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    Scott Ritter: Gonzalo Lira, the SBU, and Information Operations - An Investigation of the Probable Archived Message

    Posted by sashimi on August 9, 2023, 8:45 am

    8 Aug 2023

    Gonzalo Lira, the well-known Chilean-American YouTube personality, has been in
    the news lately. A former "lifestyle" coach, Lira re-branded himself as a
    geopolitical commentator in the leadup to the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
    providing gripping first-hand observations - often critical of the Ukrainian
    government and contradictory of the Ukrainian narrative - that were posted on
    YouTube. As his popularity grew, his social media footprint expanded, with his
    Twitter and Telegram accounts garnering tens of thousands of followers, and his
    YouTube videos garnering hundreds of thousands of views and subscribers.

    Gonzalo Lira was arrested by the SBU, or Ukrainian intelligence service, on
    April 15, 2022, and released five days later. Lira has been circumspect about
    both the arrest and the conditions of his release - he blithely calls it his
    "missing week." Lira does acknowledge that his computers and phone were seized
    by Ukrainian authorities, and that he was released under conditions of "house
    arrest," implying some sort of continued monitoring and control of his
    activities by the SBU. Nonetheless, he was able to gain access to a computer,
    set up a new email account, and immediately begin posting information critical
    of the Ukrainian government.

    There is only one logical explanation for this chain of events. Gonzalo Lira was
    arrested by the SBU for crimes he himself admits gets people arrested, tortured,
    and murdered. He is released five days later - unharmed - and immediately
    allowed to resume the exact same activity that led to arrest in the first place,
    only this time on a computer and email account controlled by the SBU.

    This is a classic "catch and release" scenario, with Gonzalo Lira playing the
    role of "police confidential informant" - someone who provides information in
    exchange for lenient treatment. There literally is no other plausible
    explanation for what happened other than this.

    And yet controversy swirls around the saga surrounding Lira's arrest and
    release, as well as his subsequent actions, including his re-arrest in May 2023,
    his re-release on July 6, and a series of bizarre videos and tweets made by
    Gonzalo on July 31, released while he waited at the Ukrainian-Hungarian border,
    awaiting his attempt to "escape" Ukrainian custody, all the while broadcasting
    his intent for all the world - and the SBU - to see. According to charging
    documents published by the Kharkov prosecutor overseeing Lira's case, the former
    lifestyle coach failed in his attempt, and is once more in the custody of the
    SBU awaiting trial.

    Many people, including those with whom Lira had interacted with and befriended
    over the course of the past two years, have rallied in his support, taking
    umbrage - often extreme - at my contention that Lira has been, ever since his
    arrest in April 2022, an asset of the SBU.

    Under normal circumstances, I might make common cause with these people,
    granting Lira the benefit of the doubt and arguing for his release and
    subsequent deportation from Ukraine, only addressing the anomalies and
    inconsistencies in his narrative once he is safely outside of Ukraine.

    But these are not normal circumstances.

    We are at war.

    This applies to everyone reading these words, and everyone who doesn't. The fact
    that a person neither accepts that he or she is a participant in this conflict,
    nor recognizes its existence, does not matter.

    We are at war.

    This conflict does not involve tanks, artillery, aircraft, bombs, bullets,
    drones, or bayonets.

    It is a war of words, of ideas.

    It is an information war, a battle of competing Russian and Ukrainian narratives
    fought on a global scale. The stakes are high; as Andrii Shapovalov, the acting
    head of the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) - one of the
    frontline organizations involved in this war - recently noted in an address,
    "For them [Russia], as for us, this is a matter of life and death."

    Shapovalov's words were spoken at a gathering of the National Cluster on
    Information Resistance, convened in Kiev on July 3, 2023. The National Cluster
    on Information Resistance is a group of experts and organizations that work
    together to counter disinformation and cyber threats in Ukraine, funded by the
    US Civil Research and Development Fund (Global), a private entity created by the
    US Congress whose presence in Ukraine was underwritten and supervised by the US
    Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).

    Bluntly stated, if you are a US citizen who holds a position counter to the
    official US government/Ukrainian narrative regarding the Russian-Ukrainian
    conflict, you are being treated as a hostile combatant in the information war
    that has sprung up around this conflict, regardless of your constitutionally
    protected right to free speech.

    And if you're not American, you're free game.

    Just in case that point isn't driven home strong enough, consider the following:
    The CCD, with the backing of the United States, has published a blacklist of
    persons - including many notable American citizens - of persons it has labeled
    as "information terrorists." According to the CCD, it's mission, carried out in
    conjunction with Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, is
    twofold. First, to combat information terrorism, and second, to coordinate this
    effort with international "partners."

    The CCD defines "information terrorism" as "a Crime against Humanity committed
    by means of instruments affecting the consciousness." In short, anyone who
    exercises his or her right to free speech can be prosecuted as a "terrorist" in
    the full meaning of that term.

    To drive that point home even more, the United States - Ukraine's leading
    partner in this information war - kills terrorists preemptively, void of any
    notion of due process.

    The CCD wants to mainstream this mindset on a global basis. "Having joined
    forces with the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and its
    international partners," the CCD has declared, it "is taking the initiative to
    establish this term in international practice," calling on the international
    community to "unite in the face of information terrorism."

    In this regard, the CDD makes four demands. First, that Russia be declared an
    "infoterrorist state," and that "infoterrorism" must be equated with "actual
    terrorism," requiring "appropriate measures to counter it." Second, that anyone
    associated in any way with "infoterror" be treated as an "information
    terrorist." This definition is all-inclusive - editors, writers, presenters,
    cameramen, bloggers, etc.

    In short, anyone who is involved in the production of any information that runs
    counter to the Ukrainian narrative regarding the war with Russia is an
    "infoterrorist." Third, the financing of "infoterrorism," both "explicit" and
    "implicit," should be banned by "both international and domestic law," and those
    who are involved in such financing should be treated as "accomplices to
    information terrorists." And finally, any individual, company, public
    organization, or legal entity which is involved in "infoterrorism" should be
    subjected to sanctions, using the US list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism" as a
    model.
    -- Cont'd at https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/gonzalo-lira-the-sbu-and-information

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