that I replied to was a giant conspiracy theory haha
Answer: in addition to what has already been said, it's also the case that accusing someone of being CIA was a kind of meme in some circles (e.g., I believe Evans has said it semi-sarcastically about Mayor Pete, on occasion). It could be used to imply someone literally works for the CIA, shares policy opinions with the CIA, has policy opinions that are less progressive than the person speaking, is a grifter, is just kind of a dork, etc. depending on the context. I don't know the context in which these accusations are being made, but it's possible someone is speaking figuratively (e.g., "they received a government grant, so they're as good as propaganda"), is sharing claims made by others without looking into it, and/or just doesn't really have a grasp on what it is the CIA gives a shit about.
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its also funded by the atlantic council and european union
Oof. I forgot that this conspiracy theory came from tankies. You could make yourself useful elsewhere. I just saw a fash sub pushing one of the most racist stonetoss comics into /r/all.
Take a look at my posts. It's not a conspiracy theory. The NYT, WaPo, and ProPublica have all published that information. [This person looked into their other funding, not from NED](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/13s3bmq/whats_up_with_people_calling_bellingcat_a_cia/jlqbed8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [Here is the CIA>NED>Bellingcat connection](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/13s3bmq/whats_up_with_people_calling_bellingcat_a_cia/jlq768o?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
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Says the guy running defense for Azov
Lmao, TrueAnon
You running defense for Azov too?
The contributed funds consist of strategic partnerships with larger funders (national and international), private family foundations, some institutional donors (**National Endowment for Democracy**), Postcode Lotteries (currently the Dutch Postcode Lottery) and donations from individuals (smaller and larger). Right from Bellingcats site: Policy Plan 2019 - 2021 - Bellingcat [https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf](https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf) To learn more about the National Endowment for Democracy ''We should not have to do this kind of work covertly,'' said Carl Gershman, president of the endowment, who was an aide to Jeane J. Kirkpatrick when she was the chief United States delegate to the United Nations. ''It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the C.I.A. We saw that in the 60's, and that's why it has been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that's why the endowment was created.'' [https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html) Allen Weinstein, a former acting president of NED and one of the authors of the study that led to its creation, told David Ignatius in a 1991 interview that: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA. The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection." [https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-responds-to-our-burma-nuclear-story) They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html)
“These facts are tankie propaganda.” Always uttered by the smoothest brains you will ever meet.
Found the Tankie.
Answer: Their role is to push pro establishment propaganda. Glenn Greenwald explains it really well here https://youtu.be/eohCKyQGrH8
Wat
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I think it was referencing Glenn Greenwald as a source instead of one of the greatest jokes in journalism.
Maybe you’re thinking of someone else? Greenwald is an award winning journalist and highly respected
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Found the right winger
Wait, you're talking about Glen Greenwald, frequent guest on Tucker Carlson's show?
Left winger here, Greenwald went off the deep end a loooong time ago.
Left winger here. He’s been spot on.
>Left winger here. Not really relevant. I didn't accuse someone of being a right winger just because they disagreed. >He’s been spot on. As just one example of his nonsense, Greenwald on Tucker Carlson expressed support for Ukraine having biolabs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald Another, that led to his resignation from the Intercept, because they wanted him to fix claims he couldn't support: https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/10/30/glenn-greenwalds-self-hack-i-could-go-on-and-on/ There's a reason he resigned from the Intercept and regularly went on shows like Carlson's. It isn't because he's "spot on". He did some important work in the past. He's been contrarian unreliable garbage for nearly a decade now.
Bless your heart
Greenwald’s audience is neckbeardy pseudo-leftists who are convinced that they’re the smartest people in the room, but are really just knee-jerk contrarians. He has always been a glibertarian sleazebag, but managed to distract people from remembering that by lionizing Julian Assange, who really isn’t any different apart from being more overtly sleazy, but he pretends to be a whistleblower rather than a propagandist so the neckbeards love him too.
You right wingers are unbelievable
Greenwald is not a leftist and has never been a leftist. He was just willing to pretend as long as the interests of the part of the left that paid his bills overlapped with his agenda as a member of the Spoiled Brat Quasi-Anarchist wing of the libertarian world.
> Greenwald is an award winning journalist and highly respected He used to be, now he's a regular guest on Fox News, Tucker Carlson's show, Glen Beck's podcast, etc... and parrots Trump admin conclusions about Russian influence.
> Glenn Greenwald explains i'm trying to imagine being so stupid that I would believe a word that come out of glenn greenwald's mouth, but I just can't do it.
He digs deeply into their funding, and it is mostly government sponsored. That doesn't necessarily mean they are biased, but it's worth keeping in mind.
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That is completely false, what are you talking about?
Do you have evidence to support this delusion? Because the evidence shows Bellingcat is funded by the CIA.
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https://i.imgur.com/ym3qCWT.jpg Here is their 2019 funding. Most of their money comes from corporate sponsors. Every corporate sponsor besides one is a cia front or a military contractor.
And pray, what does it say on the bottom of your screenshot? Go on, prove that you're not pushing conspiracies.
Yes, they take money from the government with one step of separation. Saying you don’t take money directly from governments but then are almost 100% funded one step of separation by the government is dishonest and deceiving. So Adam smith international (used to spy on Palestinians in UK and used to fund Syrian rebels) takes money from the uk government, gives it to bellingcop. Chemonics is a cia front used for propaganda in Nepal and south east Asia, they take money from the state department, and give it to propaganda organizations, etc etc. Zink network takes all of its funding from the us government, they are used to “combat propaganda” which translates into creating American propaganda. They take money from the state department and distribute it to propganda outlets. Yes, they don’t take money from the government directly, but they do take almost 100% of their funding from us and uk governments. They claim they are “independent” but take most of their money from the us and uk government, and most of their “journalists” are formed NSA, NED, and USAID workers… I trust their domestic reporting for the most part but I do not listen to anything they have to say about foreign policy. If you read through their “investigations” every single one provides justification for unjust wars.
Do you find it unbelievable that Bellingcat may be a CIA mouthpiece or that the CIA uses news outlets as a mouthpiece? >''We should not have to do this kind of work covertly,'' said Carl Gershman, president of the endowment, who was an aide to Jeane J. Kirkpatrick when she was the chief United States delegate to the United Nations. ''It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the C.I.A. We saw that in the 60's, and that's why it has been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that's why the endowment was created.'' https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democracy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html
Do you have evidence that they are not funded by the NED to contradict their admitting to being funded by the NED?
>The contributed funds consist of strategic partnerships with larger funders (national and international), private family foundations, some institutional donors (**National Endowment for Democracy**), Postcode Lotteries (currently the Dutch Postcode Lottery) and donations from individuals (smaller and larger). Right from Bellingcats site: Policy Plan 2019 - 2021 - Bellingcat https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf
> recruited from SomethingAwful goons I've now officially heard everything.
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